I want to tell you a horror story.
What's different today is that this isn't a piece of fiction.
This truth could keep you, the reader, from ever discovering a new favorite author.
This true tale could keep you, the aspiring writer, from your dreams like it almost did me.
Years ago, I was going along trying to become a published author. I managed to go to one convention a year - DragonCon - and while there talked to the pros so I could figure everything out. One day I found out that one of those pros, a New York Times bestselling author, was going to spend the day at a tiny little convention held at the Coca Cola Space Science Center near where I lived.
Now I've talked to this author on and off, but if you know anything about DragonCon, you know that your days, and especially the days for said pros, are hectic, fast paced things. So, I'd never been able to get more than a question answered here and there. (This is before I got my invite to spend time with the other authors.)
Here I was. In range of one of the best authors I knew, and he was going to be at this tiny convention. I figured if nothing else, I could get maybe 15-30 minutes of question-and-answer time on things I desperately needed to know.
What I didn't realize was that I was about to get a lesson that would frighten me to my core.
I scraped up all the money I could, $24.17, and headed to the science center. No, this wasn't a lot, but it was quite literally all I could scrounge. Fortunately, the admission was only $5.
I'd never been to the show before even though it was semi-local, so I had no idea what to expect. What I found, in addition to a bunch of toy and comic vendors was this NYT bestselling author wandering around bored. I had the great pleasure of hanging out with him for the whole day. He taught me all kinds of things about traditional publishing. He answered my questions, shared what I thought of then as behind the scenes secrets and eventually told me about how traditional authors get paid.
Here was my first startling revelation, but let's come back to that a bit later.
He asked me to guide him to a restaurant for lunch. Along the way he helped me with a pitch and told me I was probably too polite, too deferential - not the last time I've heard that for sure. By some miracle, he paid for both of our lunches, preserving my meager $19.17.
By time we returned, I was feeling a little guilty about all that he'd given me without me paying back in any way - this is before I learned how giving most authors can be to their juniors. I perused his table of books until I found one I could afford. Note, I didn't pick the book because I thought I would like it. I picked it because I could just manage to afford it. (It was a great book, by the way.)
The day continued with me keeping him company and in the end, I helped him pack out. As we were leaving, he invited me to dinner.
I would've given just about anything in the world to go to dinner with a New York Times bestselling author. Back then, these people were the Gods of Olympus while I remained a puny mortal fortunate just to escape a casual lightning strike.
I declined his invitation. There was no way I could afford dinner, let alone the kind of dinner I imagined a NYT would choose. (See Gods of Olympus as reference to my skewed perspective). Even so, I didn't even have $5 left. Inside, I was mortified. I couldn't tell him that I couldn't afford dinner.
How was I supposed to climb the ranks to eventually be a pro like him if he knew I couldn't even afford a meal out?
We smiled and said good-bye and I went home elated but in shock. I'd learned something horrifying, and there was no way around it. I would never be a professional author because I had no idea how to manage money. I was in debt up to my eyeballs with credit cards and lawyer fees, paying almost $2k a month in child support. It didn't matter I had a pretty good job. If I couldn't afford a single dinner, how was I ever going to afford cover art, third-party editors, ISBN codes, advertising or books for a convention table let alone travel and lodging at said convention.
I was totally and irrevocably screwed. I was the biggest failure in the world. I would never ever realize my dream of becoming a professional author, and even if by some lottery ticket stroke of lightning, I couldn't afford to write full time with the way royalties get paid out.
Here's a little hint for the writer reading this. You know how you get to the end of a book? Be more stubborn than everything else.
I don't like to lose.
I don't like to fail.
And by Zeus, I was going to beat this game if it was the last thing I ever did.
I went looking for a way to learn how to manage money. I'd always thought as an engineering type, numbers were numbers, but as you can tell by my embarrassment about being broke, there's more to money than math. I found out about Dave Ramsey - no this isn't going to become a commercial. To say I found him isn't even right. His book had been given to me 18 months before, and it'd just been sitting there as another non0fiction book I didn't have time for if I was going to write another novel that this time would get me published.
I read it. It was simple. The answer was the one thing I had done almost my entire life - focus. All it took to win with money was focus and some willpower.
For a year, I mostly set aside the writing. I worked basically five jobs. At night I worked my IT job. In the morning I slept 2 hours then delivered sandwiches for Jason's Deli. I caught another 2 hours sleep then delivered pizzas for Dominoes. An hour to shower and change later, I was back to the IT job. Between the three, I drove uber. Some shifts I did a little writing. Some days I had a shift off to catch up on sleep. Some weeks I went up to 13 consecutive shifts in a row.
For the record, this is not the Ramsey method. This was just how hungry I was to fix my problems. I've always been a stubborn bull about things, throwing will against the world to make things better. After about 8 months of burning the candle with a flamethrower, I took a month off. I'd paid of 7 debts totaling almost $38000 dollars. I still had two left, but I was out of gas.
You know what I wasn't out of? Cash. I was still broke, since my debts were more than my savings, but for the first time in the 8 months, I allowed myself some personal blow money. I bought ISBNs, using my convalescence to prep and publish my first book.
Living my dream had begun.
I've been published a while now by small, independent and traditional presses. I've had the honor of teaching writers about the things I learned (by making pretty much every mistake possible) and even had a university pay me speaking fees. I LOVE teaching, I always have. I love helping the up-and-coming writers learn by my mistakes.
Well, there's always been one mistake I didn't really feel comfortable helping them avoid - money ignorance. Usually, I just send them toward Ramsey or buy them his book. Well, a few months ago an answer fell into my lap.
I could teach people, especially writers - guide them on how to manage their money. I jumped at the chance despite a training cost that would've given the first me in this tale a coronary. I'm still going through certification training, but I'm almost there.
Why tell you about this? What does all this have to do with my books?
Easy, if I hadn't found a way to learn about money, I never would've been published. I'm passionate about helping other writers live their dreams. So, when you see the addition of financial coach on my bio, you'll now understand why it belongs on an author's bio.
If you were born to be a writer, don't let anything stop you - certainly not your own ignorance. Just as important, don't be too ashamed to seek out help.
