When failing is success

My queer rom-com, Love Where You Work, is here! It’s 99 cents for the next three days, so get it now. If you wait, the price will go up to $4.99, which … is still pretty cheap actually. (The paperback is $14.99.)

As I launch my second indie book, I’ve been thinking a lot about failure and the struggles faced by creators.

If I was measuring my success as a writer based on traditional metrics (money, number of books sold, agents and publishers banging down my door, etc.), I would be a failure.

A short list of ways I’ve failed:

My first book, The Lesbian Sex Haiku Book (with Cats!), which was traditionally published, failed to earn out its advance. Meaning what they paid me in advance wasn’t made back in book sales.

After that, since almost all of my writing at that time was personal essays, I tried to write a memoir, with the encouragement of my editor at Flatiron.

My memoir proposal was rejected multiple times. Then that editor got a different job. Another agent also rejected my proposal,…