The Stages of an Author's Journey

Posted on October 22, 2005

Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, wrote a very funny essay for The New York Times entitled "Publish or Perish," in which she describes the stages of the journey of a published author as a cross between Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief and Stendhal's stages of love.

The journey begins with the initial Fog of Love (when the galleys are being printed) and continues to Euphoria over a positive review and then being crushed by Denial when there is a negative review or lack of more positive reviews. The Bitter Recrimination and the "What About Oprah?" stages follow.

The Fog of Love: Galleys are being printed, and the final installment of the book advance has been spent. You give the galley to your agent, "who gets paid to tell you you're great," says E. Jean Carroll, the author of a long-running advice column for Elle magazine and of "Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson."

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Euphoria: A positive review creates a craving for more positive reviews. "It's a feedback loop, and it's totally addictive," Roach said. Negative reviews, obviously, extinguish Euphoria. Author skips directly to Denial (see below).

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Denial: Author speed-dials publicist to ask, "Are you sure there aren't any other reviews?" Hires private publicist. "For nine weeks, you keep hope alive," Carroll said. "You check Jane Austen's ranking on Amazon, and if you're outselling her you figure you're O.K. You overcome your doubts."

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"What About Oprah?": "Every author eventually asks this question. I tell them, 'I'm sure someone has thought about it,'" said Nicholas Latimer, the director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf.

If we had a dime for every author who has written in asking how to get his/her book on Oprah....

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