Part One: I hate the publishing industry
i can't move forward until i say it out loud 🤡
👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! I’m so happy to see you. I’m Laura Jane Williams, a UK-based romance author. How to Build a Life launched in August 2024, and now has thousands of readers in over 75 countries (!). You can expect personal stories about life’s mess and mayhem, and the search for a way of living that feels right. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, and for 2025 am committed to stealing back time from my to-do list. I’m just sick of being busy with stuff that doesn’t really matter, you know?
I just revealed all the details about my summer 2025 book, and if you email me on me@laurajanewilliams.com with proof of your pre-order, I’ll comp you a free month to How to Build a Life, OR send you a hand-written love note no matter where in the world you live! Just let me know which you prefer.
This is a two-part exploration of my work life. Part One might seem quite negative. But! Part Two, coming next Monday, is more uplifting. I just don’t want to seem bitter, I guess, but I need to explain how bad things have got/were before I explore what I’ve been doing about it next week. Thank you for holding space for me!! I know you’ll receive this in the spirit with which it is intended.
I am desperately frustrated with my work life. I feel terrified to say that, but I have danced around the issue for the almost-six-months I’ve been writing here at How to Build a Life. Everything I’ve sat down to tell you lately doesn’t come out totally right, because I haven’t just come out and said it. So here it goes.
My name is Laura Jane Williams, and hating the publishing industry is the backdrop that colours every other thing in my life.
I am unhappy - frustrated and resentful - at work.
What I want to be very clear about is that I love writing books and am tremendously proud of them all.
I just announced Love at First Sight and can’t wait for you to read it. It’s a great book, and I think it it will give a lot of readers the uplifting escapism they’re looking for. That people pay for my work, pre-order and look forward to it and reach out to say they’re reading or recommend it to their friends? Holy shit, man. That’s so special. I hold that very dear. It’s a privilege.
But the machine I have to be part of to get that book to you?
Urgh. Just… urgh.
I feel afraid to say it here, publicly, because rule number one of being a published novelist is: be grateful. There’s a queue of people who would love to take my place. Perhaps people read my work and think they can do better. Maybe they love what I do and want to emulate it. It’s possible they don’t understand how exploitative the industry can be. For sure it must seem nice to sit around making things up all day. It is! There are loads of gifted storytellers out there, gifted storytellers who deserve to be published, whose books should grace the shelves of everywhere books are sold. Sometimes I think that’s the issue. Publishing, as a business, loves a debut. It’s toxic that way. If you’re not selling like they think you should then there’s plenty more where that came from. They’ll just try again. Meanwhile, you can get left behind wondering how you could have done things differently. I’m one of the lucky ones. And yet even me, as somebody doing pretty okay, feels exhausted and disenfranchised.
Writing stories is a dream career.
Being a cog in the machine of publishing steals something from me.
Both of those things are true - but this past few years, being the cog has outweighed the creativity of it all. It has impacted my relationship to my creativity, and that, to me, is criminal.
And it all comes down to money.
I don’t think I have ever recovered from my debut being sold for €160,000 - and receiving exactly zero of that.