Part Two: I'm a bestselling author but I'm getting a "real" job
my mental health needs me to
👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 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 was called I Hate The Publishing Industry (I can't move forward until I say it out loud). It was all about how I love writing my books, but being a cog in the publishing machine is financially disempowering to a this-is-hurting-me-on-a-mental-health level, even for somebody doing as “well” as I am. That was about finally acknowledging the problem. This is about what comes next…
If I had to pick a breaking point, I’d go with when I failed to sell my historical fiction in autumn of last year. That my idea for a sweeping interwar-years-in-Paris-set novel about an artist based on sexually free Tamara De Lempicka didn’t sell wasn’t the thing that undid me so much as the crashing realization that I had been pinning all my hopes on selling it as A Way Out Of This Mess.
(The mess being feeling so powerless in my writing career, about the money it makes that never seems to trickle down into my pocket. The mess being forever seeing publishers get big pay-outs from my work, but not me.)
The historical fiction became my way of starting fresh. It was my way of trying to wrestle some control. A new genre, a creative challenge, a way to distinguish outwardly how different this would all be for me. And contractually, I had my non-negotiable: I wanted to only sell UK rights, so that I retained 100% of anything sold abroad. If I got €160,000 from Germany, goddamn it I’d KEEP €160,000 from Germany. Six figures in America? All mine, thanks.
Justice. I think what I wanted was justice. Not to ask too much, but because I can’t -just can’t - get past my cumulative negative experiences I wanted vindication for every wrong I have ever received. A totally healthy pressure to put on yourself, of course.
(When you’re in the trenches and have been for a while, I think it’s unreasonable to expect yourself to be reasonable.)
In my head, I’d sell the historical fiction and be able to enjoy the process of it all - writing it, editing it, promoting it far and wide - because it would feel fair. We’d have caveats and clauses to rectify everything that hadn’t worked in my set-ups so far. I’d set the tone. I’d be in charge. Nobody gives you power, right? You have to take it.
But… it didn’t sell.
(Which is fine!! Nobody owes me anything! It wasn’t good enough!!! That bit I can live with. Honestly, I can.)
But because it didn’t sell I had to reckon with myself and ask:
if I said I couldn’t go on like this, what on earth happens now…?
Anything that costs you your peace is too expensive. Publishing costs me my peace. So ten years since signing with my agent, nine since first being published, thirty-one since I first realized making up worlds lit me on fire in the best possible way, I wanted to give up.
To do what, I didn’t know.