The Long and Winding Road to Best Sellerdom

As I ponder the outcomes of my two pending book proposals (both of which have been tentatively acquired by publishers although I still do not have a contract for either of them), I am reminded, once again why publishing is a struggling industry. I am also reminded that it has always been this way, especially when I read about Rebecca Skloot.

Skloot is the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the story of one unknown woman who became a medical hero. Lacks died in 1951 of cervical cancer but unknown to her family, her cells, which were sampled by her physicians at Johns Hopkins, continued to reproduce in the laboratory and became the basis for countless research projects that continue to advance our knowledge of disease.

Skloot tracked down the story of this woman which became her MFA thesis in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. The book has just recently cracked the best seller list in nonfiction.

But the story of its publication demonstrates the pitfalls of the industry. To begin with, the book took ten years to write and then made its way through three publishing houses and four editors. The first publisher folded; she got out of her contract with the second because she disagreed with the editor's concept of the book. At that point the manuscript was auctioned and Crown won. But editorial trials remained as the book was "orphaned" twice more at Crown when editors there moved elsewhere.

The book, finally published under the Crown imprint, has generated a lot of excitement, including a spot on ABC Nightly News. O magazine has bought first serial rights and it is Barnes and Nobles Discover Great New Writers title for Spring 2010.

All of which is nice, and rewarding, but comes with the toll that a decade of being bounced around can take. Granted Skloot, who by now is an established medical writer and creative writing professor, had other projects to keep her occupied over the long haul, but the roller coaster ride, complete with stops and starts, is never easy.

All of which is both heartening and disheartening as I continue to put my projects into other people's hands.