Every writer knows the feeling: Another author signs with the super-agent who turned you down, lands a huge book deal, wins a prestigious award, has her book picked by a book club, sells the movie rights… the list of big breaks goes on and on, and meanwhile you’re overwhelmed with envy and frustration, not to mention a significant amount of shame. Because why are you panting after someone else’s success? It’s embarrassing and pointless. Talk to anyone about it (if you dare), and they’ll give you the same advice: stop comparing yourself and get back to work.
But what if your envy is trying to tell you something?
Social scientist and coach Stacy S. Kim has spent years studying envy, not simply as an unpleasant emotion, but as a source of information about what we want and what we may need to do to achieve it.
That work became her first book, Envy: Why Wanting What They Have Is the Key to Getting What You Want, due out later this month. Which means Stacy is now living through the very phenomenon she studies: watching other authors’ careers unfold while trying to make sense of her own.
In this guest post, written on the cusp of publication, she shares seven unexpected lessons from the experience and what other writers can learn from it.
– Panio Gianopoulos
“You dream about getting a book deal and then you get one. “
Now that my book is less than a month from publication, I want to share seven lessons I didn’t expect to learn, and how envying other authors helped me along the way.
1. Envy other authors, study them, then reach out to them.
Before getting a book deal, it drove me bonkers whenever I saw a writer I knew get a clip for a publication I longed to write for, get an agent, or land a book deal. Studying envy, I learned that the greater the pain or discomfort of envy, the closer you are within reach of what you truly desire. Envy also gives you a guide.
I used to just feel yucky and not even read what my envy target has written. But now, whenever I envy other writers, I study their writing, listen to every podcast they’ve done, and then I’ll send a note or DM letting them know specifically what I liked about their work.
By the time I’m done, I have usually figured out what it is they did that I haven’t. And my envy will morph into admiration.
2. You don’t need social media to get a book deal.
My following has been and still is pretty measly. When my daughters were teenagers, I limited their time on social media, so I also couldn’t be a hypocrite.
Thanks to Jane Friedman’s The Business of Being a Writer, I learned there are other ways to build your “platform.” I did that with other aspects of my career (coaching and research) and with shorter pieces.
3. Start small.
Susan Shapiro, my writing teacher and author of The Byline Bible, has always said, “Three pages will change your life.” In other words, if you have a book idea, sell it as an article first.
I trusted her but didn’t fully understand her advice until it worked for me. I got that selling a shorter piece is akin to beta testing, that if I couldn’t convince an editor to pay me to write a short piece, I would have a hard time convincing agents they could sell my book to publishers.
What I learned was that when you work with editors who can pay you, they will also help you become a better writer. For example, I’ve always had trouble with endings. Each of the marvelous editors I worked with asked questions that helped me connect what I’ve learned to what my readers would want to learn.
When the editor at The Washington Post told me they would publish my article on envy not only online but also on the front page of their Health and Science section, I knew I was ready to query agents.
4. Borrow from the passions of loved ones.
Ever since I first met my husband in college, I have attended many sporting events just to spend time with him. (You’ll often find me knitting at a baseball game.) But those hours paid off. I have an entire chapter using sports to explain the various ways we can respond to envy thanks to him.
When my older daughter got into K-pop and K-drama, I was appalled because at that point in my life, I was avoiding all things Korean (which I deemed sexist and authoritarian). But that too became an article, and Korea became a minor character in my book.
My younger daughter had considered a career in video games. She introduced me to The Watermelon Game. I’m addicted to it. But I figured out that when I’m stressed or anxious, playing a game (or two, or three) will calm me. I realized that it helped to interrupt the negative voices in my head, which Ethan Kross describes expertly in Chatter. (Or his book justifies my vice.)
5. Don’t go hunting for perfect systems; you will be forced to change them.
I am embarrassed to admit how much time I’ve spent searching for perfect apps, and then learning to perfect my use of them. Don’t get me wrong, Scrivener and Notion were indeed helpful. But I regret the time I spent trying to make those apps work perfectly for me.
When I got a book deal, I was forced to switch to Microsoft Word. Then, when I started working with my publicist, I was forced to use Google Sheets.
I should have listened to Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, and realized my tweaking was just shallow work.
6. Hire a publicist to amplify your effort.
I spent most of my advance on my publicist. It kills me how much money I spent. I’m grateful my husband said I would be foolish not to work so hard at something and then punt when I’m inches away from a first down and in the red zone. Daniel Pink’s book, The Power of Regret, also helped me see that I was at risk for having a “boldness regret.”
At the same time, hiring a publicist and having an in-house PR and Marketing Team doesn’t mean you can focus on other things. I thought I’d be able to hand off the work to them.
Nope! I have come to realize that I have to work alongside them. They would pitch for me, but I had to be able to work with them on the angles of their pitches. And, once they secured something, I had to then follow through by doing homework by studying the podcasts, or writing the pieces.
7. Prepare to become an event planner.
I had heard that book tours were tougher to do. I admit I didn’t think it would apply to me because I hired a publicist, had an in-house team, and had speaking engagements in the past. But, again, I didn’t absorb this warning.
Bookstores can’t afford to give up their labor and space for debut authors who haven’t proven they can bring in a crowd. Publishers only spend money on events for a small number of titles. So I planned events my publisher would invite booksellers to, so they could sell books “off-site.”
I not only tapped into those who hired me to speak in the past, but I also teamed up with my writing community, my church, my knitting friends, the schools I attended, and non-profit organizations my family volunteers for. I’m so grateful they could help with the venue, but sending out the invites, ordering refreshments, planning the “entertainment,” coordinating everyone involved, and promoting all those different events took time and energy I didn’t expect to spend. But here, again, is where envy can help.
When you examine your envy as I did, it can teach you what activities you need to learn to do what you love, how to deepen your connections with people you admire, and how to serve those you care about. And, while I still envy all the big-name authors with long lists of cities they will be hitting with their book tours, I know how to turn that envy into learning new party-planning skills, reconnecting with people who have already supported me, and sharing how envy can be harnessed for good with my (future) readers.
