Why I Had to Turn Down Six Figures for My Novel

In order that I could have two novels published on the exact same day

So I had a problem. I’d written two novels and no one wanted to publish them.

Check that, I’d written two novels and plenty of people wanted to publish only one of them.

The problem was, that wasn’t good enough for me.

Most authors dream of getting a novel published and here I was getting countless offers to have one of my novels published…yet I was turning them all down.

You see, I’d written two novels that I felt had to be published on the exact same day. The books were called The Guide for a Single Man and The Guide for a Single Woman. These books weren’t sequels or prequels, but what I’d taken to jokingly calling “equals.” Two books that could be read in either order to tell the story of one night of bar-hopping, drinking, and flirting amongst thirtysomethings in New York City. The former book told from a man’s point of view, the latter from a woman’s.

And all the major publishers seemingly wanted to publish The Guide for a Single Man first and then “Let’s wait and see how it does. If it does well…maybe then we’ll publish that other one of yours.”

But, as I said, that wasn’t good enough for me. So I forgot about my books and went on with my life.

I’m not one of those wannabe authors who has to scrape together a meager living with crummy odd jobs and whatnot while just dreaming that my novel will one day be bought for big money. I mean, I do plenty of “odd” jobs, but my day job, if you will, is writing for publications like Esquire, Playboy, MTV, First We Feast, and other major magazines and websites. It’s quite enjoyable. Additionally, in 2010 my first novel, How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide, the utter opposite of a self-help guide, came out and did pretty well. I don’t know if it’s quite a cult hit—however that’s defined nowadays—but it’s sold over 100,000 copies in just about four years. Sad as that may sound, that’s a big enough number that I don’t struggle to get replies to my emails any more, even from so-called important people.

And, yes, many of those “important” New York people were excited at the chance to publish my second career novel. Just not my third career novel simultaneously. Many of these people’s names you wouldn’t recognize, but you’d surely recognize where they work. Just look at your bookshelf (do people still have those?) and notice the company names and logos at the bottom of book spine. Literally all these people loved The Guide for a Single Man. I can’t remember even one person who was lukewarm on the book. They found it edgy, funny, one-of-a-kind, and “now.” They were chomping at the bit to publish it.

But what about The Guide for a Single Woman, I’d wonder? They’re a package, I’d tell them. Oh, they’d read that book too. In fact, many people liked it just as much as The Guide for a Single Man, it was just, they didn’t want to offer up anything for it.

Have you heard what authors are getting for advances nowadays? Total shit. And here was this cocky prick snubbing his nose at these incredibly generous offers for one book, because he wanted, because he had to have his two books published on the same damn day?

“We will never authorize two advances for two novels that will be released on the same day.”

That’s what every single man and woman I met with eventually told me. And that’s why these books continued to sit in my desk drawer (I mean, my Dropbox account) for about a year as I just went on with my life. Then one day, my friend Phil Simon, a top technology and business writer, asked me if I’d ever heard of FG Press. I hadn’t.

He explained they were a new publishing venture from The Foundry Group, a Boulder-based company that is one of the top venture capital firms in the America. He thought this project was right up their alley. After a few phone calls with their CEO Dane MacDonald, after several people at the company had read my two manuscripts, we both agreed that we were indeed a perfect match.

And now, here are my two books, both released into the world just a few days ago, on October 28. I would have made more initial money publishing just one book with any major publisher; but I’ve seen my artistic vision fully realized by letting FG Press publish these two books at once. Maybe I’m dumb, but that makes me a lot happier than a big advance.

Aaron Goldfarb (@aarongoldfarb) is the author of The Guide for a Single Man and The Guide for a Single Woman. He lives in New York and frequently writes for Esquire and other places.