Every book writing journey starts with a really good idea. And for some, a big risk.
This week, I officially became a published author. I’ve been working towards this moment for the past five years.
Five years.
When I was still working on the book, people liked to ask: “How’s the book going?” My cheeks would flush red and I’d tell them it was going “just fine.”
My partner told me not to be so touchy. He said people were genuinely curious how the book writing was coming along, but I couldn’t help feeling self conscious. “Just fine” meant that I was still writing without the promise of a reward. Still dedicating my days to a big fat question mark. “Would anyone other than my parents ever read this??” This was a demoralizing question I asked myself a lot. In the end, I just had to believe. I had no choice. It was that, or give up. And giving up wasn’t an option.
Many of us dream about becoming authors, but this an aspiration few are able to turn into a reality because the traditional book publishing industry has an extremely high barrier to entry, and the book-writing and publishing process is an incredibly long and difficult journey that many of us cannot afford to take.
This is the first of five blog posts — one post for every year it took to get my book published — that will take you through my book-writing journey step-by-step.
I’ll start with:
2010: How I came up with my book idea (a crucial first step!) and what it took to get my book idea off the ground.
2011: I’ll take you to China and Europe where I did my fieldwork for the book (research is essential whether writing fiction or non-fiction) and go over how I went about putting together a solid book proposal.
2012–2013: I’ll tell you why I took the traditional publishing route instead of self-publishing. Followed by how I queried and found my literary agent and then how we pitched and found a publisher.
2014: I’ll talk about what the process was like working with a publisher, editing and preparing the final manuscript…
2015: And finally, some lessons about how to sell and promote your book once you’ve got the finished product in your hands!
I made a lot of mistakes on this journey. I could have been more focused and disciplined. There are a lot of things I could have done better. Knowing what I know now, I hope by sharing my experiences I can give aspiring writers a little perspective on what the process is like; what the risks are, what you need to be prepared to do and what the possible outcomes are.
There’s a lot to go over, so let’s tackle the first topic: how I came up with my book idea and some hard choices I had to make in order to kickstart my book project.
2010: The idea, and a big move
The genesis of any book must begin with a really good story idea.
Before you begin, it’s a good idea to ask yourself:
What makes this story relevant today?
Why am I the person to tell this story?
It’s important to be able to answer these questions well. Because you’re going to asked this question again and again in the coming years, when you talk to a literary agent, when you start pitching publishers, and when you eventually market the book, i.e. get others to read it!
Ideas may come to you while you’re wading deep in your own thoughts or sketching in your notebook, but as a journalist and non-fiction writer, I’ve found the best and most relevant ideas have come when I’m out there talking to people.
Talking to those you already know is one place to start. But the best kinds of stories, the most surprising and exclusive stories, arise when you talk to strangers; people from different walks of life, people you might have never engaged with on a deeper level in your regular day-to-day.
Going to talk to strangers is one of the first things you learn to do in J-school (journalism school). In my opinion, this is a valuable skill to have whether you’re a journalist or not. Talking to strangers exposes you to new ideas and different ways of thinking. One of my first assignments as a freshman was to hit the streets and talk to strangers about the weather. Journalists call these “streeters.” Streeters taught me how to engage with a wide range of characters, how to listen, how to ask the right questions, and in the end, how to craft a story full of colorful voices. Talking to people sparked ideas and gave me insight into what was relevant in the community.
“…the best kinds of stories, the most surprising and exclusive stories, arise when you talk to strangers.”
Taking the plunge
In 2010, I was working as a journalist in New York City when I decided to quit my job and move to China to start working on my book.
It wasn’t an easy decision because leaving meant giving up the chance at a green card, and giving up my life in New York. “How long will you be gone?” my news editor asked me at the time. “If it’s a few months, we can hold your job for you.” I shook my head. I had bought a one-way ticket and I didn’t know when I was coming back.
Some people thought I was crazy to leave. Sometimes I thought I was crazy too.
I wasn’t a published author (this would be my first book) and I wasn’t a famous journalist. Some asked whether I should wait until I was: Wouldn’t the process of writing the book be easier? Probably, since I’d have more experience. And wouldn’t it be easier to sell the book if you’ve already made a name for yourself? Heck ya! Book publishing is a lot easier if you’re a celebrity or someone with a large following and established platform. The publishers come knocking on your door — not the other way around!
“I dedicated my efforts towards the act of creating and the joys of storytelling.”
But I didn’t want to wait another 5 or 10 years. The time was “now.” Whatever happened in the end, I knew that the process alone would be an incredible learning experience. I tried to forget about prestige, fame and wealth — all the things one imagines is waiting for you on the other side of “success.” Instead, I focused on doing what I was passionate about: Talking to strangers. Uncovering surprising stories. And sharing those stories with the world. These were the things made my mind race, my face flush and my heart pound. They made me feel happy and high. I dedicated my efforts towards the act of creating and the joys of storytelling.
Inspiration also came from prolific authors who had written recent non-fiction books on China. These writers had spent years in China carrying out extensive research, but they were not academics. They were journalists who uncovered riveting, personal stories and shared them in beautifully written narratives. I reached out to these authors — Peter Hessler, Leslie T. Chang, Jan Wong, Howard French — and bounced my ideas off them. I read their books, studied the way they carried out their field work, and tried to ready myself for the journey ahead.
“For a first book, sometimes you have to be prepared to do a lot of the research and even the writing on your own, on spec, without a contract,” wrote Peter Hessler to me in an email back in 2010. “I wrote all of River Town without a contract. As a young writer the money and marketing issue just isn’t as important. What you want is to do something that is interesting and well researched. If that’s the case, it will eventually be published somewhere. And it will establish you in a way that will make future projects easier to come by (and more profitable). When I wrote River Town, I didn’t care so much about whether it got published. I wanted the experience of writing something long, and I wanted to record that experience for myself. I knew that even if it didn’t get published I would have learned a lot.”
Are you really committed to this?
Since I didn’t have fame to prop me up, I knew I had to come up with a really unique story idea — something no one else could write. I had long been fascinated with immigrants and I enjoyed learning about what compelled them to leave home and go abroad. But recalling a migrant’s journey depended completely on memory, which can be extremely inaccurate and incomplete. I wanted to watch a migrant story unfold with my own eyes. I wanted to follow migrants in real-time and watch their characters develop and their stories unfold over time.
“Your first step will be to find a few charismatic families or individuals to follow—you want people who are talkative, thoughtful, curious about the world and excited to take part in your project. Those are the most important things,” wrote Leslie T. Chang, in an email to me during those early days.
Where in China would I go? I thought about my partner, Marc, who is of Chinese heritage but born and raised in the Netherlands. When we first met, I was fascinated to meet someone who looked Chinese but spoke Dutch! I remembered asking him a lot of questions about where his family came from in China and how and why they all ended up in Europe. Marc had relatives in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal. It turns out, he knew very little about his own family history. So I began snooping around. I started by interviewing his family. Then I asked his family to refer their friends. I struck up conversations with as many people as I could. Their stories surprised me, and I was inspired to learn more.
When I first arrived in China, I lived in Hong Kong for several months. I chose Hong Kong because it was a city I was familiar with and because it’s a convenient base for Western journalists who want to travel into mainland China. It was also where Marc had found a job. And so with a little fellowship money from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and some earnings as a freelance journalist, I officially began my research.
Every few months I traveled to Qingtian County, Marc’s ancestral hometown in eastern China to do my research. I soon discovered going back and forth prohibited me from embedding myself in the community and gaining the trust of the people I hoped to write about. I realized if I was serious about the book, I had to experience life in that county, day in and day out.
So that’s what I did. I left Hong Kong and moved to the Chinese countryside. I was a complete foreigner in Qingtian. I didn’t speak the local dialect, I didn’t have any connections of my own, and it shocked me to wake up to the squeals of pigs being slaughtered every morning. Though much of Qingtian is rural, I was lucky to have modern conveniences. I was lucky to live in a third-floor apartment with hot water, electricity and an internet connection. Still, I was plagued with doubts. I had left my career in New York for a big ‘maybe’. Would it all be worth it in the end? What was I hoping to get out of it? Would I really be OK with not being published after all this hard work and sacrifice? And, what was waiting to be discovered in China?
All that fun stuff, in my next blog post.
