How You (and most writers I know) are Just Like Nicolas Sparks

While trolling the interwebs looking for advice on how to handle my agent “call”, I ran into this series of great post from bestselling Nicolas Sparks on how he landed an agent and ultimate publishing deal.

I highly recommend you read the series. But here is what I learned – Before becoming a bestselling author, he was a lot like you and me.

-        If you’ve received more than 20 rejections, you’re like Nick. -  He only had one offer from one agent. 24 agents said no, even those who had read the novel. The one agent that said yes was fresh out of college and never sold anything before.

-        Even successful writers don’t write the best query letters – Check out his query letter for the Notebook.- I’m sure back in its day this letter was good, but as members of any of the query websites such as agentqueryconnect or querytracker would attest, this letter would most likely get a quick and tidy form rejection today.

-         If you have a day job and write whenever you can fit it in, you’re like Nick - Before he sold his novel, he had a day job. He fit writing in on the side, and his wife generously put up with him being a consumed writer. He writes five or six days a week. 
 If you have books in the trunk, you’re like Nick - He had two other shelved books before finally making it with the Notebook
 If you’re hoping for even a paltry advance for something you wrote, you’re like Nick. - The day he sold his novel he was hoping for an offer that would pay off his credit card or maybe let them get a second car. Instead, he was offered a life changing million dollars.

The moral of this story is one that gets repeated often in our world – even overnight successes aren’t really. They struggled just like you.

But they never, ever gave up the dream.

How many ways are you like Nick?