Managing professional envy
"I’m so, so, painfully jealous of everyone else’s success."
Hi, I’m Kate. Ask an Author is an advice column for authors at all stages of writing, publishing, and hand-wringing. Have a question? Fill out this form and I’ll answer it in a future response!
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Dear Kate,
I recently started to get more active on Twitter and I also joined two Discords, one for writers on sub and one for writers in my genre (historical romance). I thought it’d be a good way to build community, but now I’m feeling so, so, painfully jealous of everyone else’s success.
Interest from editors who rejected me. The unicorn of a major debut sale in my hard-to-break-into field. Even glowing rejections that ask to see further work or rave about the book make me jealous and insecure.
I want to build community and make connections because—I should? It’s good to know the scuttlebutt? Maybe it’ll pay off one day? It’s nice to make new friends? But I feel so wracked with envy and anxiety and sadness that I don’t think I have what it takes to ever make this happen and I’m going to watch all these people zoom past me.
How much community is too much community? And how to I stop viewing every other historical romance sale as proof of my inadequacy (plus resources that can’t be mine anymore)?
- Green-Eyed and Miserable
Dear Green Eyes,
The answer to however much community is too much community is however much is making you feel worse than you did before you logged on.
There are a bajillion studies about how social media affects mental health. We know it’s bad for teenager’s confidence and body image, but the insidious nature of comparison, competition, and FOMO affects adult brains, too. The dopamine hit from social media is meant to be addictive, and the result is a “Compare and Despair” mentality that’s designed to make us feel lousy.
So if you go online and feel bad about yourself, it doesn’t mean you suck and are a bad writer and a failure and never going to get published. It means this addictive tool that messes with your brain has, guess what, done its job of messing with your brain.
How people present themselves on social media is a curated presentation designed in no small part to disguise their *own* professional envy. The fact that it seems as though everyone else is doing great doesn’t make it so.
The reality is that EVERYONE has a story behind them. Everyone has struggles we don’t know about. The only universal truth in publishing is that it’s not easy. For anyone. The people who look like overnight successes rarely (never) are. Everyone has someone they envy. And probably someone who’s envying them.
If you’re reading this and you love your online community and have gotten great value and relationships from social media, yay! Keep doing that!!!!
But if it’s *not* feeling wonderful, it’s fine — even great — to set some boundaries. Limit how often you check, how much time you spend, even limit who you view. You can mute people and words so you don’t have to see them, and you can always go back and change/tweak/adjust/delete those settings later. I could do a whole post (and maybe I should!) about how to set boundaries around time-sucks, but for the purposes of this letter I’ll suggest: removing apps from your phone, turning off Wifi to write, setting a timer for online use, and closely curating who and what you follow. I’m not on Discord so can’t speak to how to use it, but I’d say the same rules apply. You do NOT have to spend more time on there than you want to. It will not make (or break) your writing career.
I’m in some submissions groups and I absolutely limit when I check them, because hearing about a stranger’s great news can be hard and because, frankly, hearing over and over about other people’s bad news can become exhausting and demoralizing, too.
That being said, knowing that the wins are rare and the struggles are universal does help me keep things in perspective and recognize that my own journey is bound to have these same ups and downs, too.
Your true friends are the ones you can be honest and open with, and those are the people you’ll be genuinely elated for when their good news comes. It can take time to build those real relationships and connections, and that means getting beneath the glossy surfaces and shiny Publisher’s Marketplace deals. If you can wade through the superficial stuff in order to find those gems, then that’s an argument for sticking with it. But making friends shouldn’t feel like punishment. And there are other ways to build community. Twitter and Discord are great starting points, but as with all things in writing and in life, if it’s not working for you, don’t do it.
Join a writing group that’s not focused on submissions. Meet people in other genres to get some distance from your own. I’m more of a one-on-one person and find large online groups of strangers overwhelming and impersonal. Maybe I’m missing out on all sorts of connections! But being on sub is a time when everyone feels extra fragile and anxious. Protect your mental health, and your writing time. I promise it’s okay to unplug for a bit.
You are succeeding. You are right where you need to be. You are enough.
It’s easy to feel as though publishing is a finite resource. There’s only so much money to go around, only so many editors to give so much time. This is especially true for marginalized authors who are told there’s already a queer book on the list, a Jewish book, a “book about race,” when no one ever says “We already have a white author, you’ll have to wait your turn.”
But a book that sells now doesn’t mean another book—YOUR book—won’t sell later. I know you’re saying, “But Kate. Dream Editor who takes on this historical romance debut isn’t going to take my historical debut now!” And maybe that’s true — but only in the short term. We’re playing the long game here. There are other editors, other imprints, the publishing scales are shifting all the time. The success of that hist rom debut will be GOOD for your book, to show there’s a hungry market, and that editor who didn’t have time now might find they’re eager for your book later. We don’t know. Our agents don’t know. Editors themselves don’t know. We need to speak up when books are passed over because of bias and injustice in the marketplace — don’t think I’m simply saying sit down and wait your turn! But a scarcity mentality helps no one, and isn’t really an accurate picture of publishing. It’s a cliché to say that a rising tide lifts all ships, but when it comes to books, I really do think that’s true.
The harsh reality is that people are going to zoom past us. All of us. You yourself, Green Eyes, have zoomed by others. I’m sure it doesn’t always feel that way — but you’ve finished a book, you’ve secured an agent, you’ve gone through revisions, and you’ve made it onto editors’ desks. There are authors in the query trenches right now who’d give several knuckles for what you have. I’m not discounting your frustrations, or saying we should all just smile and be grateful. But I do hope you’re also giving yourself space to acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments, even as you’ve set your sights on the next goal.
Because there’s always going to be another goal. In publishing, as in all things, it’s so important to beware the moving goalposts of success. If only I could finish this damn book. If only I could get an agent. If only I’d gotten a better agent, at a better agency. If only this book would sell. If only I’d gotten a better publishing deal, with a better publisher. If only I’d gotten better reviews, better marketing, better sales. If only I could finish my second book. If only my second book would sell….
You can see the problem, right?
Envy doesn’t go away when you cross the hurdle you’ve been aiming for. The next thing you know, there’s something else out of reach — and, inevitably, what feels like someone else passing over you to grab it first.
Honestly, when I’m feeling really, especially sh*tty, I think about what about my life I’d want to change. I don’t mean move to a villa in Italy and feed goats for a living kind of change, but real change. Would I trade my family, my friends, my spouse, my home, my experiences, the heartbeat of my days? Would I give up the books I write — even the ones I can’t (yet) get published (arrrrrghhhhh) — so that I could “have” some other kind of “success”? Inevitably I wind up feeling sappy and overwhelmed in a ridiculous way about how f*cking precious those f*cking unsaleable manuscripts are to me, and I know I wouldn’t give them up for anything. Really. Which I guess means I’m still stuck being me, with my good moments, yes, and all of my mistakes.
At the end of the day, we’re the ones who have to live with ourselves. I hope you love your book on sub and wouldn’t trade it for anyone else’s. And if you’re feeling really bitter, I recommend a good scream, and the reminder that everyone has terrible days, everyone has hard things in their lives, and those people you envy all have someone else they envy and the same stresses and trials as the rest of us. Sure, they have those stresses plus a book deal. But I think you, Green Eyes, will also someday have a book deal, and someone else will be achingly envious of your success, because that’s how the cycle goes.
One final note:
I think it’s also worth thinking about what you think will actually happen when you get the book deal. The book will be published, duh, and maybe there will be some money involved (wouldn’t that be nice!), but if you dig a little deeper, what else is in there? A desire for approval? Validation? Proof of your talents, abilities, smarts? Where is the pressure coming from? What will happen if this book DOESN’T sell? And if it does…will you really gain all the things you think will come from hearing “yes”?
I don’t mean to be glib. Being on sub SUCKS. But if you’re really struggling with feelings of inadequacy and competition, it can be great to dig into that with a professional. Publishing is never going to validate and support us the way we want to. It’s worth spending some time sitting with that.
No matter what, keep going.
Kate
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