I watched a clip this week of James Patterson talking about his first novel. Thirty publishers turned it down before someone said yes. The man has since sold something like four hundred million books.
I’ve heard that story a hundred times in a hundred versions. Persistence pays. Rejection is just data. Keep going. And every time, some part of my brain nods along and quietly files it under sure, for other people.
The fluke
Here’s the honest version. I published Phase Defiant. Somewhere north of thirty people have read it. Every single piece of feedback has been good — not “my mom said it was nice” good. Strangers posting reviews. A friend telling me he’s handing it to his son. Another saying his kids are going to read it whether they like it or not.
And I’ve been calling that a fluke.
Patterson got thirty noes before his first yes. I’ve had thirty yeses and no real noes, and I decided the sample didn’t count. That isn’t humility. It’s a story I’ve been telling myself so I don’t have to do the next hard thing.
The thing I was actually avoiding
Am I afraid of rejection?
No. I’ve been rejected plenty and I’m still here.
What I hate is asking for help. I hate the version of me that has to walk up to somebody and say hey, would you mind reading my book, and if you do, would you mind leaving a review. Every one of those clauses is a request, and every request makes me feel like the guy who doesn’t have it together.
So I did what anyone who hates asking does. I stopped asking. I stopped talking about the book. I let it fade into the background and got busy with a dozen other projects.
The wrong readers
The second thing I figured out is that I’ve been pitching the wrong book to the wrong people.
Phase Defiant has teenage characters, so I labeled it Young Adult and went hunting for the Young Adult audience. Book videos, trend hashtags, all the standard advice. I hated every minute of it, and it turns out the audience didn’t want me either.
But I never set out to write a youth novel. I wrote a story from the vantage point of people who aren’t cynical. I wanted heroes, potential, and kids doing more than the adults think they can. I wanted the 1990s, when normal and abnormal were things you could still fix. I wanted a thriller with some powers and a coming-of-age spine, with no profanity, and a reader who feels decent when it’s over.
That reader isn’t sixteen. That reader is me. That reader grew up on Saturday morning cartoons and the comic book rack at the gas station and is now in their forties, wondering why nobody writes books like that anymore.
Those are the exact people who told me they liked it. I’ve been advertising to their children.
The eBay lesson
Years ago somebody told me the easy way to make money was selling stuff on eBay. So I listed a bunch of things. Nothing sold. The lesson I took away was I can’t sell.
I’ve carried that one for years and it’s the wrong lesson. The right one is that generic advice built for somebody else’s product doesn’t work on mine. That’s it. It wasn’t a verdict on me. It was a mismatch.
The same thing just happened again with the book, and I almost filed it in the same drawer.
The pitch I already had
Somewhere in the middle of all this I said something out loud without thinking about it:
I grew up in the 90s. The 90s were fantastic. If you like that era and you like superheroes, this is the book for you.
That’s the whole pitch. It’s not a request. Nobody hears help me in that sentence. It’s just a guy telling you about something he made and is proud of.
So here it is.
I wrote a book. It’s called Phase Defiant. It’s a 90s superhero thriller with a clean mouth and a good heart, and I think you’re going to like it.
Thirty people already do.
David Willis 