The Glimmers You Find While Chasing the Whale

Today’s post is by author Sheila Myers.

Each year I open my 1099 royalty statements with a mix of hope and trepidation. This year I netted $275.00 and my hopes for resurfacing the back patio were dashed. To be fair to me, my latest novel came out in 2022 and my trilogy over a decade ago. I put nothing into marketing last year because I used my book funds to pay editors for works in progress. Like many other creatives, being an author is not my day job. Thank God. But an assurance that the time, money and effort are worth it would be helpful. Sometimes it feels as though I’m “chasing the whale,” locked in my version of Captain Ahab’s obsessive pursuit in Moby Dick.

It seems to me there are three distinct ways in which authors chase the whale.

1. There are those who write series in genres that sell big on Amazon. They know the marketing algorithms to sell to readers who enjoy specific genres on Kindle Unlimited and read books weekly. These authors are going after the ‘whale readers’ and many do well.
2. Others spend considerable resources on marketing, publicists, and influencers, all for that breakout book that will propel them to bestseller status. They seek that elusive whale of a book.
3. Finally, there are authors chasing literary awards and accolades of high caliber. For them, the whale is the Pulitzer, the Pen, the Booker, the Nobel.

Perhaps we creatives float between these camps at various points in our path towards stardom, dabbling in marketing schemes one year and dreaming of literary accolades the next. Quite often, like when I opened up my 1099 tax form, I ask myself: why am I doing this? And then I recall the glimmers.

I was introduced to glimmers during a workshop facilitated by author Pam Houston at the Breadloaf Conference in 2023. She spoke of experiences that stay with you because they make life sharper, sweeter, and meaningful. After describing a glimmer experience she had, she encouraged us to use our own as a writing prompt. It was one of the most productive workshops I’d attended all week. We wrote furiously for an hour about events, people, and moments that shaped our lives. The workshop opened my eyes to the numerous glimmers on my author journey.

Fans are glimmers.

One time I was invited to speak at a rural library in the Adirondacks. The local bookseller came with a load of my books and sold out. While signing, I met people fascinated by the trilogy I wrote about the Durants, a famous family from the region. Then at the end of the evening, the librarian handed me a key to the library. My husband and I would be staying in a room above the book shelves. There were two twin beds rammed against the walls in a spartan room and a kitchenette with a hot pot to boil water for tea. How many people could say they’d slept in a library?

I spent a lot on marketing my last novel, but it didn’t seem to land with readers. However, a few years after publication, I received an email from a fan that had me glowing. A woman had stumbled upon my website while surfing the internet for a person with the same name as me. After reading my profile and how I’d written a novel set near her hometown, she bought it. As she explained in the email, she’d never contacted an author before but felt compelled to tell me, “You have a gift! I hope you keep writing and keep telling stories.”

Conducting research for my novels provided many glimmers.

It took months to track down an 1898 divorce record to the New York City Surrogate Courthouse’s Division of Old Records in Manhattan. When I got there, an archivist plunked the file unceremoniously on the table and said, “Someone really wanted this sealed from the public.” I tried to mask my shock that he even found the record. The shelves in the basement of this 19th-century building overflowed with stacks of manila folders containing historic records of divorce, adoptions and death. Many spilled onto the floor. I figured he had a system. The divorce file was the color of tea. I broke the thrice-waxed seal and carefully unfurled the record. Pages of testimony revealed why the protagonist in my trilogy got divorced.

I blogged for years about my research, which is how an executive from A&E Network discovered me. She asked if I’d consider being a featured guest on the History Channel for a documentary on the Engineering That Built the World. I sensed she was just as surprised as I was by the request. I spent weeks researching what color to wear so that I wouldn’t look washed up on TV. Worried I’d have my facts jumbled, I spent hours combing through my notes.

On a humid summer day, I traveled to New York City. I arrived at the studio with hair flattened by the steam and self-conscious about the blouse I chose to wear. After two hours of taping, they used ten minutes of my interview. I didn’t even get my fifteen minutes of fame. There’s two things I learned from the experience: If I was ever asked to be interviewed on TV again, I’d not worry about color, I’d wear black, and I wouldn’t overthink it.

Accolades glimmer.

The third novel of my trilogy received a regional award for best book of fiction, and I sent it to Kirkus for a review, thinking it would improve the chances of librarians and bookstores taking an interest. It received a starred review. I didn’t know the odds of receiving a starred review in Kirkus, especially for an indie, were only 2–3 percent. Although the novel has fewer than one hundred reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, I can say I’ve got a star.

I’ve found encounters with industry people haven’t improved my status as an author, but I’m grateful for the opportunities. A friend who read my trilogy and thought it would make a good TV series connected me with a former executive at NBC Universal. I was thrilled, anticipating my work appealing to the same audience as Downton Abbey. We jumped on a Zoom call, and he told me frankly because I wasn’t a bestselling author, no one in the entertainment world would adapt my work. “You’re better off writing the pilot yourself and pitching it.”

I signed up for a screenwriting class, bought the screenwriting software, and adapted my trilogy into a pilot episode. I drafted a ‘bible.’ After getting some feedback from a screenwriter I found in an online network, I submitted the pilot to a contest on Coverfly where it placed as a finalist. More confident, I pitched it to a few literary managers. My efforts didn’t land me any deals, but I expanded my writing skills.

In the pre-Covid years, I met an editor from Tor at the Annual Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City. After I pitched my novel, she offered to read it. A month or so later she sent me a rejection letter with constructive feedback and detailed notes on how to improve some of the chapters. She did this without compensation. I appreciate how rare that was and thanked her when the novel was eventually published by a small press.

Writing glimmers include connecting with other authors.

I’ve learned the writing community pays it forward and I’ve always tried to do the same by facilitating writing workshops. The people I’ve interacted with are inspirational and I hope in some small way I’ve encouraged them to continue. The best place to meet fellow authors is at writing retreats and conferences. Every time I attend an event, I learn something new about the publishing industry. Although I don’t write romance, I submitted my current work in progress to the Daphne Du Maurier Award for Excellence in Suspense/Mystery contest and it placed as a finalist. The committee invited me to the awards ceremony at the Romance Writers of America Annual Conference. It was held in Niagara Falls, not far from where I live, so I went.

When I walked into the reception, I felt immediately out of place. Women sauntered about in glittery floor-length gowns. I approached a table where two women wearing Victorian-era costumes sipped cocktails. They told me the authors at the reception were dressed as the characters in their novels. I hadn’t gotten that memo.

Soon after we introduced ourselves, someone sat down next to me clad in a flowy black gown and black lace gloves. She had black lipstick, black nail polish, and black eyeshadow. All the jewelry that she wore was black. I asked her what type of books she wrote. She told me young adult urban dystopian paranormal romance. I nodded as if I knew this genre and congratulated her on placing in her category. When they announced the winners, I came in third, but I got this cool pin etched with a skull clenching the stem of a red rose between its teeth. It sits on my desk as a reminder that although my writing journey has had its ups and downs, the ups keep me going.

Chasing the whale doesn’t appeal to me because I’m convinced there’s a smidgeon of serendipity involved in achieving bestseller status or a breakout novel. Since I haven’t achieved these things, I prefer to reflect on the glimmers. I hope you will too, no matter where you are on your creative voyage.

Sheila Myers

Sheila Myers is an award-winning author and college professor who lives in Upstate New York. When she’s not writing, she likes to venture out into the wilderness, swim in lakes, and make the occasional trip to a cemetery to find inspiration. Human failures and passions are always good starting points for a plot and there is plenty of that to go around. Her latest novel, The Painting, placed as a finalist in the Daphne Du Maurier Award for Mystery and Suspense and will be published by Black Rose Writing publishers June 2026. You can contact her at www.sheilamyers.com or on social media @SheilaMyersAuthor.