Mastering the Flop

Maybe being overly honest is needed.

Disclaimer: I wrote most of this during the melancholic months of winter.

I’ve had a couples months to let it sit. To really hit my core. I didn’t even need that much time, to be honest. I knew before release day.

I had written not one, but two flops.

No author wants to admit it. I don’t even want to right now. It’s probably an ego thing. Maybe it’s pride. Or the fact that nothing is entirely dead until it’s out of print. I mean, things randomly go viral these days. Hundred year old books and self-published books which had no life find ways to breathe out of thin air. It’s miracle work, really. But to find a miracle, well, I guess it’s all part of the process.

Imagine this: it’s 2024. You’re coming off two decent releases for a mid-list author. Because of some ill-advised deals you signed, you haven’t been able to publish when you were hot, and had to wait 2+ years to get more work out. You finally make your way out of that. You have two new books coming out this calendar year. It’ll be a great year to be an author, you think. 2024 will be the year you finally make it.

June rolls around, Oaths comes out. You think because your third book two years back had the best release of your career, that this would be no different. You go onto sell 177 copies week one. Okay, not bad. This is still what I dreamed of way back then. September comes now, and you have another book coming out. You’ve marketed, made deals with bookstores to speak, the whole shebang. You go to bookscan and see how many sold week one—28. In the year since, Oaths hovers around 10-30 copies a week sold. Prayers, 1-10.

I think the moment that hit me hardest was when I was at a Barnes & Nobles anniversary signing on Black Friday, an hour away from home. I had four of my books splayed out in front of me at the front of the store, and customers were asking me where the bathroom was. I don’t think I was angry, but I did cry a bit on the drive over to stuff my face in pastries. (Sook Pastry, I love you)(I did sell seven books, and I’m grateful to those that stopped by and talked to me).

It’s hard not to be critical of yourself. Maybe I’m overly critical. I was raised that way. I wrack my brain with everything that went wrong with Oaths and Prayers. How I could have made those releases stronger. From last June onwards, I was in low place, from an author standpoint and as a person. From being less than 500 sales away from the NYT Best Sellers List in 2021 to this is a steep fall.

You might be wondering what “to this” is. I don’t even know at times. It’s been over a year since my books came out in 2024 and my life is still filled with many, many blessings. I struggle with thinking of them. I got another deal for a book I’ll probably talk about in another post. I sold the rights for my first ever poetry book, Euphoria, to one of my favorite publishers. I’m in an MFA program, and while it wasn’t my dream program, an MFA is an MFA.

I’d like to think I’m a spiritual person, oftentimes religious. I think of gods plan a lot—whatever’s meant for me is meant for me and whatever isn’t, isn’t. I like to think of impending disasters that’d occur if I went with the other choice. That if I got into NYU/Rutgers for my MFA instead of the college I’m at now, I’d probably be hit by a runaway subway, or bit by a feral rat, or worse, be at mercy to NJTransit. That if Oaths/Prayers did well last year, I’d die young and horribly, far from ever achieving my full potential. I don’t know. It eases the pain a bit, makes me feel a little better over life happenstance.

It’s a taboo topic for authors to admit that they flopped. I’ve met many that say, “I can never sell at all and I’d never say I’m a flop.” And thats fine. Whatever helps ease the overwhelming buzzing for the lack of sales. At the end of it, it’s really just finding the best way to cope with what was out of our control. We did what we could, made our book to the best of our ability. Is it truly our (the creators) fault if it didn’t do well? Or the publishing overlords for not putting their best foot forward as well?

Now begs the question: how did I master the flop? Besides wallowing to Yusra during that time, I tried to remember the common saying, that a creatives career dies when they give up. Yea, cliche, I know. But it helps thinking that I’m twenty-nine, and still have some ways to go with my work. Yea, at the moment, my best work was out when I was 24, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always remain my best work. As long as I keep on creating, I feel like i can inevitably create something I, and the whole world can love. That when I’m forty or fifty, these flops can be a blip in my overall life. Oh, my fourth and fifth books didn’t do well? Who cares, my twelfth one did.

Another thing I did was try to accept the outcome. My therapist might’ve been exhausted of me during this time, but she was right. I controlled everything the best of my ability. I hired the best cover designers, illustrators, I personally believe Prayers has some of my favorite poems in them. But this is what we signed up for, no? To be at mercy to readers and reviewers and bookstores. I put my best foot forward. She was right about that, and whoever picks those flops up will see the difference between my last books and even these ones. I just had to sit with it and really take it in, to realize I did what i could, and sometimes, that’s enough, you know?

Truth be told, publishing is a long game. It’s always been one. Yea, here and there someone will pop up and be a NYT Best Seller immediately and then fall off the face of the earth, but for the rest of us, we stay working. Its normal. Especially these days, when most authors are choosing to self-publish and we’re just trying to get out our art out into the world, not to be a best seller, but for the love of the game. Sure, money is nice and gathering an audience is too, but reframing intentions is also good—that if I’m writing for a quick buck, I should find a more sustainable job ASAP.

I look around me. I’m twenty-nine. Most authors who I look up to and are really successful in this industry are in their mid-thirties, early forties. Yea, things didn’t work out for me in 2024, but that also doesn’t mean they won’t work out in 2025 and beyond. Life can change in a heartbeat, and I’m not banking on that happening. I’m just finding love in creation again, for me. And if something great comes with it, so be it.