The Paris Syndrome of publishing your first book

When real life slams into your fairytale vision

My first book is released in ONE WEEK!! The Inclusion Journey is officially out on 3rd August, and is available to pre-order now. My author copy has just been delivered and it has my name on the cover and everything. Seven-year-old Allegra, who used to make books in her bedroom and fill them with stories about a heroic cat (best not to ask) is properly losing her shit right now!

Amongst all the pre-launch excitement, I came across this stat:

54% of authors said their experience of publishing their debut book negatively affected their mental health.¹

Source: The Bookseller

I mean, that’s not good. In The Bookseller’s survey, only 22% of authors said that their debut publishing experience was a positive one overall. Yikes.

So why is publishing a book such a negative thing? And then how come so many people are still near killing themselves for the chance to do it?

To explain, I’d like to take you to Paris. Via Japan. Come with me on a journey…

But first… While we’re on the subject of professional writing, I will admit that it is intense and demanding work, and it pays peanuts. Why do we do it to ourselves? I’ll cover that in this essay. But if you’d like to support The Gathering and the work I put into it, as either a free or paid subscriber, it would mean the world.

Paris Syndrome

The Japanese Embassy in Paris allegedly has a team dedicated to supporting Japanese tourists suffering from a very specific form of culture shock. In popular culture in Japan, Paris is held up as an idyllic and highly desirable destination, and many young Japanese people grow up dreaming of one day being able to make the trip.

Except, when they get there, it isn’t quite what they were expecting.

Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash

I love Paris - it’s one of my favourite cities in the world, and I’ve been lucky enough to visit a number of times. But it’s far from perfect. I live in the UK - it’s a relatively cheap, and short, hop over. When I was lobbying to move to Paris, my husband even tried to convince me that you can see France from our home on the south coast (you can’t, he’s full of shit). For Japanese visitors, though, it’s an incredibly expensive and long journey. They invest a huge amount of money and effort to arrive in a city where the river smells, the people are rude, the language is (to a Japanese ear) fairly impenetrable, and cultural norms are very far from familiar.

For some, the experience is so unsettling that it causes symptoms including depression, dizziness, nausea, increased heart rate and even hallucinations. This has been termed “Paris Syndrome”. Around 20 Japanese tourists are diagnosed each year, and some have even been admitted to psychiatric clinics for treatment.

Paris and publishing

What does all this have to do with writing a book?

I think the experience of publishing might produce a similar effect as travelling to Paris. For most authors, this is something we have dreamed of since we were small children. Not unlike young Japanese people, growing up watching TV shows and movies set in Paris and imagining themselves one day walking the beautiful sunlit streets, we have pictured ourselves publishing our book to great acclaim and living the “writerly life” we’ve seen idealised in the media.

Writing a book is HARD. It takes a huge amount of work for a long amount of time. It is the most sustained effort I have put into anything, ever. And no one pays you, as a first-time author, to sit and do that writing. Once you’ve built up some initial success and a name for yourself, you might be able to attract an advance from a publisher, which means you see some money upfront. But when it’s your first time on the merry-go-round, you don’t see a penny until after you’ve sweat blood to write the whole thing. For fiction authors, you have to do ALL the writing before you even know if anyone will ever publish it. At least as a non-fiction author you can be accepted by a publisher on the strength of your proposal (and maybe some sample chapters) alone, so while you’re writing you do know that this will one day become a book. And that is a big help, trust me. But even then, since you’re not being paid to do this, you have to fit it in around stuff that you can get paid for so that you can still have a roof over your head while you write.

You don’t have to do a degree in creative writing or take any of the many pricey courses that are out there in order to write a book, but most of us will invest in developing our writing skills in some way. Whether it’s courses, membership platforms (I highly recommend Writers’ HQ - founder

Sarah Lewis

is here on the ‘Stack), working with a mentor like

Claire Venus

or

Sarah Fay | Writers at Work

, using tools to build our audience or working with PR experts like

Lucy Werner

, or buying many, many books on the art of writing, when you add it all up, aspiring authors put a fair chunk of money into their craft. Then there’s the fact that most writers are voracious readers in general, and every book you read, not just ones that are about writing, teaches you valuable lessons that you can take into your own work. When you add up the money I have spent on books alone over the years, that must easily cover the cost of a return plane ticket from Tokyo to Paris.

All the while that we are flogging ourselves half to death and spending every penny we have in pursuit of this goal, we romanticise it more and more in our minds. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle - the more pain you put in, the better you want to believe the end result will be in order to make it all worth it. So our dreams of authorhood get bigger and bigger. We practice our award acceptance speeches, we consider what stories from our childhoods we will tell in interviews, and we look at author photos trying to work out the best pose to strike when our time comes.

Then, finally, after struggling and getting knocked back and trying again and again and again, one day, we hold in our hands a book with our own name on the cover. And it’s just… not exactly what we expected.

Me. Writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been beside myself with giddiness since my book arrived. You might have seen the video of my copy arriving, and me skipping around like a loon while my six-year-old daughter exclaims, “It’s not that exciting, it’s only a book.” Thanks, babe. That was the moment it felt real, and I suddenly did get a thrill that had been conspicuously absent up until that point. I kept waiting for the, “oh my goodness, I’m a published author, all my dreams have come true” feeling, and then wondering why it wasn’t coming. These are some of the reasons that I personally think that emotion was a little flat:

1. You have to do a lot of the work yourself. I think many of us assume that, once we sign with a traditional publisher, we’ll be whisked off on book tours, introduced to all of the world’s media, and generally given the royal treatment. Nope. Think of the publisher as someone who has sponsored the typesetting and printing of your book (the most expensive elements, if you were going to take on the task of publishing yourself). You still need to do a lot of the rest. A great deal of the admin will be yours, including finding people to endorse your book - all those quotes from famous people raving about the book that you see on the back cover and the inside pages? Yeah, you have to track those people down yourself. Unless you’re an A-lister already, you’ll probably be organising your own book launch events. The lion’s share of the marketing will be down to you. I’ve filled in more spreadsheets over the last couple of months than I’m strictly comfortable with. It’s just nowhere near as glam as you might be expecting.

2. Not that many people are going to read it. Apparently, in the world of business books, selling 500 copies will make ours a best seller. What?! So… we’re not expecting to sell hundreds of thousands, then? On the plus side, 500 feels achievable… doesn’t it? Surely we can do that…

3. Writing books pays peanuts. Closely related is the fact that you don’t make much money from writing a book. I loved doing it, I want to do it again, but the amount of money that we will make is in no way commensurate with the amount of time and effort we put into it. Which means it’s unlikely I’ll be giving up the day job to spend all my time writing books any day soon, however much that might remain the dream. Most authors still have day jobs or other ways to make money, because they cannot rely on writing books as a single source of income if they want to actually be, you know, dry.

4. Hello imposter syndrome, my old friend. I have spent a staggering amount of time minimising this accomplishment. “It’s only a business book.” “I only co-authored it.” “Oh it was easy, it was only writing down the work we do all day anyway.” Why do I keep saying the word “only” in relation to my own book so much? I wrote a frickin’ book. People that I massively respect have called it “essential reading” and “game-changing”. It is a bloody good book, and it’s about an important topic (how we can make the world of work better for everyone so that individuals and businesses can reach their full potential and thrive doing it). Why am I unable to own that achievement?! There’s a whole load of therapy required to unpick that one…

So why do we do it?

Ok, so, writing books is incredibly hard work, with very little in the way of tangible reward, and publishing triggers no end of deep-rooted personal traumas. So why on Earth would anyone want to do it?

Apparently 52% of British people would like to write a book,² and 81% of Americans believe they have a book in them.³ I don’t know how many of those people are labouring under the kind of misapprehensions that encourage those Japanese students to hoard their pennies in the hope of one day being able to buy that plane ticket, but given that the internet now exists surely most people have a reasonable idea of what they’re getting themselves into? Sure, when surveyed, lots of people say they’d like to write a book, but how many of them actually get down to it?

Me working on the first round of edits for The Inclusion Journey.

I don’t believe that most people choose to be writers for the fame or fortune. I think they probably understand that there will be far less wistful staring out of the windows of cafes than the movies would have us believe. I don’t even think they’re expecting much in the way of appreciation. I think most writers put pen to paper simply because they can’t not. Being a writer isn’t just the act of writing, it’s the need and the drive to write. It’s a compulsion to try to communicate, to put your thoughts, feelings, insights into words that someone else might understand.

If we can detach ourselves from any idealised notions of what being a writer means, we can lean into that writing for the sake of writing. This can have huge therapeutic benefits - writing is great for our mental health, and studies have shown it can even benefit physical health. Publishing might have its drawbacks, but we’re not really here for that - that’s just mechanics. We’re here for the writing, and we need to remember that.

How to not get Paris-Book Syndrome

For the record, my experience of publishing a book has been broadly positive. I certainly wouldn’t say it’s negatively affected my mental health. I would do it again - I plan to do it again.

That said, I’m now writing another book, which I’m serialising on

Substack

. With We Have Gathered Here Before, I’ve taken matters into my own hands. It’s a very different experience to be in complete control of the project, and it helps to not have as many expectations as traditional publishing might bring. The publishing industry has been slow to evolve and adapt, which means it’s losing out to digital technologies, and it doesn’t seem to have figured out how to support authors in the best way possible. If it doesn’t get a handle on these things soon, more writers might decide to use alternative routes to get their words out to their audiences. Time will tell.

But if you still want to go down the traditional publishing road (and I have to admit, it does feel cool to have a publisher back you), then these are my top tips for not getting the book equivalent of Paris Syndrome.

Connect with community

I am lucky to have co-authored The Inclusion Journey with my amazing business partner,

Mo Kanjilal Williams

. Writing with someone, and then going through the publishing journey with them, has made a huge difference to the experience. We’ve got each other, and we can laugh about all the weird stuff that comes up and tackle all the challenges together.

Mo and I having finally finished the book.

Not everyone has a co-author, though, and it’s hard to go find one. So find community wherever you can. Join a platform like Writers’ HQ, or

Beth Kempton

’s Soul Circle. Go to writerly events and connect to other bleary-eyed people who stay up until ridiculous times of night jabbing at their laptop as their chosen hobby. Mo and I have a WhatsApp group with another friend who has also been writing a book, and that space to share frustrations and cheer each other on is so valuable for lifting our spirits.

I joined a Soul Circle session with

Beth Kempton

recently, and she led a beautiful visualisation where we imagined all writers around the world connected by a golden thread. I’ve been holding on to this image as I struggle to find time to write and drag myself to my computer or my notebook feeling exhausted and drained. There are so many of us, all in this together. It might not be glamorous and celebrated, but it is beautiful and powerful, and there is so much energy in us as a collective.

Start with non-fiction

If you possibly can, I really recommend making your first book a non-fiction book. I’ve been trying to write a novel for… I think about 13 years. It’s tough. Even if I finish it, I don’t know if anyone will ever want to publish it. I’m going to have to go through the torment of finding an agent before I can even put myself through the rejections from actual publishers. It’s a big old process.

Non-fiction is much easier. You don’t need an agent. You can get a publishing deal without a manuscript. Sometimes just a proposal will do (although some publishers will want to see sample chapters). Mo and I managed to get a publishing deal with neither of those things - the publisher approached us because we were already writing about this topic. It’s just all so much less stressful.

Then, once you’ve published a non-fiction book, getting an agent and a publisher for fiction is so much easier because you’ve already got a proven track record. Even though it’s a different type of book, the fact that you’ve managed to deliver a finished manuscript gets you serious points and helps you get attention. Especially if the book sold well.

Talk to other authors

Take whatever opportunities you can find to listen to published authors talking about their genuine experiences. Hearing about what it’s really like will help you to recalibrate your expectations. It also helps you to form that community that I mentioned before, and connect to those people who will cheer you on. They might even introduce you to their agent.

Focus on your why

If you’re trying to write a book for the money or the fame, chuck your manuscript in the bin right now and take up a more relaxing hobby. Like firewalking or skydiving. Maybe just take yourself on a nice holiday or something. Writing is almost certainly not going to make you rich or famous, so get the hours back for yourself.

As I said, most of us write because we have to. So focus on that. Focus on the act of writing. Think about why you want to write this book - what is it you’re trying to communicate? What do you want to tell the world? Who are you writing for? What message do you want to give them, and why do they need to hear it? What difference will that make to them or to others?

If you’re writing because you love it, and because what you want to say matters to you, then it won’t matter how the publishing experience unfolds because you got what you wanted out of writing that book.

Enjoy the process

And, if you’re writing because you love it, you can just enjoy the writing. Stop worrying about the publishing, about the reception, the reviews, any of it. All of that will come, and it might be amazing or it might be a bit meh, but that’s just the machine at work. The thing that matters is the writing of the book. Your crafting of your words. You putting your message out there.

As you know, if you’re a regular here, I’m passionate about the power of creativity for wellbeing. And if you engage with the writing process as a tool in itself - to express yourself, to discover insights into yourself and the wider world, to connect with others - then writing your book will be a magical, maybe even transformative, experience.

It also makes it much easier to promote your book, and make sure people actually do read it, when you feel passionate about what you’ve put into it.

It’s a cliche to say it’s the journey not the destination (especially when I’m in the midst of releasing a book called The Inclusion Journey), but it really is true. The more you can enjoy the journey of writing your book, the more willing and able you will be to embrace whatever comes once your book moves out of your hands and into the wider world.

Launch party in Paris, anyone?

The Inclusion Journey, your practical guide to developing, implementing and measuring a workplace diversity and inclusion strategy, is now available to pre-order from Amazon, Waterstone’s, WH Smith, Kogan Page publishers, and many other retailers. It will be available everywhere from 3rd August 2024.

We Have Gathered Here Before, an exploration of the history and future of women’s gatherings, how female connection has been fractured and how rebuilding those bonds could transform the world, can be read on Substack, with new chapters released each month.

1. https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2023/08/09/dream-job-or-psychological-nightmare/#:~:text=More%20than%20half%20of%20the,reported%20a%20positive%20experience%20overall.

2. https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/arts-and-culture/study-shows-over-half-of-brits-would-like-to-write-a-book-845052

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/opinion/think-you-have-a-book-in-you-think-again.html