For many years now, I have been trying to find a publisher for my memoir, BE A MAN: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys. This is definitely not the first time I’ve been in this situation, as I’ve never had the good fortune of developing a long-term relationship with a single publisher. The longer I’m around this business, the more I realize that there are very few of us who ever do develop that kind of relationship, so I’m not complaining. In fact, it has often served as a motivation for me. I know I can never assume anything, so it basically forces me to keep going after it. Keep working.
But I just recently had an interesting epiphany, which is that during this process of trying to find someone to take an interest in this book, I’ve gone through the five stages of grief, except in the complete reverse direction. It went something like this:
So first, here are the five stages of grief as laid out by grief experts, I guess. I have no idea where they came from, but that’s irrelevant. 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) . Depression, and 5) Acceptance.
And now, here’ s a brief summary of what I’ve experienced with this process:
Acceptance: So when I first started sending out query letters for this memoir, I got a few small nibbles, but no substantial interest. I have published seven books now, and all of them have made money for the publishers. With a few minor exceptions, I have gotten good reviews. And some would say I’ve developed a solid following in the publishing world. So I found it a little bit confusing that nobody was even willing to read this book. Most of these letters went completely unanswered. But I’ve been around the publishing world long enough to know that much of this is completely random. It’s really just a matter of finding the right person at the right time. It’s happened to me every time I’ve found someone to publish my books. So for quite a few years, I sat very comfortably in the mindset that it was just a matter of time. It would eventually happen. I was accepting.
Depression: But….the longer this went on, the more I began to wonder whether I’ve completely lost whatever talent I had for telling a story. I even began to think that possibly I never was a good writer to begin with, but I’d just gotten lucky enough to find people to publish my books anyway. This was an extremely depressing thought. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s still lingering a bit, although for the most part, I know it’s not true. I know that the part of my brain that is telling me this is lying. After all, I’ve read enough books to know that talent has very little to do with getting published. But for a while, this stage took me down a pretty dark hole. Until…
Bargaining: Until I finally realized that every time I’ve found someone to publish one of my books, it was during a time when I was being aggressive about getting it out into the world. I was doing the footwork. I was writing to agents, publishers, friends, asking for help and advice. So I started doing that again. I humbled myself and admitted to people who just assumed that someone like me wouldn’t have any problem finding a publisher that I was struggling. That I was getting no interest whatsoever, even though almost everyone I told about this book said something to the effect of “Oh, I can’t wait to read that. we need a book like that in today’s world.” I kept thinking “Yes! I agree! That’s why I’m writing the damn thing.” Still, crickets. Until….
Anger: A few years ago, I thought I finally had the big break I needed. A friend of mine hooked me up with her agent, who agreed to represent me. We signed a contract, and I was so excited and motivated that I not only finished a draft of the memoir, but I finished a draft of a novel I was working on as well. Over the course of a few months, I sent both of these manuscripts to my new agent. And…I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. Every few months, I would send a very apologetic email asking when I might expect some kind of feedback from her. Oh, she was always so sorry. But I was getting closer to the top of her pile. Any day now. This went on for two years. Two years, and as far as I know, she never read either of these manuscripts.
Yeah, that’s when the anger kicked in. it’s hard to imagine another profession where you can have twenty years of established experience, positive reviews, a built in audience, and have people treat you with such a lack of respect. I was really angry. And I realized something very important toward the end of those two years, which is that I’m sick and tired of sucking up to people who treat me this way. I had spent my entire career being very careful not to offend the people who had that kind of control over what happens with my work, and it had gotten me nowhere. After finally firing this agent, and getting two incredibly rude and dismissive rejection letters from publishers, I finally listened to my friend Allen Morris Jones, who has been kind enough to publish two of my books, but who has stepped away from publishing other peoples’ work to focus on his own writing. “Publish it yourself!” he told me. “You have a huge following. You can sell way more books just doing it on your own anyway, and you’ll get to keep all of the profits.”
Of course I had been considering that option for years, but the argument against it has always been that self-published books don’t get the same respect in the world of reviews and bookstores as those published by established publishers. It’s a legitimate concern, but at this point, after at least ten years of working on this memoir, I really can’t afford to wait any longer. And like Allen said, I have enough of a following to sell some books. The number no longer matters that much to me. I’ve managed to carve out a living doing what I love, and I feel very fortunate for that. This will give me one more little nudge in that direction.
So that leaves Denial: And here’s the beauty of denial. I have no idea what I’m in denial about, but when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, here are some advance notices about BE A MAN, from some of my favorite writers:
Savvy author and journalist Russell Rowland's revealing memoir BE A MAN belongs on the shelf of anyone of any gender who cares about the culture of "the West" and how that now impacts Americans everywhere. Rowland reveals truths and terrors behind the myths Americans are fed by movies and TV, myths and consequences that have impacted our lives in this 21st Century. This is a personal as well as a political and cultural exposure of how we all ended up where we are now, all told with Rowland's honest, savvy, critical yet loving eye."
James Grady, Montana native & creator of movie and TV's CONDOR spy sagas. The sequel to his critically-praised 2024 Montana-based novel THE SMOKE IN OUR EYES is publishing in 2025 as AMERICAN SKY.
Russell Rowland’s new book is a searching and sweeping narrative of what it means to become a man in the American West, where his own story of growing up there runs alongside the complicated history of his home state, Montana. Russell reveals how far from Western mythos being raised there can be, but also how much of manhood is coded by those same myths, ones that contribute to the broken manhood of “our mountain men, our Unabomber, or our body-slamming Congressman, and producing art that reflects the same old stereotypes.” Be A Man: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys is art with a new angle, an invigorating vision for what it means to be a real man in the real west rather than play one on TV or for political theater. Russell offers a tonic masculinity born of grappling with the hard and beautiful truths of what it means to grow up a real man in the real West. It’s a potent vision for “another new West,” one with immeasurable benefits for all of us.
Bridget Quinn, author of Broad Strokes and Portrait of a Woman
Russell Rowland’s courageous self-anatomy exposes the baleful consequences of tight-lipped stoicism, the fallout from traditions of blind perseverance, in Be A Man. That nuanced title opens itself to seemingly endless ironies that play, in variations, across Rowland’s childhood, adolescence, and earlier adulthood. Through it all, Rowland, who gradually discovers his identity as a writer and accepts his fraught legacy, pleads for a much broader definition of masculinity, particularly masculinity in Montana as reflected in a tragic history of noxious cliches. As he insists, to be a man also means to embrace and even celebrate a rich emotional life and language, one that depends upon self-reflection, risk-taking, exposure, and speech.
—O. Alan Weltzien, author of Savage West: The Life and Fiction of Thomas Savage
Growing up on the East Coast, everyone I knew dreamed of “the West.” In this fascinating and vulnerable book, Russell Rowland tells us what it means to truly live in the West, laying bare all the myths and exploring the damage those myths have done, especially to boys and men, although not exclusively to them. Be A Man sheds light on the root causes of the state’s high suicide rates, and the impact of alcoholism on such isolated land. Despite the beauty, Rowland describes the harsh work it takes to live in such a wide open, rural space. This mythic landscape comes at a cost, and Rowland shows us how easily one can be lost there, especially an artistic, sensitive child. This poignant memoir is raw and vulnerable, revealing the cost of living a life defined by the idea that a western man is a man of strength and stoicism above all else.
Mary Jane Nealon, author of Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life
The five stages of grief were introduced by Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying,[12] and was inspired by her work with terminally ill patients.
Yes. It’s a mean old world. Listen to T-Bone Walker.
https://youtu.be/M_ZDGFBKbBM