Self-published Chatham Author Scores Major Book Deal

by Tim Wood

            After spending a year trying to find a literary agent for her novel on early onset Alzheimer’s, “Still Alice,” Chatham resident Lisa Genova chose to publish the book herself, an avenue more and more authors are taking, and one that traditional publishers and literary agents frown upon.

Chatham resident Lisa Genova, who recently sold her self-published novel “Still Alive” to Simon and Schuster for a six-figure advance. CHRISTOPHER SEUFERT PHOTO

            “I was told not to self-publish” by one literary agent, Genova said during an interview in her home last week.  The agent told her the move will “kill your writing career before it starts.”

            She did it anyway, and spent a year selling the book herself before it began to gain wider attention, including a spot on the Boston’s Fox25 News and a rave review in Beverly Beckham’s Boston Sunday Globe column.  Through another author who had made it into the cloistered publishing world after self-publishing, she got an agent, and less than a week later, after a two-day auction, Simon and Schuster snapped up “Still Alice” for a six-figure advance.

            The novel, which won the 2008 Bronte Prize for excellence in romantic fiction, will be published Jan. 6 with an initial print run of 250,000 copies.  Publishing rights have also been sold in 12 other countries.

            “It’s surreal,” Genova said of the sudden success of the book, her first.  “And it’s so much fun.”

            Getting the attention of a major publisher isn’t easy these days, while print-on-demand technology makes self-publishing easy and relatively inexpensive.  Many authors use self-published books as a calling card, said Cailtin Doggart, co-owner of Where The Sidewalk Ends bookstore in Chatham.

            “It’s really hard to break into publishing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the book doesn’t have merit,” she said, citing “The Lace Reader” as another example of how a self-published book led to a major book deal. Salem author Brunonia Barry sold her novel at auction for $2 million.

            Doggart had faith in Genova’s novel, which was promoted in the store and chosen as its book club pick.  “It was a really captivating book,” she said.  “There was a lot going on in it, not just the memory loss that Alice had, but how her family reacted and many other perspectives.”

            Genova, who has a doctorate in neuroscience, wrote the novel during daily visits to a Starbuck’s in Brookline while her daughter attended school.  The idea of a woman at the top of her game — Alice is a 49-year-old Harvard University professor when she is diagnosed — came to Genova after her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  “It hit our family really hard,” she recalled. At one point, Genova’s aunt mentioned how much harder it would be for a younger person to come down with the disease.  That triggered “the neuroscientist in me,” she said.

            In researching the novel, she made e-mail contact with several people with early onset Alzheimer’s, a description that applies when the sufferer is under 65.  She also spent time with a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and interviewed the chief of neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.  Her doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard helped in her research, she said. She knew who to contact and what questions to ask.

            “It just gave me credibility,” she said. “Every door was open to me. Nobody said no.”

            Recently divorced and between consulting jobs, Genova started to take acting lessons when she decided to write the novel rather than get another job.

            “I felt crazy,” she said of that time. “I was writing at Starbuck’s while my daughter was in school.  I’d just think, what am I doing?”  The writing went quickly, but then she ran into a wall in shopping the book to literary agents.  Some said the public didn’t want to read a novel about Alzheimer’s.  Another told her because of her scientific background, she should be writing nonfiction, not fiction.  Despite the advice of other agents not to self-publish, she decided to do so, encouraged by her husband, Chatham filmmaker Christopher Seufert, who has self-published many books, CDs and videos.

            “He was a big influence,” Genova said. “He just said put it out yourself, you don’t need the traditional publishing machine.”  Newly married, with an eight-year-old daughter and six months pregnant with her second child, Genova followed Seufert’s advice.

            She took on a light schedule of promotion, talking about the book and Alzheimer’s on the Mindy Todd show on Cape’s National Public Radio station, doing a reading at the Harwich Junior Theatre, and speaking at an Alzheimer’s conference in St. Paul, Minn.

            The Boston Globe piece brought a phone call from another self-published author who had gained an agent and sold her book to a major publisher.  “That agent became my agent,” Genova said.  At the same time, the book had found its way into the hands of an executive at Simon and Schuster whose mother had Alzheimer’s.  He called the same day Genova signed with her agent.

            With Simon and Schuster interested, the agent decided to put the book out to bid.  Four publishers were interested, said Genova.  The day of the auction, the phone calls kept coming as the bids went higher.

            “I’m alone in the house with two kids, just dying to tell someone,” Genova said.

            Now Genova find herself as her publisher’s featured author for January, with an east coast book signing tour slated for the same month.

            Between caring for Alena, 8, and nine-month-old Ethan, Genova continues to write a blog for the National Alzheimer’s Association, and will teach a writing class for seniors this fall at the Chatham Community Center.  She’s also working on a second novel, about a woman with unilateral or left neglect, a condition in which brain damages, through stroke or injury, causes a person to no longer understand the concept of “left.”

            Genova said she initially had concerns about moving to Chatham with Seufert.  After all, there’s not a big market here for her skills as a biotech or pharmaceutical industry consultant.  But with the support of her family, the local bookstores and the community, she’s found a niche.

            “I live on Cape Cod,” she said, “and I’m a writer.”

9/18/08