Jealousy Lessons and Money, the Green Eyed Monsters
Getting vulnerable on main about, well, our perceptions of other people
It’s no secret—literally, I think maybe we all feel this way—that in publishing, we absolutely should NOT spend too much time comparing ourselves to others, but that we will anyway. There is no way to completely avoid feeling jealousy, the sneaky, inevitable, gut-twisting emotion that will attempt to rob us of the joys of any success we find.
There was a time, not so long ago, that I only knew good and nice in the context of words I would circle on a student essay and ask “Can you be more specific? In what way is it good/nice?” But I learned quickly, like most people in trad pub, that those vague words actually DO have specific money meaning in the context of books. Once upon a time I was like wow wow it’s so arbitrary that Publisher’s Marketplace uses these random words, but there’s actually a key in case you don’t know, though if you do already know, it’s possible you have this accidentally tattooed on your brain.
There it is, the key! Some deals leave it out, but in general a range for money is part of announcements, and consequently, some of us (myself included) have wasted time feeling jealous. It doesn’t help that social media captures the best, most polished images of our peers, inundating us with what appears to be photo and video evidence of someone doing a better job than we are doing with all of THIS. The thing about jealousy, though, is that the flip side is always privilege. To be sitting here, safely dreaming and watching others is a gift in itself. But it can be so hard to see that and to feel that when we focus on what other people have that we want.
Here is an embarrassing example that will not make me look particularly noble. Recently, a big name author (whose books I read and loved!) sold something on proposal for what is probably a major deal, with an emphasis on the “and up.” This something is thematically similar (though really vaguely, and I’m sure the stories are nothing alike, especially since that particular one has not been written yet) to a project I have had on sub for over a year.
Have I achieved my wildest dream selling my debut novel? Yes. Did I end up with a deal that made it easier to be flexible for my family? Yep. Have I written literally five other books that I could potentially sell in the future? Also yes. Is it possible that my other book, which I think is quite lovely, will sell eventually? Sure is! But when I saw that exciting news for someone else, all of my feelings of inadequacy and sadness took the wheel. In part this is because every book I write feels like a tiny sliver of my soul. It’s all fiction, and I am never my characters. This is true AND it is still true that every book I’ve written, every book I’ve shelved, and yes, the one I sold, is something I created from scratch. And when you craft a thing lovingly over days and months and years of writing and revising and revising and revising, it’s hard not to feel hurt when it doesn’t line up with what an agent or an editor seeks. So I think it makes a lot of sense to have big feelings when we get those rejections, or sometimes even worse, those ghosts that vanish into the abyss, never to give any closure whatsoever.
I am not one to publicly attack people out of jealousy; I spent too long listening to students who struggle with online bullying for that. But even just internally, I am teaching myself to remember a few things. It’s hard, because my anxiety does want me to believe I should be jealous and that everyone else is doing it better than I am. But walking through a few reminders in my head helps me reframe professional jealousy, and usually makes me feel better. Here’s what I tell myself:
I would not want to write someone else’s story. I wrote the stories I needed to write; they are authentic and important to me. I think they will be important to other people. So even though someone else’s story, for reasons fair or unfair, might be more marketable or successful (whatever that means) at the end of the day, I want to tell my own stories. My heart and soul, all of my wounds, every bit of me NEEDs that.
When I feel sad, or jealous, I can focus on how I felt when I sold. When I signed with an agent. When I typed “the end” for the first time. I can think of any of the MANY times a student has told me they decided they like reading or writing after my class. I can think of when one of my kids brought home a mother’s day worksheet that listed my profession as “writer,” even though sure, he also wrote that I was 20, so his grasp of reality is imaginative, to say the least.
Most importantly, I can find a small, private group of supportive friends who will listen when I have ugly thoughts, and remind me gently to be grateful. I do mean small and I do mean private, because the larger the group gets, the more chance there is that you don’t know someone else’s life, and saying the things out loud might cause harm to people in that group. And my rule for jealousy is that it’s normal, but it should NOT do harm.
I tell myself this last one daily, because for me, it is part of living with depression, but it really works for jealousy, too. Things are better now than they were before. By a lot.
My entire life I have known what it is to be jealous. When I started teaching in 2009 I made about 40k. It was way more than my parents made combined. Sitting in my teacher training, when they explained that homelessness was not just living on the street, but also staying with friends and bouncing around from basement to side room and then sometimes having a place of your own but sometimes not, I had this big, shocking realization that for much of my childhood, I wasn’t just food bank poor, but like, literally what the state of Maryland considered homeless. I told myself it sounded nicer to call it intermittent housing. And I was jealous of kids growing up who had more and jealous of friends who weren’t working multiple jobs in college and jealous of friends who worked jobs that paid them a liveable wage, especially while I was teaching AND working retail AND tutoring to make ends meet. It’s not easy being green, but I’ve been green for a lot of my life. But the thing is, it’s never served me, never refilled my creative well or brought me joy. And the moments where I have, imperfectly, of course, tried NOT to be overwhelmed by jealousy have been so much better.
Anyway, I’m saying all this out loud because we are conditioned to often act like it is ugly and shameful to be poor, and because honestly, I still feel ashamed when I think my roots are showing, like when I open my mouth and my teeth are not rich person teeth, or when I don’t know how to do something people took for granted learning during childhood, or when I haven’t traveled widely despite having one parent who is still a citizen of another country, or sometimes in small, unexpected moments if I have the wrong shoes. That shame is a chip on my shoulder that I am still working on, and that does sometimes make me more angry and reactive than I want to be. So I get it, I really do, when people lash out from a place of jealousy, particularly about money. I know what it is to not have it. It matters, and people who say it doesn’t probably don’t have experience living without it.
But no matter what I personally am going through, no matter what you are going through, the point here is we do not know what someone else is going through. What we see of people online is a small snippet. A shadow cast on the wall of a cave that is but a rough sketch of reality and truth (let me have my nerdy Allegory of the Cave reference I NEED IT OK just be lucky it’s this and not one of the horribly disturbing English teacher short stories that I love so much). Most other people’s lives are not actually as easy as we perceive them to be.
Still, I think most of us in publishing have looked at someone else (especially when that PM email drops, iykyk) and said omg I want their life. Most of us have seen someone’s glowing reel or funny tiktok and thought aw, shucks—I wish that was me looking cute and fabulous with shiny hair and the perfect angle. But I have a much needed empathy breakthrough when I remember how I felt, both in person and online, when people popped out of the woodwork about my publishing journey to say things that I think are jealousy driven, and I get that, but they are still harmful. They still hurt.
Some of the harm has been silly, like the person who told me that if I’d been trying to sell literary fiction, that was an actually hard thing to sell and a “real” book. It’s absurd to tell someone it’s easy to sell romance. Anyone who has actually written and attempted to sell romance knows that it’s super difficult to write a book in which everyone kind of knows the ending. And also, it’s super difficult to sell anything.
But there are some jealousies that are biased, too. Like when people suggest my writing is not really queer because I’m a bisexual married to a man, and my characters are often paired similarly. The toughest is the assumption that I'm rich because I’m half Jewish. It is actually quite antisemitic, as well as MEAN when you know your bank account is in negative and teachers/professors/and peers say things, some thinly veiled and some not, suggesting you are some sort of evil, child killing, money hoarding caricature. If your response to that is to argue that there are *some* people who happen to be Jewish doing bad things, I invite you to really examine that reaction. A person who happens to be a specific race, ethnicity, or other group doing a bad thing does not mean all people who fall into that category are bad. There is a word for that.
So back to the point here. For the love of all that is holy (books, basically), I am going to try not to compare myself to other people too much. Because it hurts my feelings and honestly, I do not want to hurt other people’s feelings unless they are being bigots. Then I still do not wish to be cruel, but I also do not feel responsible for a bigot’s feelings.
And at the end of the day, I think indulging in too much jealousy is bad for me. There’s the adage that anger is an acid that does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything onto which it is poured (Seneca, maybe?). And it’s true! Master Yoda taught me that anger and fear are the path to the dark side, and some days I *do* let that eat away at me when the things I should be mad about (Capitalism! Genocide! The very wealthy cutting their own taxes and polluting the planet!) are right there.
The solution is to just try to keep things in perspective. Moving forward, I’m going to make mistakes and feel jealous, I’m sure. But I’m also going to try to reflect on that, remember why I’m writing, and remember the moments when I did something I’m excited about or proud of. And I really, really hope you do, too. It’s hard enough out there without hurting your own feelings. Be kind to yourself and set those boundaries.
Oh, and a few fun updates. I feel like I need a title for this section, but I’m coming up empty, so here are the things:
I’ll be at Romance Con in Milwaukee at the beginning of September, and even though I am not going as an author, I will be helping my good friend Amber Roberts with her table! I’ll have some stickers and bookmarks for HOPELESSLY TEAVOTED, but more importantly, we have so many fun things planned to celebrate Amber’s books, Haunt Your Heart Out (Coming in October!) and Text Appeal. Stop by her table if you love fun and wonderful writing.
I’ll also be at ApollyCon, but as a reader not an author, in April, so if you’re also going to that and want to catch up, let me know. There are a few other romance festivals I have my eye on going to in 2025, too, so we’ll see.
And finally, I’m working with a professional designer on a website update, and when I tell you these initial sketches are amazing, I am not exaggerating. Get ready for a new, improved audreyruoff.com coming this fall!! It is legitimately magical and I cannot wait to share it.
TREAT YO’ SHELF to what I’ve been reading lately:
OK, so I have been in an intense reading slump, and haven’t read very much in August. So instead, I’m going to give you a list of books coming out in October that I have read and am so excited about, along with a weird one sentence random pitch for each one. After all, it’s August, so it’s pretty much Halloween, don’t you think?
If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens. I’d let her throw a book at my head, too.
Haunt your Heart Out by Amber Roberts. Faking it is only sexy when the “it” is ghosts.
The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski. You will feel as though you are bundled in your favorite sweater, drinking your favorite tea while reading.
Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.
This post is so relateable and amazing — thank you for hating and sharing how you grant yourself grace and perspective.
Also— hope to meet you at Romance Con!
These feelings are very real! And very common!! I've been reflecting on a lot of the same things lately.