Sara Davidson Discusses the "Narrows" that lead to the "Leap"... and her ongoing fight to get it recognized

Poetic justice was in the air last night at Sara Davidson's book signing at Dutton’s Bookstore in Brentwood, California. Davidson thoughtfully chronicled her years of age-related abandonment by the "Hollywood" establishment and much of the publishing world. An appreciative audience included friends, fans and family (including the father of her children, and her mother) -- the people in her life who never deserted her.

For those of you unfamiliar with either Davidson or her book, she was an accomplished writer who encountered the perfect storm of middle age--sagging interest in her work, the sudden ending of a relationship with her partner of seven years, and her children heading off to college. She was without purpose, work and immediate family. It wasn't from a lack of desire; while she felt that she was actually at the peak of her powers, the problem was that no one cared.

With few alternatives she started writing about her predicament which turned into a book project that she poured herself into for the next several years. The publication of Leap! lead to this evening’s appearance.

This sounds like a formulaic Hollywood movie: after years of rejection, an out of work writer pens the best book of her life, a major publisher gets behind the project, and the result is a blockbuster and success for all. Almost immediately, however, Davidson dispels this notion.

Her journey, she notes, did not end with the book deal or even with its release. While commenting that the two years writing the book were some of the most pleasurable in her life, getting the deal and then working to insure that it is noticed has been anything but fairytale.

Much has changed in the publishing world since Davidson wrote the minor classic "Loose Change" several decades ago. After turning in "Leap," she learned that the publisher’s marketing department -- made up of people much younger than her and her intended audience -- was already discouraged by the lack of interest from the nation's big book chains. The tepid response from the major retailers led to a very small publishing commitment of 9,000 books and a correspondingly small & uninspired marketing plan. At this point she was told point blank by her publisher that "baby boomers only buy one or two books a year and this wouldn’t be one of them."***

Davidson reasoned that if she spent several years writing Leap!, why not spend another six months promoting it, and set out to publicize the book on her own. She set up a website for the book and then emailed friends and friends of friends, begging them to pre-order the book from Amazon. This campaign led to pre-orders of 2,000 copies on Amazon alone.

She then suggested sending an advance copy to Newsweek to see if they would run an excerpt. The response she got was that Newsweek "doesn’t run excerpts" and that they didn't have contacts there anyway. She showed that the former wasn’t true and resolved the latter by doing a little detective work herself.

Newsweek seemed a perfect fit for the book since the magazine runs a regular feature on baby boomers called "The Boomer Files." She contacted and pitched the Boomer Files' editor herself. Newsweek loved the project. They also gave important feedback to Davidson, emphasizing that they felt her concept of the "narrows" would best resonate with their readers.

Quick changes were made to the book to reflect this focus. Leap! was on the cover of Newsweek in January.

Because of the Newsweek feature and the other work that Davidson was doing, the print commitment was increased to 30,000 books. Davidson considers this a significant improvement but in today's publishing world it is still not enough to be noticed.

So Davidson is out stumping for the book. If the fifty or so people who were at Dutton’s is any indication, her book has hit a previously undiscovered nerve. One person in the audience asked her if she "felt like a leader for baby boomers who, in this time of war and divisiveness, are leaderless." She said no, suggesting instead someone like Tom Hayden, but she was clearly honored by the comment.

Davidson still faces a huge uphill battle in getting attention. She noted the Los Angeles Times, her old home town paper no less, rejected her for their “Festival of Books” despite them asking her to judge a future event.

During her talk, which also included her reading her first chapter in its entirety, Davidson proactively addressed one criticism that has been leveled at the book, which was the reliance on Hollywood celebrities for illustrating her story. Might "the narrows" simply be something that Hollywood types go through? Does it have any relevance outside that clique?

Davidson's response is that the way she used celebrities' stories dispels the myth that the rich and famous don’t have these issues. Anyone reading the book, she notes, will realize they do have the same issues as the rest of us.

At one point she asked the crowd what they’d do "if they found out that they only had two days to live?" After someone responded about being with family in nature, the question was redirected back to her. Without missing a beat she quipped "I’d take notes, because I am a journalist at heart."

In that one sentence we learned so much about her and how painful it must have been facing those years of rejection. It was more than just an issue of putting bread on the table; the world was rejecting the very essence of her being.

But her passion for writing also saved her. By falling back on her love of writing she literally wrote herself out of her own "narrows." That might be her most important message. Passion doesn't go away as one ages, and while others might ignore your passion, it is in fact this passion that is the key to surviving your own "narrows."

Amazon: Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?

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***[Note: Baby Boomers do in fact buy more books than younger generations, a fact that is easily discernible both by common sense and looking at sales data.]

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