I didn’t have that money, of course. I’d been living on it, as the publisher had intended me to, for years. A few months earlier, I’d been hoping to repay my parents for their loan. Now I was in the hole with them and one of the biggest publishers in the world. In 2012, I became one of a dozen authors Penguin sued for failing to deliver manuscripts. Most were far more established than I was. The lawsuits sent waves of panic through the industry. Even though mine was for the most money, it came half a year later than the others, and so, mercifully, it didn’t make the papers. That was one
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