For every Jonathan Franzen and James McBride, for every John Grisham and Stephen King, there are a thousand Jacob Hubbards: Writers who aren’t on The New York Times bestseller list, who don’t win the PEN/Faulkner award, who aren’t offered six-figure advances from Big Five publishers, or see their books reviewed in The Wall Street Journal. Jacob Hubbard wasn’t on the list of speakers at the Printers Row Lit Fest. Rather, he was sitting with his girlfriend at a table in front of Dearborn Station, hoping a few passersby would buy a copy of his self-published novel, Sounds of Yesterday. He’d flown all the way from San Diego and paid $400 for a table just to sell his book to a few Chicagoans. He’d printed up a poster, bookmarks, a Q&A sheet and a list of songs mentioned in the book. He wasn’t expecting to make any money off the trip. He just wanted what every beginning novelist wants: exposure. Chicago was the latest stop on a nationwide tour that has also included Tucson, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. So far, he said proudly, Sounds of Yesterday has sold 110 copies.
“It’s a break-up story told from the perspective of an autistic man,” explained Hubbard, a burly, bearded 36-year-old in a “Portal to the Cat Dimension” t-shirt. “It’s a relationship story told from the perspective of an autistic person looking at loss through a neuro-divergent perspective.”
Hubbard, who is autistic himself, published the book under his own Celestial Seaside imprint.
“I basically decided to do the indie route because I wanted to keep it authentic myself,” he said. “I know a lot of publishers shy away from neuro-divergence.”
By one o’clock on Saturday, Hubbard had sold three books. He looked hopefully at everyone who slowed down to check out his poster, and even more hopefully at those who stopped to take a bookmark.
“I definitely wish you the best of luck,” said one potential customer. At a book fair, that translates to, “I’m not buying your book.”
“Good luck to you, too,” said Hubbard, trying to be friendly, trying to sell himself.
Hubbard, whose day job is teaching business writing at San Diego State University, wasn’t expecting to sell enough books to pay for the table, the flight to Chicago, and the AirBnB in Pilsen.
“Because it’s my first book, I’m expecting to sell it at a loss,” he explained. “As I write books and get my name out there, the profit will come in.”
Finally, a young woman stopped at Hubbard’s table and turned a copy of the book over in her hands.
“This book seems interesting,” she said. “Can I get a copy?”
“It’s all based on lived experiences,” Hubbard said. He took the woman’s debit card and swiped it through a Square reader, the cash register of every do-it-yourself author.
“What’s your name?” Hubbard asked, uncapping a Sharpie to inscribe the book.
“I go by Ann a lot. No ‘e.’”
Hubbard was selling his books for $17.99. He has them printed on demand by Ingram Spark. Between the printing and shipping, the price just covers his costs. He also paid $3,000 for a narrator to read an audio book. He’s sold 20 of those so far. The money will come later, once he writes more books, once he gets his name out into the publishing world, he tells himself.
Hubbard had never completed a novel before he wrote Sound of Yesteryear. He’d tried three or four times before, but never made it to the end. He was inspired to write this book by a breakup with a woman. All great art is born of pain, the saying goes.
“I started off writing to process things, to grieve,” he explained. “It turned into a therapy session about my whole childhood. I was in special education. That affected how I saw myself. It’s shame and internalized ableism. A lot of people, when they see a neuro-divergent worldview, when they see heartbreak and trauma and grief, they can relate to it. A lot of neuro-divergent people tend to like this. They’re really excited about this book. This is giving voice to a perspective not seen in today’s media. There’s a Netflix show called Atypical, about an autistic kid navigating high school. Personally, it’s not for me.”
Hubbard is already 30,000 words into his second novel. He doesn’t want to give away too much about it, but “it’s going to have the main character of Sounds of Yesterday’s dad. It is something that takes place in a genre. It’s ’60s, ’80s magical realism.”
Hubbard brought 28 copies of Sounds of Yesterday to the Printers Row Lit Fest and sold 20 of them, so he was happy with how the weekend turned out. The next stops on his tour are the Louisville Book Festival in October and the Miami Book Fair in November. If you were one of the 20 readers who bought Sounds of Yesterday, you got a signed first edition by a first-time author who’s just getting his career off the ground. Who knows, it might be worth more than $17.99 someday.