Ouch

Here's an article from today's salon.com about an author's book debut getting rained on by another project that appeared a few months earlier on an unexpectedly similar topic, a couple's life with an impossible dog.

The author, Lee Harrington, starts with her pre-publication fantasies of A-list interviews, book signings and royalties...but before that could happen, this other memoir of a couple and their unruly dog was released, got rave reviews and prime display space, and is selling briskly.

I admit it's a painful read--I stopped mid-article to blog this--and I'm not even planning to write about dogs. (I haven't read either book.) But the possiblity is certainly there for all your hard work, ideas and planning to be undercut by the upstart, the freak doppelganger, the flashy new girl who appears in class out of nowhere to make the rest of us look like pathetic wannabes, hopelessly derivative, so five minutes ago.

Nothing to do but let it go...meanwhile Harrington's upcoming novel is scheduled for release next year.