From Claustrophobia to Empowerment: Why Hybrid Publishing Became My Path

A Stern Vow and Unexpected Opportunities

In my twenties, when I was beginning a successful IT career, I also remained dedicated to the creative goals I had dreamed of since childhood. I created a high bar for myself, resolving: I won’t have a child until I have published a book. 

No lengthy thought process went into this decision. It arrived as a simple vow that felt completely right. Consequently, I lived through my twenties never entertaining the idea of having kids, because I was not writing and I was not making any effort to realize my author dream. 

Then an orange fell into my turban (as we Danes say to describe unexpected good luck). A friend of a friend, an editor at a small publisher, was seeking “talent” to write middle-grade books. The publisher had a working relationship with Scholastic and pitched book concepts to them a couple of times a year. When Scholastic approved a concept, the publisher signed a contract to produce it with the expectation that it would be sold at Scholastic book fairs around the US. The editor asked me to send some writing samples along the lines of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. Pleased with this sudden opportunity, I wrote a few horror stories and sent them.

The editor liked my stories and was making plans to use them in an upcoming book, but then the US market went sour on horror stories for children. The publisher abandoned their plans for this genre. Instead, they proposed that I write the first book in a middle-grade adventure trilogy featuring two brothers and their female friend. 

The Claustrophobia of Writing on Commission

Writing this book was not a pleasant process. Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was doing. Being a super reader doesn’t make you an author. While I may have a knack for writing, I’d never educated myself with reading, classes, or workshops in skills such as how to compose a novel or build characters. Although aware of my novice background, the editor didn’t provide any feedback or helpful suggestions, so I felt unsure what, if anything, they wanted me to change. 

Moreover, all my questions about how, when, and where the book would be published—standard questions for a new author—were ignored. The spare communications I did receive were always difficult and sometimes impossible to decipher. The situation left me feeling like a herring netted by fishermen. 

After much uncertainty, Rafters was published, though at certain intervals I had wondered whether that would even happen. A very claustrophobic experience for someone who usually doesn’t have any fears of confinement. 

This publishing process, where my creative output would end up as merchandise, was rooted in an utter lack of transparency and co-creation—the collaborative process where diverse perspectives merge into one; something I quietly sought.

No, thank you. I declined the publisher’s offer to write the sequel, but I did permit them to use my name for the second book.

Repeating the Lesson: Seeking Traditional Publishing for My Memoir 

Fast forward a couple of decades. By 2023, I had finished a memoir, developed a marketing plan with a professional, and signed with an agent, as I intended to publish this book traditionally. I had no expectations that this experience would be a repeat of my past. Nonetheless, despite working with supportive professionals, the process of trying to sell my book to publishers felt equally restrictive and difficult. 

The support team (marketing consultant and agent) and I attempted to guesstimate favorable swings in the public discourse and shrink-wrapped my book accordingly to convince a publisher that it deserved to be published. In this obscure marketing game, where the rules always changed and I could never tell if I was winning or losing, I was leaving too many decisions in the hands of others. It felt like I was giving away too much of my book.   

Where was the joy, the thrill, the healthy pride about this book I’d poured my heart into? This was not what my writing career was about, I thought. I realized then that traditional publishing was not right for me. 

Finding a Home in Hybrid Publishing

What is right for me, then? As soon as I asked myself this question, the answer arrived: I wanted to work with a team well-versed in the industry, ready with guidance and support, while I retained control of rights and a say in the back-end tasks, such as the cover design process, required to bring a memoir to market.

Not long after this realization, several people brought my attention to She Writes Press. I spoke with Brooke Warner, publisher of SWP, and found reassuring transparency, the candid sharing of the business of publishing books that I’d been looking for. In this hybrid approach,  the support of a traditional publisher merged with the freedom of being an indie author.  Moreover, the contract gave me the option to terminate our relationship with fair warning, a safety valve important to many authors. I could breathe in this arrangement.

It was a simple decision to sign with She Writes Press, and my memoir Soul-Happy: A Viking Woman’s Long Road Home will be launched on March 24, 2026. The book has just gone to the printer, and now I am in waiting mode, anticipating that big day I’ve pictured for many years.

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Anette Nilsson is the author of Rafters (Lowell House), a children’s chapter book, and Soul-Happy, her memoir, which is forthcoming from She Writes Press in March 2026. She has a dual degree in political science and criminology from the University of Toronto and studied for an MA in education at Queens College, CUNY. She founded a tech consulting firm in Minneapolis and taught both IT and English. She was raised in Denmark and spent most of her adult life in Toronto and New York. It is her vice to want to move to each new place she visits. Anette now splits her time between Denmark and Port Washington, New York.

Soul-Happy: A Viking Woman’s Long Road Home

A must-read for the millions who suffer from chronic illness, Soul-Happy is an inspiring and poetic account of navigating away from shame and life-threatening disease and into redemption and grace through a commitment to hard truths and unconditional love.

Nette Nilsson has big dreams and is in the midst of pursuing them—starting by leaving Denmark to attend university in Toronto, Canada—when she falls for a beguiling but volatile American. Their romance moves fast, and in what seems like no time she finds herself living a privileged but deeply unhappy life in New York with her now-husband, Cal. After suffering for too long, she finally begins to find her way onto a better path—only to be abruptly faced with a life-threatening physical condition. To survive and to heal, Nette must confront dark family lies and her hidden traumas and find her own power again.

In an era of increasing awareness regarding how many strong, intelligent women ignore their gut and lose themselves—and the lives they dream of having—when they become entangled with toxic men, Soul-Happy illuminates the underlying reasons for one promising young woman’s downhill slide after she falls for “the wrong kind of love,” and follows her harrowing battle to put herself back together again.

BUY HERE

 

 

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