Novelist Andrew Gross shares path to success at 2018 Southern Voices Festival

If at first you don’t succeed, get noticed by blockbuster novelist James Patterson.

It worked for Andrew Gross, who found himself unemployed after 20 years in the women’s and sports apparel business and decided to try his hand at writing a novel.

Gross, the Friday night keynote speaker at the Southern Voices Festival at the Hoover Public Library, shared with a packed audience in the Hoover Library Theatre how he went from a life on the skids to a life atop the New York Times bestseller list after meeting Patterson.

Gross said he never gave a thought to a career in writing when he was in college. After getting his master’s degree in business administration, Gross said he went to work in his family’s successful women’s apparel business in New York but at some point clashed with those in power and found himself outside the family firm.

He then became a specialist at turning around struggling companies in the sports apparel business, but he had a downfall with a struggling Canadian skiwear company and lost his job, he said.

“I was beaten. I had left too much blood on the field. I was burnt out,” he said.

He told his wife he wanted to take a year off and write a novel and knew they were financially fit enough to do that, he said. She agreed, but three years later, he still couldn’t find an agent to take his book and he was bringing in no revenue to supplement her income as a yoga teacher, he said.

Suddenly, two agents took an interest in his book. It was promoted but rejected by 26 publishers, he said. “My life hit the skids. I had no idea what the next step in life was.”

Then, out of the blue, someone asked him if he could take a call from Patterson. Patterson was not yet the literary rock star he is today, but he was a successful published author, and Gross was eager to meet with him.

Gross said someone had told Patterson that Gross was good at writing about female characters, and Patterson wanted to collaborate with him on a book idea. Together, they wrote “First To Die,” which climbed to No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, Patterson’s first book to reach that high.

Gross said his name did not appear anywhere on or in that first book, but he was OK with that because he was just happy to be well-paid and be working in the writing field. The next two books he wrote with Patterson, his name was on the cover but in very fine print, and then in the final two books he wrote with Patterson, they had equal billing, he said.

While Gross was waiting on Patterson to send him another outline for a book, he came up with an idea for a book of his own, pitched it and immediately had four publicists bidding on it, he said. That book, “The Blue Zone,” made it to No. 10 on the New York Times bestseller list and sold in close to 30 countries, he said.

Harper Collins went on to sign him for eight more books before the first one even went to paperback, he said. All the books, which he described as suburban thrillers with everyman heroes, went on to be bestsellers.

Gross then switched gears and began writing historically-based novels and has completed three of them, two of which have been published.

“You have to keep evolving,” he said. “You have to keep writing things that inspire you and not just other people.”

After his talk Friday night, one audience member asked Gross what sustained him through all the trials he has gone through as a writer. Gross said his business background helped him not get too emotional about setbacks.

“I was goal-oriented. I always sort of envisioned where I wanted to be and carved out a path to get to that,” Gross said. “I never let disappointment crush me. It hurts and it still stings if you get a bad review, … but you never want that to interfere with the path you are on.”

That said, “if Patterson didn’t call me, I don’t’ think that I’d be in this business,” Gross said. “I’d be stuffing Christmas baskets in Williamstown, Massachusetts.”

Nancy Dorman-Hickson, a freelance writer from Riverchase who formerly worked for Southern Living and Progressive Farmer magazines, said she was impressed with Gross’ talk.

“He was delightful. He was funny. He was informative. He was personable,” she said. She was especially impressed that Gross was able to give such a speech just three weeks after undergoing heart surgery. And it was a bonus that he’s a good-looking guy who resembles Christopher Reeves, she said.

Gross originally was not scheduled as the keynote speaker for this year's Southern Voices Festival. The original headliner, Steve Berry, was unable to come due to the flu, so Gross agreed Thursday to fill in for Berry.

Joe Snoe, a retired law professor from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University who is trying to get his first novel published, listened to Gross’ talk tonight and said he could relate to the struggles Gross went through early on.

He’s at the stage now where it’s hard to even get his manuscript read, he said, and he was encouraged after listening to Gross’ talk. “But I don’t have James Patterson looking at my work, and I don’t have a wife that supports me,” he said.

Tonight was the fourth night of the Southern Voices Festival.

The event began Tuesday with a reception showcasing the photography of The Do Good Fund, a public charity based in Columbus, Georgia, that since 2012 has been building a museum-quality collection of photographs taken in the American South since World War II. The collection includes works by more than a dozen Guggenheim Fellows, as well as images by lesser-known, emerging photographers in the region.

The Hoover Public Library is featuring some of the photographs in the gallery outside the Library Theatre and in the hallway gallery leading to the Library Plaza.

Then on Wednesday and Thursday nights, a musical group called The Roosevelts performed in the Library Theatre.

The festival concludes Saturday with an authors conference featuring talks by Gross, Paula McLain, Taylor Brown, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Lisa Ko, Daren Wang, Stephanie Powell Watts and Lisa Wingate. However, the authors conference is sold out.

Read more about the other authors speaking Saturday at the Southern Voices Festival here.

See hundreds of photos from the 2018 Southern Voices Festival by photographer Lance Shores here.