We all know it’s coming. The day Northwestern hands you a diploma and kicks you out into the real world where you won’t know what to do with yourself. John Lacombe, now 28, didn’t seem to have that problem. The Northwestern grad is a self-published fiction writer with a growing fan base. With a sequel in the works, he seems well on his way to an established career.
Lacombe (Medill ‘02) published his first novel through Authorhouse, a self-publishing company that will list your work on Amazon.com. His novel has received 17 customer reviews on Amazon thus far — all five stars — which shows a more than promising start for Lacombe’s future in the writing industry.
Lacombe always knew that he wanted to write, and his pursuit of journalism was driven by the writing more than any other aspect. While he felt Medill was a good fit throughout college, he began to realize that he didn’t have the desire to write articles and conduct interviews as much as he enjoyed the writing itself. Thinking he wanted to become a sports writer, Lacombe entered the magazine track, but after graduation, he decided to try fiction instead. “I saw that for other people it was chasing the story, finding the leads, for them it was reporting the news,” Lacombe said. “For me, it was more about the writing. I really value everything Medill did for me…but by the time I graduated, I knew novel writing was what I wanted.”
After graduating, he moved to North Carolina for three and a half years where he spent his time working and trying to conceptualize his first novel. After a few years of brainstorming and constructing a solid plot, he realized that if he pulled ideas from different places rather than working in order, he could envision a novel worth writing. With the book finalized in his mind, Lacombe moved out to California for one and a half years and finally finished writing his first novel, Winter Games.
Winter Games is an international thriller about Tim Sutton, an average guy who gets caught up in a cross-country search for his brother that eventually takes him to North Korea. Sutton interacts with many dynamic characters on his search, including a mysterious and dangerous woman named Sarah. One of Lacombe’s main writing goals was to propel people through his book, which he accomplishes with the occasional cliffhanger and the gradual unraveling of mysteries.
“The thriller genre appeals to me because I like being able to end a chapter in such a way that [readers] immediately want to dive into the next chapter,” Lacombe said. “All mysteries are revealed at the end. This isn’t like Lost. No Sopranos ending where everything goes to black.”
Lacombe quickly learned that publishing is a long process that requires an agent. “You hear a lot about the cliché of people saying, ‘I sent my manuscript off to 50 places, and my efforts weren’t returned.’ Well, that’s blind effort,” Lacombe said. “If you mail your book yourself off to 50 publishing companies, it’s going to go to 50 piles, and that’s if it’s the best written book ever. Publishing decisions are made through handshakes by people who know each other, and that’s the importance of an agent.”
Through the help of family connections, he managed to find an agent who sent his manuscript around to many different companies. Due to his agent’s credit, it received a lot of looks, but Lacombe found himself in a difficult situation — as a young writer without any established background, companies just weren’t willing to take a chance. He received a lot of letters praising his work and offering to take another look once he had more “books under his belt.” Lacombe knew that publishing companies were risk-averse to begin with, especially on writers without a guaranteed audience — something young writers are going to encounter in today’s market, especially considering the economic downturn.
Lacombe, really believing he had a good book that people would read, made the decision to self-publish. “I could have sent it out to another round and waited a long time, or I could self-publish it and put it onto myself to get it out there and make a name for myself,” said Lacombe.
Northwestern students might notice that Lacombe’s protagonist has a familiar name. “I started writing the book when Tyrell Sutton was a senior in high school, and Sutton may have been where I got the last name of my protagonist,” Lacombe said. “I can’t say for certain what made me choose that name, and I look back and go, I think [Northwestern] may have signed him then.”
Of course, sports has always been an important part of Lacombe’s life — five of his top ten Northwestern memories involve football. He was also involved with WNUR and sports broadcast, which gave him the opportunity to travel with the football team. On one occasion, he remembers standing next to Plaxico Burress when he played for Michigan State. “If you want to go to one of the top academic institutions in the nation, and you want to watch big time football while you’re there, we’re number one,” said Lacombe.
Currently, Lacombe is about a quarter of the way through the sequel to Winter Games and with spring around the corner, he should be making good progress since “it’s not football season.” He continues to travel and self-promote his book, having sold sold many copies person-to-person around the country. Although he would like to be published in the future, he’s working on increasing his readership first.
“I really want to feel like the amount of people who read the first book is not a number that’s going to show up and vanish,” Lacombe said. “I’m building an audience.”