If You Write a Book That Nobody Reads, Are You Really a Writer?
By Guest | September 18, 2017 |
Please welcome author Susan Wolfe to WU today!
Susan is a lawyer with a B.A. from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Stanford University. After four years of practicing law full time, she stepped out and wrote the best-selling novel, The Last Billable Hour, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She returned to law for another sixteen years, first as a criminal defense attorney and then as an in-house lawyer for Silicon Valley high-tech companies.
Escape Velocity is her second novel.
Born and raised in San Bernardino, California, she now lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband.
Learn more about Susan and her books on her website, and by following her on Facebook and Twitter.
If You Write a Book That Nobody Reads, Are You Really a Writer?
Most writers start every story with the hope of writing either a blockbuster or a story that transforms readers’ lives. Very few books meet those high expectations. When our readership falls far short of our dreams, what if anything keeps us writing? Should we try to dial our hopes back? Should we go look for a different way to make an impact? If a tree falls in the forest, how many people need to hear it for the tree to have really fallen?
I wrote my second book, a legal thriller called Escape Velocity, with high expectations. I left the practice of law and invested five years to make it the book I really wanted. I decided to self-publish (St. Martin’s published my first book but turned this one down.) When an agent told me I needed to sell 10,000 copies in order to get a traditional publisher even to look at my third book, I locked on that number as my goal. My first book sold more than 100,000 copies almost 20 years ago, so no problem, right?
Wrong. So very wrong.
Almost a year after publication, despite winning the 2017 IPPY gold medal in suspense/thriller, getting a starred Publishers Weekly review and some other kudos, I have sold fewer than 500 books. Let’s call it failure to launch.
Never mind what happened. I have now accepted that my launch has failed and very few people are going to read this book.
So what do I do now? I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how writing is really about the process and the artistry, and I know there are writers who never try to get their work published: Emily Dickinson, whose best poems were discovered by her sister only after her death, or J.D. Salinger after the publication of Catcher in the Rye. But I personally think the whole point of fiction is to communicate something too complicated to be told with dry exposition. If nobody reads the book, where’s the communication?
If nobody reads my book, am I even a writer?
This isn’t an idle question for me. After almost a year of increasingly frantic and futile efforts to sell my book (which shockingly involves quite a few things I don’t particularly feel like doing) I have now spent another six months grinding on the question of whether to write a third book at all. I won’t pretend it’s been a happy exploration.
Am I an idiot to expect any different outcome with my next book? And if I expect the same outcome next time, am I an idiot to write it? I’ve made a few lists.
Georgia is an avid paralegal by day and a masterful con artist by night, using increasingly bold gambits designed to salvage her company. Then she steps into the shadow of a real crime and must decide: Will she risk her job, the roof over her sister’s head, and perhaps her very soul?
- I’ve made lists of other things I can do (with law, with charity, with community service) that would be a lot more likely to have an impact.
- I’ve looked at many definitions of “writer” and come up with mine: A writer is a person who is seriously engaged in discovering and telling a story with the best tools s/he can bring to the problem.
If it’s possible to do that without believing you’re going to have an audience (Salinger! Dickinson!) then you are perhaps the highest and purest form of writer alive. I salute you. But as you now know, that isn’t me.
I was a writer by my definition when I wrote Escape Velocity. Can I be a writer again?
Now we’re talking about motivation, so
- I’ve made lists of what motivates me to write:
- The prospect of engaging a reader. Boom, there it is, right at the top. Interestingly enough, the “failure to launch” hasn’t affected my confidence in my writing in general or my book in particular. One reason is that the rare people who do read my book seem to like it. Take for example this message I just got through my web site:
I am a retired attorney and avid reader. I took a chance on Last Billable Hour and loved it. I’m now loving Escape Velocity. Keep writing—you are as good as the best.
Obviously a person of taste and insight.
- Imagining scenes and then listening to my characters talk to each other is the way my mind most likes to work. There is almost nothing better than getting a scene exactly right.
- I think great writing is the highest and best form of human endeavor. I think a great writer is as important to humanity as a great statesman. Mediocre writing, not so much. But if I don’t try, I surely won’t succeed.
Not long ago a fellow lawyer named Jack listened to me through most of a long lunch and then said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking about so hard here. You’re not going to make the decision not to write another book. You can’t. Writing is what you do. So even if you decide now not to write another book, the question will be back four months from now and again eight months from now, until you write another book. So I say cut the agonizing and get on with it.”
Hm.
Fast-Forward
After six months, I am indeed writing my third book. I have a plot and four characters (one of whom just underwent quite a character change). I’m not sure I ever reached a coherent conclusion about why I’m writing, but here’s what I can say:
I think this is a good story and I want to see if I can tell it. I hope to do it justice. I think maybe I can.
I finally discovered that, although I very much want to find my audience, I’m pretty much the same person without one. My failure to launch doesn’t seem to have diminished me at all. I cannot tell you how liberating this is. In fact, I encourage all of you to go out and fail miserably at something right away.
Writing is what I do. Jack said so.
P.S. After completing this essay, my ace new publicist arranged for Escape Velocity to have a BookBub promotion, and I just sold 4,200 books in a week. Maybe, just maybe, this is enough exposure to get some word-of-mouth publicity going. And if it doesn’t, what’s so magic about 10,000? Maybe it only takes 4,200 people hearing a tree fall in the forest for it really to have fallen. Maybe it takes fewer than that.
Are you thinking too hard about some aspect of your writing? Have you pushed through a similar challenge and felt liberated by a revelation? We’d love to hear your stories in comments.
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Welcome Susan. I liked the advice your friend gave to you–to write the book regardless whether you think you’re a writer or not because writing is what you do. And I liked your advice to fail spectacularly.
Of course, I’ve often wondered whether this is all worth it, and I’m still here, so I know I do. If I knew I had only 6 months to live, I’d still be writing. But I’d go a step further and stop censoring myself and also self publish the book that’s been revised and polished. It’s the best I can do.
All the best with sales of the second book and your writing.
Hi Vijaya,
Thanks for your message. I appreciate the good wishes for my sales and my writing.
It sounds like you currently have a book that’s been revised and polished. If so, I wonder if you will take your own advice and self publish it, even without waiting for your last six months of life. Connecting with readers can be pretty gratifying, even if there aren’t a lot of them, I happen to know.
In any case, I’m glad you enjoy the process so much. I do, too.
Kind regards,
A, ditto re Vijaya & your friend
B, the best advertising for your current books is to write & release another — you may not hit the 10k mark in the first year with this but you well may over the next years and each time someone new finds & likes one of your books you’ve got more there for them to discover. You may find your success over a longer haul, but will it be any the less sweet?
Hi Alea,
This is very good advice, and writing a new book is a lot more fun that some of the stuff I’ve done to market this one. My publicist has given me the very same advice.
Kind regards,
Welcome, Susan. We all ask ourselves this, probably many times. The answer: Keep writing. Of course.
Hi Dana,
You sound a lot more confident than I have been. But I have now come down in the same place. It was boring not to write. I’m pretty excited about my new project.
Thanks for writing, and good luck with your own work.
You write: “If it’s possible to [be a writer] without believing you’re going to have an audience … then you are perhaps the highest and purest form of writer alive.”
Cordwainer Smith wrote, in the prologue to his short-story collection “Space Lords,” “These stories are for us– for me who wrote them, because I loved them, for you who are looking at them.” Already accomplished in his “day jobs,” already wealthy enough to say “I do all-right,” already a Hugo-winning SciFi author, he wrote in his off-hours purely because he loved to, as the website his daughter now runs attests to.
The highest and purest form of writer? Maybe. I like his work, but that’s not what I took from his prologue. I took that the audience he considered important was himself, and he shared his stories only because he loved them and thought others might too.
Like Smith, I’ve enough accomplishments in my day jobs to support my ego (tho not as much as him), and I do all right. Like him, I love the stories I’m writing. I love re-reading them, love tuning the odd sentence here and there as I do, a luxury he probably did not have back in the typewriter days.
Half-done at 250K words, my stories (one story, but with scores of stories within) may never be read by anyone outside my wife and friends. That’s not my intention, but if it happens, it happens. It won’t take away anything from the joy I’ve found in writing, or the positive changes writing has made in my life.
Guess I’m lucky that way, but I don’t feel like the “highest and purest form of writer alive.” I’m just having fun.
Hi Skip,
It sounds like you are in a fine place with your writing and your expectations, and I applaud you for that. I do think it helps cushion your ego to have succeeded with something else – at least theoretically. My friend who is purely a writer says she needs to succeed with writing more than I do, because it’s all she has.
I’m not sure that theory worked too well for me, though. I have been a successful lawyer, but I care about my writing more. In any case, my failure to launch was like a fist in the face I had to work through. It doesn’t sound like you will have that issue, and that is wonderful. Good luck with your stories!
Thank you. I had a long career in engineering, my first love, before changing careers to patent lawyer, where my gray hair is an asset instead of a liability.
And I work remotely, so writing is a dangerous addiction: write or generate billable hours? I’m sure you must have faced that temptation as well, I envy you for no longer having it. :)
For many years I was a full-time lawyer raising two little girls and trying to write my second book. My mantra was Baby, Book, Law; Baby, Book, Law. I could never make it work. So in the end I quit being a lawyer in order to write. When life interferes with our writing, we need to cross our fingers and hope that life is long. We can do it all, just maybe not all at once.
It sounds like you have also found a way to do it all.
Two quotes inspire me when I wonder when/whether the outstanding proposals or the WIP will sell:
“Never underestimate the value to the universe of the fully realized life.” Joseph Campbell
“You owe it to us all to get on with what you’re good at.” W.H. Auden.
Go write. And I’ll do the same.
Hi Leslie,
I love these quotes! The Campbell one in particular, and the Auden quote sounds a lot like my friend Jack.
Thank you for sharing these, and okay. I’ll go write if you will.
Kind regards,
Hi Susan, and welcome to WU. Thank you for this thought-provoking and super timely post.
First of all, love Jack. At one point, particularly deviled by the notion that I didn’t yet have a book deal (I was on year 7 of submission for what would become my debut), I convinced myself to believe I was on the right path, and not question what I was doing for one full year. I almost did it, too—doubted myself only two times. But yes, this was so very freeing. I received an offer of representation the very next year. Coincidence?
I think real writers can write for themselves, but if you want your work to fit within the large realm of literary art (and here I use the term to encompass a broad range of commercial and literary work), it’s a different story. Art is not just expression; it’s a communion between the artist’s expression and the viewer’s life experience. I think artists, even the most introverted, are yearning to reach out and communicate with an audience that can complete their work. I love, for instance, going to book clubs where someone will have a completely different way of looking at a situation that I authored, and characters I devised! It’s a thrill above all others.
It bothers me that the market seems so glutted. It bothers me that advances are now so low and coffee prices so high. It bothers me that we have to give away so much of our work just to be noticed, leaving me feel a little more like a whore than a valued contributor to our culture. But if to get beyond all that I have to be the last woman standing, stand I shall. See you there.
Hi Kathryn,
So many good points here. I also love going to book groups to discuss my book. It’s probably my favorite way to interact with my readers, and somebody always has a different take from mine.
Year 7 of submission?? You are a hero! I often think of Paul Harding, the author of Tinkers, a book I love. It took him ten years to find a publisher and then he won the Pulitzer Prize. I wish he were on this site with us and would tell us what that experience was like for him. I’m just so glad he persisted.
Thanks for message, and I hope you will always love writing!
I haven’t yet published and so haven’t experienced the disappointments you speak of — and to be honest, I’m not in a rush, I think because I’m afraid of that potential disappointment. But I love writing so much I can’t imagine ever not doing yet — I really hope I always feel this way!
Hi Mary Kate,
The last thing I’d want my essay to do is discourage anybody from publishing! Although I’ve tried to be candid about my disappointments, finding my audience is what completes the writing process for me.No need to be in a rush, but do get your work out there when it’s ready. I promise you can survive any disappointment and come out stronger – I did. And of course you may have a whopping success!
In the meantime, happy writing! It’s amazing how gratifying it can be, isn’t it?
my ace new publicist arranged for Escape Velocity to have a BookBub promotion
Congratulations – but if that’s what it takes, I hope the return on your financial investment – publicist plus BookBub cost – is positive. Is your previous book still available – and will it continue to be?
Self-publishing can be slower to take off, but backlist in place when a new book hits the public eye is supposed to give you the long tail which makes it worthwhile.
With publishing yourself, that’s supposed to remain, whereas in traditional publishing it doesn’t always.
I’m in the middle of writing book 2 in a trilogy, so I’m always interested in stories like yours.
Best of luck!
Hi Alicia,
Congratulations on being well underway with the second book in your trilogy!
Your points are good ones. Yes, my first book is still available. In fact, we did a BookBub promotion with it to remind my long ago readers that they like my writing style, and I do think it helped.
Doing paid publicity is a dicey business at best. The BookBub promotions have been cash positive, but I tried a few other things that weren’t. My advice is to never spend money on publicity that you can’t afford to lose.
I wish you great success with your trilogy. Thanks for taking the time to write your message.
I love your honesty & really appreciate this post. I had my first novel published by Random House (though it was NOT a bestseller) and I could not sell my second. My agent gave up on it. I felt like a failure for many years, but the failure eventually became liberating. I wrote a third novel (which is still not ready for prime time, but getting there). Ultimately, my 2nd book was picked up by a small indie press (i.e., no money) because I decided to keep sending it out on my own. It’ll be published in 2018 & I need to figure out a way to get it to readers. I don’t know what BookBub is, but I’d love to hear about your ace publicist and how she helped you sell so many books in one week. Thanks again!
Hi Laura,
Thank you very much for your message. Our stories sound pretty similar, don’t they?
Failure becomes liberating! I would never have predicted it, but it has been very liberating for me. I’m sure that makes less than no sense to somebody who hasn’t experienced it . . .
And you are the second person today to have found success by persisting with getting a publisher. That is pretty heartening to a lot of us, I’m sure.
BookBub is a subscription service that a reader can sign up for, indicating the type(s) of books s/he wants to read. Then when there is an eBook sale for a book in the selected category, BookBub blasts the notice out to its millions of subscribers. It appears to me to be an unbelievably effective marketing tool for authors, although you have to apply and get your book chosen for the promotion. (That’s where the ace publicist comes in.)
If you’d like to contact me via my web site when you’re ready to start promoting your second book, I will be happy to share what little I know about the process.
Kind regards,
Every writer needs a friend like Jack!
I know! I’m so lucky!
I have been through an achingly similar circle of thoughts the last year or so as I try to decide the best publishing path for book #4. Agree with your conclusion: the writing is what really matters, and it’s what we’ll do regardless. Audience/schmaudience… at least in theory. :)
Hi Carol,
Congratulations on being at book #4.
I’m sorry you’re struggling with these issues because I know it’s difficult to stay motivated. After all, it’s not like somebody’s calling every day demanding our new book. (That’s what did happen at my law jobs, and there were problems, but motivation wasn’t one of them.)
I’m not sure either of us thinks “Audience/schmaudience” exactly. It sounds like we both want readers to feel engaged by our work. It’s just that there’s no way of knowing ahead of time whether we’ll find them or not. I know my second book is fully as good as my first one, so why the different result? I think that’s the point where we decide the future cannot be known and just get on with it.
I hope you find the right publishing path for Book #4. I hope it is a big success that makes the first three fly off the shelves as well. And I wish you great fun writing Book #5.
Great essay! Thanks for sharing your moments of doubt. I think most of us can relate and it does help to remember why we’re putting ourselves through this.
Because we have to. Damn it.
Exactly. We have to. I came across this quote by George Orwell recently:
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not riven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
Happy sick days to us all!
I’m a self-pubber to the core! I have sometimes questioned myself about why write if no one is going to read it? But it does come down to enjoying the journey (and I’m not one for enjoying journeys). But you’ll never know if the present book will ever be that block-buster unless you write it. Books saved in your head or on your personal hard drive are guaranteed to never be block-busters. So there’s that.
Hi Scarlett,
“But you’ll never know if the present book will ever be that block-buster unless you write it.”
Yes, write it and then put it out there. I agree. The trick is to keep from getting your feet knocked out from under you if the sales/readership is disappointing. I think a factor for me was that the unexpected success of my first book created unduly high expectations for my second book. Modest expectations can be helpful in all this.
I hope your present effort will be the blockbuster!
Kind regards,
What an inspirational, authentic essay. I’m 29 years out of getting my J.D. and never used it. At least law school gave me my husband of almost 29 years. This year I finished first draft of novel one and started a draft of second book. Felt overwhelmed at fixing the first so decided to work on something new. As far as your question, I laughed. Made me think of a college intro Psychology course. When asked to evaluate our weaknesses my reply: I think too much. Will look for Escape Velocity and help put you over the top
Hi Jamie,
Very interesting strategy to draft a second book and let the first one “rest.” Maybe after a few months you will see clearly what you want to change when you edit the first one.
Thank you for taking the time to write. And if you do read Escape Velocity, I hope you love it.
Good luck with both of your books.
Hi Susan,
I really liked what you said about having a good story and hoping you can do it justice. Do you think that having other people read your writing is important to the process of getting that story across? Or is it more related to making a book salable? I guess I ask because that might influence whether a writer shows their work in its early form or only when it’s near completion. Thanks!
Hi Rachel,
You pose a very interesting question, and the answer might be different for different writers. On the one hand, I think feedback from readers whose opinion you trust is invaluable. I am in a 3-person writing group, and they have gone over my work chapter by chapter and given me real insight into whether I am conveying what I intend to convey. (Shockingly, I sometimes am not!)
On the other hand, I worry that showing my work to somebody else prematurely can distract me from my own vision. I need to let my vision simmer and evolve in its early stages, and input would be a serious distraction.
I guess I would ideally write at least enough of a draft (100 pages or so?) to be confident that I have the narrator’s voice and the characters’ personalities pretty well set before I show the draft to anybody else. And I definitely think a person could decide s/he needs a complete draft before getting input.
My response is entirely about getting the story right and not about making the book salable. Even though I want people to buy my books, I don’t think it’s great to try to guess what makes them salable. The truth is most of us are mystified by what makes a book salable, so we’re stuck with just writing the best book we can.
Good luck with your writing.
Hi Susan,
I’ve had long years of publication frustration, and my husband used to say: You can quit any time. Somehow that was liberating (even the 800th time he said it). But like you, I love to write. When it is going well, there’s nothing better on earth.
I was told I would never get another traditional publishing deal (my 1st novel was also published by St. Martin’s) if I self-published, but I self-published anyway – and then I got a traditional publishing deal for my next book. The publishing world is changing so fast. I think now more than ever it’s important for us writers to stay flexible.
Congrats on your BookBub success!
Martha
Thanks for your message. Very encouraging to hear about your traditional publishing deal following your self-published book. And very encouraging to hear that you persisted through your hard times and found success.
Hope the new book – Underground River, I believe? – gets all the success it deserves. It’s a fine story with a great heroine.
Glad to hear that you’re writing a new book, Susan. And congratulations on your BookBub success!
Thank you, Frances. At the moment my big job is to keep to my daily writing schedule, which is the only way the new book gets written.
Kind regards,
Susan, Thank you for your honesty. It is wonderful and refreshing and encouraging.I really like your definition of a writer. We all need to keep on, keeping on. Belief in our stories is the first step out of a kazillion.
Hi Carol,
I decided if I was going to tackle this subject it needed to be heartfelt. I am happy if that came through.
And glad you like my definition. I probably read about 30 other definitions before I decided to come up with my own.
Good luck with your writing.
It all depends on where you come from. You have had two books published. One from a major publishing house. Do you now how many writers only wish they could say that? Your writing was noticed, liked, and published to acclaims. You got the real prize of validation. You have gone where few have been trying to get. That should really stay with you more than your failure to launch. I love your honesty and your article inspired me today. I wish you all the luck in writing and completing your third novel. You know you have what it takes…you just need to keep doing it.
Hi Elizabeth, and thank you for this very kind message. I must say, it’s pretty much what my husband and daughter have said many times. I just haven’t always been able to hear it. Confidence and motivation can be elusive. You can’t make yourself have either one, and I had to realize that I was fine in spite of my failure to launch in order to get back on my feet.
I hope you have the confidence and motivation to do your best work. I hope you enjoy your writing, and wish you real success as you define it.
Thanks again and kind regards,
Hi Susan –
As I tell all the writers in my life – writing the book is about being a writer. Selling the book is about being a marketer. You can be the best writer in the world but, in our current disrupted publishing paradigm, that doesn’t mean you will find your audience. If you are a writer, as your friend noted, you will write. Period. If you want to sell books – if you don’t have native marketing skills – find that partner you can trust to help you do that part of the job. It may be hard – there are a lot of charlatans out there with empty promises to bring you great results. But there are also people out there with skills who want to see great writers succeed.
Best of luck –
Hi Deb,
Thank you for this excellent advice. I do think my failure to launch was a marketing problem and not a failure of my writing itself. I agree that we writers usually need talented publicists to help us, but it is very hard for a writer to evaluate which publicist does and doesn’t know what s/he is doing.
I think one piece of advice I can confidently offer is to look for a publicist who under-promises and over-performs. The best publicists will tell you there are never any guarantees.
Thanks again for bringing this up.
Kind regards,
Hi, Susan!
My congratulation on the huge success of your first book and the (impending) success of your second and third. It seems your writing blossomed from your professional experiences, and many best-selling authors have started out this way (and have also had their successive books rejected). So don’t give up.
The writing life – and life itself – is a merry-go-round, a treadmill, and roller coaster ride that leaves you heady, exhilarated and nauseous all at once! The thrill and the highs and lows are so infectious that the endless ride to “nowhere” is bearable.
I guess I’ve been writing since childhood in one form or another (essays, poems, fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, metaphysical fantasies, and music and lyrics) all to varying degrees of success and HUGE failures. I’ve come to realize that I am either a literary masochist or am driven by some “divine” energy that just won’t leave me alone! Because it’s my calling, my mission, my desire to “construct” something that exposes my inner self to myself. i.e., I learn something new every time I write a line, paint a picture, put pieces of a story puzzle together and feel the “Aha” moment I’ve been waiting for.
It’s taken me about 30-plus years to get where I am – a published author with an Indie publisher – 5 books on the Amazon market place but no $$ to speak of, of course -and just when I think I can’t write anything else, up pops another idea. I’m addicted.
I’m no young chicken – (I’ll soon be 75) – but there’s always hope for that breakthrough novel, that recognition from an agent or film producer (I dream big!). If not, I take solace in the fact that I have tried and never quit (so far).
There’s a quote from one of my books, “You have merely scratched the surface of what you can become.” That’s what drives me. Perhaps you will find this to be true for you.
Peace and blessings, success, good fortune, and believe in yourself. You’re a writer.
Hi Barbara,
It is a pleasure to hear your obvious enthusiasm after many years of writing. I hope your breakthrough novel and/or film deal is near at hand. But it sounds to me like, even if the big breakthrough doesn’t happen, you will still be clear that you have spent your time and energy in the way that best allows you to live a fully realized life. So the real congratulations go to you.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Happy writing!
Kind regards,
I am a reader and not a writer but I am THRILLED Susan Wolfe wrote “The Last Billable Hour” and even more thrilled she wrote “Escape Velocity” because I absolutely LOVED both books and am eager for more! There is a reason that both books won awards and got great reviews. It’s too bad that its so difficult in publishing today for even great books to become known.
It was also fun to see the insights Susan came to through this challenging experience. But those of us who love the books she has written so far hope its not TOO long till her next book is out.
Hi Carol, and thank you for this very kind message. As you know from my article, it just doesn’t get any better than hearing from someone who has connected with my books.
I, too, hope to make real progress on my third book in the next few months. I think I have now been freed to do that, and it will help to know somebody is waiting to read it.
Thanks again and kind regards.
I hope it’s okay if I screen shot that paragraph from Jack and tack it up as the cover page on my Facebook, as a reminder?
I think Jack would be honored. He does love good fiction!
To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing
Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Not in his neighbors’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.
–W.B. Yeats
That should be “Nor in his neighbors’ eyes”. Sorry. I had to post before reviewing to help with a domestic emergency.
Hi David,
This is an interesting addition to the discussion, and I think Yeats’s advice to me here is to recognize and accept the failure of my book sales with quiet dignity instead of pretending they are a success or fighting with the people who either made it or called it a failure. Sorry to be a little concrete here, but if that is what he is saying then I agree. If he is saying something else, or if you find my analysis reductive, please forgive me for butchering a very fine poem. It is a beautiful poem and our readers will do better.
Thank you for bringing this poem to my and our readers’ attention.
Hi Susan –
I’m glad you’re writing another book. Your first two were terrific—smart, insightful, dramatic, fully realized—and I’m amazed Escape Velocity didn’t sell more initially. You’re one of the best mystery writers out there.
And you’re right that so much of it is about the marketing and, unfortunately, publishers now expect authors to go out there and flog their work. Most authors aren’t marketers. And marketing skill hardly corresponds to writing skill, so in my observation the percentage of great hardbacks has dwindled.
I’d say the answer to the “writer” question depends on the definition. Broadly, there are at least two:
1) Typer: A person who writes regularly, whether the work is good or bad. One who writes eight hours a day, every day, is certainly writing, and it strains the language to claim that a person who is writing all the time is not a writer.
2) Artist: A writer with talent. A “real writer.” But what does that mean? Does a writer need the validation of an audience? If so, the author of ignored books is not a real writer, but suddenly becomes one if people discover them. So this is a poor touchstone. A better one involves whether many people would want to read the work if they knew of it. A variant involves the caliber of these readers. Most people won’t read Wallace Stevens, but he was a real writer.
That said, I can’t wait to read your next book.
Hi Dan,
Thank you for this helpful perspective. I happen to love Wallace Stevens, and so especially appreciate the point you make about him.
And thanks also for the kind remarks about my books. I am hard at work on my third one as we speak!
Susan