I published my first novel, with my own imprint, in January 2022. Since then, I have tried to be a “successful” self-published author. But along the way, a lot of my pleasure in bookish things has been, well, murdered.
The Bookshop
Take bookstores, for example. They, along with libraries, have always been my “safe space”. 
Now I go in and look at book covers: which are trendy? should mine look like that? I pick up popular books. Oh, that’s how they set up the story? should I do that? I look at the best-sellers, a category I used to ignore. What made them best-sellers? Whom did the author know? Why are so many written so badly? I compare the aisles. Why is Biography so big, and Self-Help, but the History and Literature sections are shrinking? Why is the Barnes and Noble half-full of games and toys instead of books? What does that say about our society?
It is still a place of wonder, but what I’m wondering about lessens the excitement of discovery.
The Reading
I remember complaining about literary criticism in school. Sure, it was all very interesting to learn about the metaphors Flannery O’Connor was using. That spoon is a penis? Really? But it ruined the magic of reading the story. I lived in fear that we would have to analyze a tale I really loved, a story that meant something to me. It was rather like taking a beloved machine apart. Even after you put it back together, it is never the same because now you know what’s inside. Thank goodness we didn’t read The Secret Garden or Little Women in class.
“Reading like a writer” has done something similar. I now look for craft. I don’t want to look for craft. I don’t want to know how I’m being manipulated. I just want to be taken along. I read somewhere that reading to oneself is disassociative. Yes, please.
The Unread
Writers and readers talk about their TBR, their To Be Read list/stack/shelf/table. They feel guilty, or not. Many bemoan that their stack is high. Some cannot buy another book because they have too many. Others say it’s like a wine cellar, and you’ll read the right book at the right time. Now I look at my unread books and wonder which I won’t finish, which will be consigned as DNF.
This is because I read things now I don’t care to read, or wish I hadn’t read. I picked up a copy of the Paris Review to understand what’s happening in literary magazines. I found heart-wrenching, sometimes disgusting, events and actions, designed to create emotion in the reader and, in many cases, allow catharsis for the writer. I have no interest in other people’s trauma (although I did enjoy David Adjmi’s play The Stumble, about Oscar Levant).
Some things I’ve read out of perceived obligation. I have purchased copies of self-published books from writers I’ve met, because I wanted to be part of their community. Three-quarters of them were awful, poorly written and edited, or clearly written “to market”, with no literary interest. I’ve been stymied for how to write the expected review at Amazon or GoodReads.
The Blog
As a writer, I fight against invisible forces to write what I want to write. This blog is a perfect example. In changing types of blogs (I wrote of my blogging history in September), I’ve been responding to forces I neither understand nor agree with. Blogging used to be running things up the flagpole, throwing spaghetti at the wall. Now every presence one has online is “branding”. Being an “author” brings in a different kind of reader, one who may or may not care what I write on other subjects. It’s been a major struggle to not cater to fear, the fear of invisibility, of being read out of context, of being misunderstood.
And, once I write this post, do I post on Facebook or Instagram that I wrote this post? LinkedIn? Should I use hashtags? I didn’t used to question things like this when I was blogging about education. It’s only since I published my first book.
The Newsletter
For a couple of years, I convinced myself to write a Newsletter (here’s an example). Newsletters are currently a “requirement” for any author to build a readership. If you search for “publicity for authors” or “marketing for writers”, many offer advice on your Newsletter. The purpose of offering a free book or a sweepstake is to get more people to sign up for your Newsletter. You want hundreds, thousands, of people subscribed to your Newsletter (I think I topped out at 300).
What’s in the Newsletter? One is supposed to write in a way that encourages the reader to “get to know” the author. You aren’t marketing your book, they say. The reader will only buy your book if s/he is interested in you. It can’t be all “buy my book”, even though what you really want them to do (the “call to action”) is buy your book. I tried Newsletters for over a year. It was kind of fun at first, but it felt forced. Does anyone really care that I loved the possums in my garden? Did I care whether anyone cared?
The Writing
I have thus far avoided some of the external pressure in writing the books themselves. My novels contain likable characters, twisty mysteries, solid writing, a moral conundrum, historical lessons, very little violence, and a bit of humor, because that’s what I like to read. My Victorian mysteries have overlapping characters but aren’t a series, Bummer at Luna Beach is not a cozy that would make a good Hallmark movie, and I never give away a novel for free.
And because I have not written “to market”, there hasn’t been any. My surprise at this is disappointing. Somewhere in my head was the idea that if you write something good, something that pushes the envelope in a familiar genre, something that doesn’t do quite what was expected, readers will be there, awards will be awarded, agents will ask to represent you.
Naïveté is the source of misery for so many things.
The Books
Last there are the books themselves: Booktok, Bookstagram, images of books and covers. People who “love books”. One doesn’t love books, typically; one loves what is in the books. Some books contain poor writing, or topics of little interest. All books are not equal.
I am not a book fetishist. The very sight of a book, any book, makes me curious but it doesn’t make me swoon. There are such people, and more power to them; without them many wonderful books would not be preserved as artifacts. But are book fetishists readers? It’s hard to tell on Instagram.
A book, I’ve been told by marketing experts, is your product. It’s a commodity. If you want to sell it, you should think like that. I have tried, but I’ve never done well being told how to think.
Whodunnit?
It could be argued that I am the murderer of my own joy. I do not have to look at bookstores, books, authors, or publishing in this way. But it’s very difficult to unsee what one has seen, to unknow what one knows. One cannot simply go back to the fantasy of bookstores as places of magic rather than market, of writing as a sacred act, of publishing as a mark of societal approbation.
Another piece of wisdom is “Just Write”. I think I’ll go with that one.
