In his recent post,
Blogging to Increase Your Audience, Dan wrote
"...it has always struck me how so many of the people on xanga that indicate they would like to be a professional writer of some sort, will tend to act as if they don't care if people read them. I would think that it would be the goal of the professional writer to be read. I would assume that professional writers need to sell books."
As a professional writer who needs to sell books and who blogs here on xanga, I think I'd like to pursue that issue just a little bit further. Artists have something of a love-hate relationship with popularity. I've known garage bands that swore that they wouldn't want to get signed by a major label because it would compromise their music. And I've known more than a few aspiring writers (as well as published authors) who like nothing more than to make fun of Dan Brown.
Stephen King once wrote, "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented." (
Everything you need to know about writing successfully - in ten minutes, in The Writers Handbook, 1988).
And, of course, the only way that happens, the only way you get to pay the light bill, let alone the mortgage, is if you have readers. Lots of readers. And these days, the only way you get a contract (well, maybe not the only way, but certainly the easiest) is if you bring readers to the publisher.
Writers become writers because we like to write. Not because we like to promote. If we liked to promote, we'd become promoters. But we would do well to remember that "the customer is always right". If I'm writing a book in the hope that a publisher will buy it, and that readers will read it, it would be naive to ignore what it is readers want to read, what it is publishers believe they can sell. But it is folly to chase the trends, to write to the market.
A friend of mine, a fellow mystery writer, a very talented mystery writer (I won't mention his name, only because he seems to have removed the post) blogged recently about the fine line between being a professional writer and being a hack. What do you do, he asked (he wasn't really asking, so much as he was venting) when your publisher wants you to make a change in your manuscript, a change that is being recommended to increase marketability. Where do you draw the line between telling the story you want to tell and telling the story your publisher believes will sell.
And that's why I have often said, it starts by writing the best book you're capable of writing. It starts there, but it surely doesn't end there, because writing a good book is an art, but selling a good book is a business.
Is there a lesson here for bloggers? Is there a moral to the story? I will leave that for each of you to decide.
Comments (30)
It wasn't until I read Stephen King's On Writing that I realized I was kidding myself about wanting to be a writer. After all, I had never written something publication worthy, never written a query, never written daily. I write simply to write and I have never made a cent off of it (except for when at 13 I won second prize in a local short story contest and got a $75 bond). I have never had the courage to even attempt to sell my writing or to bring it beyond my own small circle. A writer has to cross over from writing for vanity to being a professional in order to be serious.
I am recently just figuring out that my desire to be read here on Xanga was keeping me from dedication to larger and more involved projects. An egoic thing. Or some such. So at the moment, no, I don't care so much if I get read. But all things serve a time and a purpose. Business is business. Fair enough ; )
@anvilsandedelweiss - I am slowly coming to that conclusion as well...strange...and when are sending that book back
I loved this Jeff...I sometimes secretly keep my Xanga as a testing ground for stuff...but I am starting to grow out of it...so many truths here...
I think you have identified the difference in that I am a person who is not a writer and I think like a guy who spends all day marketing. I rarely give the product much thought. I think only about the marketing because that is what I do all day every day. So I see people who have great writing skills and I watch as they do nothing to market themselves. But that is not just on xanga. I see that they do nothing to market their books. That is why most writers do not sell more than 1000-2000 books. In fact, I hear all the time that 1000 books is the real goal for most writers.
The problem as I see it is that so many of these people have spent months writing a book and giving the idea so much thought. It is nothing for them to have spent all night long writing a book.
You know what I was doing at 11:30 p.m. last night? Marketing.
You and someone else write mystery novels? Tell me your work, I love mystery!!!! I will probably go out and buy it!!! :D
@HereLiesNelsontheGreat - i told you i needed your address in a message before i moved :D It's on my shelf.
Excellent post. That's all my foggy brain has this morning, but. . .excellent post.
I understand this, not because I am a writer, no I work in sales. I have seen a lot of talented artists let their work rot almost unseen. Saying you do not want to be successful, because it would mean selling out. Those unnoticed artists talking like that never seemed very happy about it to me. Many seemed bitter.
Basically "I do not want my work to sell, because that would change my art' is so much bs. I think of that line as a defense mechanism to try and justify what is likely ignorance of how to sell. I'm not good at self promotion, therefore it must be evil.
@trunthepaige - There's a difference between not wanting to attach yourself to a publisher and simply not wanting to get paid for your work. There are channels now that don't require a traditional publisher to sell though. So your work doesn't need to be a projected best seller to be made available for purchase.
If you're a musician you probably need a sound engineer to digitally master your recordings, but you don't need the so called help of a record label. They'll cheat you anyway, unless they're independent of RIAA and have CC style licensing.
Regardless of what you do, either go with a publisher that assists you (but doesn't make decisions you're uncomfortable with) or look up advice online and do everything independent.
@jasonwl - In other words pay someone to promote you, or do it yourself. But promote you must
@jasonwl - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AJxc3Lxn4o&feature=player_embedded#!
@trunthepaige - If you actually care that it sells as much as possible. Otherwise probably pointless.
@trunthepaige - Priceless.
@anvilsandedelweiss - Yes. Blogging and writing are not really the same thing. And the one can easily get in the way of the other.
As a kid, I proclaimed to all who asked that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I know a lot of avid readers who want to be writers. I spent a lot of years in English classes and writers' workshops, and although I know deep down that I could do this if I applied myself, I am not disciplined enough to do just that. Also? I don't like my writer's voice. So I jot quicky notes on Xanga and another public blog, and read a lot.
@squeakysoul - I feel the same way about golf. I like to play, but I'll never be a professional golfer. And I don't have to be a professional golfer to enjoy spending an afternoon on the golf course.
@TheTheologiansCafe - That's why I enjoyed your perspective on the subject. Because you don't think like a writer. And what was I doing at 11:30 last night? Marketing. But I would rather have spent the time writing.
@HereLiesNelsontheGreat - @Shahrazad1973 - Thanks.
There are things people do specifically to build up their Xanga readership: discussion questions, inflammatory or suggestive titles, frequent time-stamping, begging for recs, writing about controversy solely for attention. I've dropped numerous subs for cluttering my inbox with junk; their occasionally interesting posts are not worth the annoyance.
The challenge is how to market literary writing in a context like Xanga. How do you sell PBS programming in a TMZ context?
@haloed - Thanks for asking. I write the Cassie O'Malley mystery series, an amateur sleuth series set in the NJ Pine Barrens. My current book is It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Murder. If you're interested, you can find more at my website jeffmarkowitz.com
@doahsdeer - awesome :) I actually used to love Nancy Drew when I was younger, and I couldn't put those books down. I'll check out your site!
I really like this post. I'm not on here to be popular exactly. But, I would like a lot of readers. I love to write and I want to be an author, I want people to read what I write and I think that's what most writers want is to have their writing read. I love writing and having others read it.
@Roadkill_Spatula - I throw in "boobs" every other word...
@Roadkill_Spatula - I blog topless.