DTW Q&A 016

I only know one of your books. Is that the only one?

Q+A posts are usually only for paid subscribers, but occasionally (like today) I share them for everyone.

T. asks:

Have you written any books besides Snappsy?

This question didn’t come to this newsletter¹ but from someone asking me in person, and I’m sharing it here because it shook me a little. It made me think about how much we do or do not have control over in our writing careers.

All we really have control over are the words we write. But there is a line of thinking, too, that we should do all we can to market and promote our books.

And, sure, do what you can. But also, it might not make a difference. I say this especially regarding promotion via social media, where we absolutely do not have control over who sees our posts (for instance, see this post from Publishing Confidential about the futility of author-led preorder campaigns). I’ll still post on social media about new books when I have them (for now) since it’s free (for now) but also it might make absolutely no difference. 

In the New York Times style magazine on Sunday, which was all about women artists, Yiyun Li wrote a great essay about ambition², which includes this:

So ambition has little to do with the intrinsic values of an artist’s work. An artist, if ambitious, must canvas like a politician: striving, soliciting and winning popularity; seeking (and demanding, appropriately in the case of West) external acknowledgment and approval. Some artists are good at cultivating art, others at cultivating ambition, and those who are ambidextrous deserve all our respect.

I’m not particularly ambidextrous, as she describes it. I’ve done both — strived and solicited, or cultivated art — but not at the same time. The political striving in particular felt fraught, because I had no control over how people were hearing me, accepting me, consuming me.

Not only do I not have control over who sees my posts or hears about my books, I certainly don’t have control over who takes the next step of going to find one of my books so they can read it. There can be someone who is such a fan of my first book that they recognize me in public, but then is unaware that I’ve published anything else. And guess what? THAT’S FINE. People have lives that have nothing to do with mine (or yours). What obligation does a reader have? I think if someone loves books, their obligation is to keep reading, to do what they can to maintain that love, and, if possible, to pass that love on to others. A reader is under no obligation to seek out and purchase every book an author writes. A reader does not have to write an online review or tell anyone else on earth that they read and enjoyed a book. Sure, it’d be cool if more people bought more of my books, but if one person super loves one of my books, that's pretty cool too. Oh, and also? I have no control over any of that.

This is not to be discouraging but rather to be encouraging, because there is great freedom in knowing it’s not all on you to sell your books.³

The thing you do have control over – the writing – is the best thing you can do to sell books. You’re more likely to publish more books and sell more books if you’re focused on making the books great. Yes, I know there are books that are best sellers that you hate. Don’t worry about that. Write the best book you can write. Yes, I know also that sometimes someone hits it big on tiktok and their book sells barge-fuls of copies, but I also know it’s incredibly hard to get that to happen, and your time is better spent working on your writing rather than trying to engineer virality.

I’ve been thinking a lot about taking intentional time away from the internet (which I talked about in a video last week) so that I can devote more time to writing, and to becoming a better writer. I know that’s the best use of my time right now. And still, it’s hard. I keep getting pulled back in, staring at my computer screen.⁴ But I know the most important thing for me to do is to keep writing (one idea that came up in the comments section for that video was creating an at-home writing retreat as a method for intentionally disconnecting, which sounds great to me).

Oh, and yes, I’ve written other books besides Snappsy. Feel free to buy them or get them from your library!⁵

1. You can submit a question by replying to this email, or through the submission form.

2. No gift link, sorry. The style section is a whole complicated graphically-lovely affair, and I couldn’t find a way to gift-link it, nor to link specifically to the Yiyun Li essay (it’s in the section called “The Artist’s Mind”).

3. Unless you’re self publishing, which I admittedly don’t know much about, but I imagine it’s easier to market your books if first you write great books.

4. Like last week, in a very “mercury is retrograde” mood, my entire website went down for hours, and I was too distracted and anxious about it to ignore it and walk away to write.

5. Ugh, I don’t know how to casually ask for your money. How does it work? On the one hand, keep your money. I mean, if you want to. I’m not going to forcibly part you from your cash. That would be terrible. But also, this is my job (writing books, and this Substack, plus the online class I recently launched). Does it make you uncomfortable? It makes me uncomfortable to ask for money, but not uncomfortable to do this for money. It’s like there’s this little crevasse between those two things, and only sometimes am I brave enough to make the leap.

Mason Currey

talked about this recently, wisely. I have a real desire to say, "never mind, never mind, pretend I never asked!" And I'm truly grateful to everyone who subscribes and reads these words. But sometimes I feel like maybe some of you might not know there are other ways to support me, that there's a paid option, and books, and you might not know because I didn't tell you.

Why it’s so hard for writers to ask for money for their work