I agree with all of this, and yet I wonder if we authors sometimes take the wrong lesson from "just write what you want." Maybe we should think about stories in a different way, not as one-way communications to our readers, but as community experiences. Is it really a book if no one reads it? When you look at a book as a shared experience, it puts different demands on the author. It becomes a bigger (and possibly more successful) set of tasks.
Oh I so agree with this Marty. I think it's important a book finds its reader becuase i believe in my heart that books have such powers to shape someone's life, whether through the window or mirror.
Yes!🙌 I’ve been thinking lately of ways I can create a writing career that is more autonomous and aimed and finding my readers (vs writing for the industry). The book I’m querying now is one I’m proud of, and could have a real impact on grieving hearts, but I’m not sure if traditional agents and publishers will open its doors because the story is a slower burn, friendship based journey, so I’m starting to wonder if publishing on substack might be the way…(sorry for the run-on sentence 🤣)
Oh I love run-on sentences LOL. Sounds like you have a story the world needs to hear. You also have options so I would love to see what you decide to do next. Also, it doesn't always have to be either or. There are ways to share pieces of your story while still querying.
Love your commentary on this, Kern. I confess I don't have a TikTok account and don't use BookTok. My son who may be a bit of a literary snob, as is his right, told me he didn't think much of it and I wasn't missing anything. I first heard of Fourth Wave when I decided to do a quick scan of the grocery store paperback shelf - which of course only stock the super popular titles that fly off the shelf.
Forgive my ignorance, or innocence Kern, but the first time I heard of BookTok was here, in your newsletter and I have yet to check it out. Clearly, I'm oblivious to its existence and influence. Maybe it's better this way? I am not moved to write by trends, but inner truths, and I try not to think of the reader at all as I write the first draft. I have a pretty peculiar taste in literature, and I trust that I'm not alone with my peculiar/ creative choices. But then again, I haven't yet published a book, only stories and poems in literary magazines. So I might be naive.
And this is what I appreciate about you most, Imola. You have an innocence and authenticity in your writing and in your being that is so rare. And it's totally fine to have peculiar tastes. I actually think that it's important not to be too influenced by any single part of culture.
Really well said. I think you touched on an important aspect of this when you said, "So when BookTok readers get a whiff of any romantic relationship, their mind is conditioned for that to be the main event." I don't think most people realize how much they have been conditioned by corporate marketing and social media to accept banal, unimaginative work as "creative," when in fact it is anything but. When you combine art and business the result is almost always a creative disappointment.
I want to disagree with your last sentence so much LOL but fear at least part of that statement is true. I'll say this: when you combine art with business, you need space for the art to be created without influence so the art can be its best. Art, in my opinion, should either be rebellious or on the edge of something. It should never conform. I'll stop there.
I'll meet you halfway on that. I was thinking along the lines of the kinds of movies produced by say, the Disney Corporation. But I know there are many examples of wonderfully creative art supported by patrons and other benefactors.
It makes financial sense for writers to try various platforms period.
I am thinking of Thomas Edison setbacks with the incandescent light bulb.
He saw it like this:"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
We could unpack this for writers and say: to be relentless, persevering, have a creative mindset to face many challenges and setbacks.
Maybe you will have that break through too.
Unfortunately it is a pyramid structure ( pdf: probability density function) where at the top, the million dollars author's sellers reside
and at the bottom those with sales less than 75.
The shape of the pdf graph never changes.
It is a romantic news worthy story to cherry-pick those at the top and forget about those at the bottom.
Can you imagine the first writer who posted on TikTok and had amazing sales. Word got out and many followed.
So what is a platform ? a tribe of eyeballs that see something they like and want ( yet the tribe do not know each other, it is amorphous)
Then someone says who looked at the data : the Gravity of the Average will lead to be widely read and have riches like Follet and Yarros.
The advertising industry love eyeballs, the bigger the better. Like Direct Marketing teams that send out 10,000 letters and are happy with 2 to 5 percent hit rate/conversion rate.
This suggest do your own creative thing and play the numbers :)
Just write and play the long game as nobody can predict anything.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, Nicholas, but particularly the last bit. "Just write and play the long game as nobody can predict anything." Yup, that's exactly it, especially considering so many of the writers we revere now were not popular at all during their lifetimes. Nobody knows, so just write.
"So much of publishing can feel out of our control."
A lot of it always has been. This is one of the reasons why more successful authors have taken steps to ensure they could retain their independence. It was why Charles Dickens started his fiction journals "Household Words" and "All The Year Round"; it was why Mark Twain started his own publishing company (whose failure led to his bankruptcy); and it was why John Buchan became a stockholder of his publisher to ensure he would have an income beyond book royalties.
Of course these are only strategies wealthy and famous authors can achieve. Capital-less ones are either at the demands of their editors and publishers or the audience directly if they self-publish. And they are difficult things to deal with if you have no experience. All the better for us to let newer authors know what they are in for.
All the better, indeed. To have these examples you've mentioned coupled with the multitude of platforms for sharing your story, we have an opportunity to really take some more control over the outcome of our writing careers.
I agree with all of this, and yet I wonder if we authors sometimes take the wrong lesson from "just write what you want." Maybe we should think about stories in a different way, not as one-way communications to our readers, but as community experiences. Is it really a book if no one reads it? When you look at a book as a shared experience, it puts different demands on the author. It becomes a bigger (and possibly more successful) set of tasks.
Oh I so agree with this Marty. I think it's important a book finds its reader becuase i believe in my heart that books have such powers to shape someone's life, whether through the window or mirror.
Yes!🙌 I’ve been thinking lately of ways I can create a writing career that is more autonomous and aimed and finding my readers (vs writing for the industry). The book I’m querying now is one I’m proud of, and could have a real impact on grieving hearts, but I’m not sure if traditional agents and publishers will open its doors because the story is a slower burn, friendship based journey, so I’m starting to wonder if publishing on substack might be the way…(sorry for the run-on sentence 🤣)
Oh I love run-on sentences LOL. Sounds like you have a story the world needs to hear. You also have options so I would love to see what you decide to do next. Also, it doesn't always have to be either or. There are ways to share pieces of your story while still querying.
Thank you!
Love your commentary on this, Kern. I confess I don't have a TikTok account and don't use BookTok. My son who may be a bit of a literary snob, as is his right, told me he didn't think much of it and I wasn't missing anything. I first heard of Fourth Wave when I decided to do a quick scan of the grocery store paperback shelf - which of course only stock the super popular titles that fly off the shelf.
Forgive my ignorance, or innocence Kern, but the first time I heard of BookTok was here, in your newsletter and I have yet to check it out. Clearly, I'm oblivious to its existence and influence. Maybe it's better this way? I am not moved to write by trends, but inner truths, and I try not to think of the reader at all as I write the first draft. I have a pretty peculiar taste in literature, and I trust that I'm not alone with my peculiar/ creative choices. But then again, I haven't yet published a book, only stories and poems in literary magazines. So I might be naive.
And this is what I appreciate about you most, Imola. You have an innocence and authenticity in your writing and in your being that is so rare. And it's totally fine to have peculiar tastes. I actually think that it's important not to be too influenced by any single part of culture.
Really well said. I think you touched on an important aspect of this when you said, "So when BookTok readers get a whiff of any romantic relationship, their mind is conditioned for that to be the main event." I don't think most people realize how much they have been conditioned by corporate marketing and social media to accept banal, unimaginative work as "creative," when in fact it is anything but. When you combine art and business the result is almost always a creative disappointment.
I want to disagree with your last sentence so much LOL but fear at least part of that statement is true. I'll say this: when you combine art with business, you need space for the art to be created without influence so the art can be its best. Art, in my opinion, should either be rebellious or on the edge of something. It should never conform. I'll stop there.
I'll meet you halfway on that. I was thinking along the lines of the kinds of movies produced by say, the Disney Corporation. But I know there are many examples of wonderfully creative art supported by patrons and other benefactors.
Ahh yes, totally agree now.
Loved this one
We control the stories we write.
It makes financial sense for writers to try various platforms period.
I am thinking of Thomas Edison setbacks with the incandescent light bulb.
He saw it like this:"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
We could unpack this for writers and say: to be relentless, persevering, have a creative mindset to face many challenges and setbacks.
Maybe you will have that break through too.
Unfortunately it is a pyramid structure ( pdf: probability density function) where at the top, the million dollars author's sellers reside
and at the bottom those with sales less than 75.
The shape of the pdf graph never changes.
It is a romantic news worthy story to cherry-pick those at the top and forget about those at the bottom.
Can you imagine the first writer who posted on TikTok and had amazing sales. Word got out and many followed.
So what is a platform ? a tribe of eyeballs that see something they like and want ( yet the tribe do not know each other, it is amorphous)
Then someone says who looked at the data : the Gravity of the Average will lead to be widely read and have riches like Follet and Yarros.
The advertising industry love eyeballs, the bigger the better. Like Direct Marketing teams that send out 10,000 letters and are happy with 2 to 5 percent hit rate/conversion rate.
This suggest do your own creative thing and play the numbers :)
Just write and play the long game as nobody can predict anything.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, Nicholas, but particularly the last bit. "Just write and play the long game as nobody can predict anything." Yup, that's exactly it, especially considering so many of the writers we revere now were not popular at all during their lifetimes. Nobody knows, so just write.
YES! This was encouragement I needed to hear, and you said it well.
Well I'm glad! Go do what you need to do, Amanda. I feel the energy :)
"So much of publishing can feel out of our control."
A lot of it always has been. This is one of the reasons why more successful authors have taken steps to ensure they could retain their independence. It was why Charles Dickens started his fiction journals "Household Words" and "All The Year Round"; it was why Mark Twain started his own publishing company (whose failure led to his bankruptcy); and it was why John Buchan became a stockholder of his publisher to ensure he would have an income beyond book royalties.
Of course these are only strategies wealthy and famous authors can achieve. Capital-less ones are either at the demands of their editors and publishers or the audience directly if they self-publish. And they are difficult things to deal with if you have no experience. All the better for us to let newer authors know what they are in for.
All the better, indeed. To have these examples you've mentioned coupled with the multitude of platforms for sharing your story, we have an opportunity to really take some more control over the outcome of our writing careers.