- No one bought it. Not even my friends
- I wrote it for me first
- Does it matter how good it is if no one reads it?
- The effort needed to make money is enormous and perhaps impossible
True story:
37 years ago I woke up from a vivid dream and wrote it down. The story stuck with me. 20 years after that I wrote a draft of a book. 7 years after that I re-wrote it as a screenplay. 5 years after that I rewrote the book. I gave it to someone and they hated it.
So I let it sit.
But it was always unfinished business with me and this year, at age 52, I decided that enough was enough. I dusted off the bytes in my computer and went through it again. To my surprise, it was not horrible.
I got a cover made, got it professionally edited, and through the miracle of Print On Demand, got it ‘published’.
That book is now available pretty much everywhere in the English speaking world (it’s only available in English).
1. No one cares
The publishing of the book, in and of itself, might seem remarkable to me but only because I know the story behind the story. I know myself and how long it took.
But other than that it is not so remarkable. There are millions of books available on Amazon for example.
So why should anyone care?
The depth of this lack of caring is offered up to me by ‘analytics’. Back in the old days maybe I could have written a book, printed up lots of copies, sent those copies off to book stores and then sat at home imagining that someone, somewhere, has or will stumble across it and read it.
Now, thanks to the advancements of technology, I no longer need to get the book printed or send it out to book stores. But the downside is I can know, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just how many people have bought my book. And that is how I know the answer is as close to 0 as you can get. Statistically, it actually is 0.
I know no one who has bought it. No less read it. Not my friends. Not that person who always talks the big talk about supporting independent artists. Not, and this I have to admit stings a little bit, not even my book-loving mother!
But guess what? I am actually ok with that. Why?
2. I wrote it for me
As I outlined above, this book was a long time in the making. It was an itch that lay unscratched for 35 years. I wrote this book for the harshest critic I know — me.
There are two important factors here. First, I judged my book as best I could on the same level as I would anyone else’s. I wanted to produce something I was proud of. Am I? Not 100%. But I did the best I could I think.
Second, I had no illusions that the book would be read. I make a very comfortable living in my day job. So I wrote the best book I could write. I promoted it the best I knew how (Amazon ads and other advertising platforms) expecting that the money would not come back to me.
I wanted to try and try I did.
People might read this and say I didn’t really try because I was not hungry enough (read: desperate and broke enough). Ok. Think what you like.
I did this for me. And I wanted to make myself proud.
That being said…
3. Does it matter how good it is if no one is going to read it?
Yes, it does. Because of point 2. There was one person watching and judging. And that was me.
But this is a great question. And I see this all the time in business. You have a finite amount of energy. If you spend all your energy making an amazing product but then have no one use it or know about it, then your energy was wasted.
It does not matter, for example, how great your website is if no one comes.
And if no one comes, does it mean your website is no good? Yes. Because you put in all that effort to presumably get clients. That was your goal.
Was my goal to get readers? No. Why? Because it doesn’t matter. I will be dead one day and if someone has read my book or not won’t change that. And unless some incredible stroke of luck/zeitgeist happens I would never get enough readers to make a financial difference in my life.
Here’s the truth: I love to write but I do not love it so much that want to be poor the rest of my life so I can do it.
4. You’re always paid by the hour
As I prepared to finish this book off and publish it I became a member of this Facebook group that says if you write enough books you can make a living wage (the lower end of the living wage bracket). Here’s the thing: writing a good book is very very hard. So if you are taking thousands of hours to produce a single book and then making even $10,000 from that book, would you not be better off working at McDonald’s?
I make hundreds of dollars an hour, 24 hours a day, with my software business. Books are never going to beat that. And to be honest I don’t even work so hard in my business!
But this group (and it is a whole movement out there in the interwebs) is not actually focused on writing great books, but producing ‘good enough’ books that you spend money advertising and getting in front of people. And people have such a low bar for what is good, and are, let’s face it, lazy, they will keep reading the same author. So you write more books, over and over, to satisfy the binge-watching audience.
To me, that is not the game I wanted to be in. I want to create something I am proud of — not a business model I am proud of. I’ve already got that…in Business!
This is my advice — create something you can be proud of if you can afford to. Take 1, 2 or 35 (not ideally) years to do it. Make one good thing in your life.
My book is titled ‘Jeremy and the Magic Shelf’ and is available on all Amazon marketplaces as both paperback and Kindle. It is also available for order from your favorite bookstore.
