Hello, writers. I'm writing this before going to pick up a car. It will be the first new car I've ever owned, a 2014 Prius. This is giving me cause to reflect on the book that's buying the car, and the lessons I learned from it.
The book is The Hope Chest. It was my second novel. Not my best. No way. But it was the best I could do at the time. That's the first lesson.
In terms of sales, how well you've written is usually not the deciding factor. Nonetheless, you should write as well as you possibly can.
I wrote it in 2006-7. I remember the writing of it more than I do my other books, because I had a lot of trouble with it. First there was the opening. It seems like I spent months writing openings. I couldn't decide where the story started. Several versions had the protagonist walking home from school. Yawnsville.
(Nowadays, I'd leave the opening alone and write it last.)
So that was a lesson:
The opening matters a lot. Get it right if you have to write it 100 times.
There were two characters in the early drafts who got cut from later versions. One was the poet Vachel Lindsay. He was wandering the same area of the country at the same time as my characters, so I thought it would be cool if they met up. Unfortunately this just caused them to wander, both physically and mentally, out of the story's path.
So I learned to
Stay focused on the story. Avoid fascinating side-trips. They may not be fascinating to the reader.
The story originally had three girl characters: a white girl named Violet, a black girl named Myrtle, and a Russian immigrant (ie another white girl) named Nadia. My editor insisted the story would run more smoothly without Nadia, and urged me to consolidate the three characters into two.
Two lessons there.
Listen to your editor.
Combining characters makes for stronger characterization.
The book got written. Edited. Published. The world failed to react with glee. Some reviews came out. Mostly good. However, one reviewer called it “laughably unbelievable.” I still remember her name.
But I found out
Bad reviews are not fatal. To you or your book.
The book received one quiet honor. (It was placed on the ALA's Amelia Bloomer List.) Lesson:
Honors don't sell many books. But they do cheer you up.
Years went by. The book went out of print in hardcover. The paperback cover was changed. Sales trickled in. I started Write On!, and cyber-met lovely people. I wrote more books.
One day in 2013, I checked shipping records for Hope Chest and noticed sales had nudged up a little bit. A few weeks later, I noticed they had nudged up even more. I googled and found the reason. The State of New York had decided to use the books in all 4th grade classes. Each classroom was supposed to purchase enough for all students.
A few months later I got a call from the publisher telling me the paperback had just reprinted for the tenth time.
Lesson:
Bestsellerdom may not happen quite the way you expect.
I watched the sales numbers rack up. And-- might as well face it-- I counted the chickens. I multiplied the sales numbers by the cover price by my share of same. Finally a royalty check arrived. For rather less than I expected.
This was perfectly fair. It turned out some books had been sold at a discount. The author's royalty on discounted books is different.
Lesson:
Don't count your checks until they are hatched.
In due time another royalty check arrived, and then another.
So what happened was that a book that had to all appearances been headed out of print was suddenly resurrected because someone, somewhere read it, liked it, and told others about it. A committee somewhere must have voted. Had I been there, urging the committee on, they might have voted no. Who knows.
Once a book is written, the factors that lead to its success in the marketplace are usually out of our control.
One more thing to share about this experience. Outside of DailyKos, no reader has ever contacted me about Hope Chest. (In contrast, I hear from readers of Jinx a few times a week.) I'm forced to conclude it's probably not people's favorite book. They might enjoy the visit to a mostly-forgotten moment in history, but it doesn't seem to change their lives. But now that more people are reading it, inevitably there's a bit of backlash. Like this amazon review.
Lesson:
If you're holding out for universal popularity, Hagrid, you'll have a long wait.
Tonight's challenge:
Think about something you've written, or your current work-in-progress.
Imagine people reading it and reacting to what they've read. Write two different emails-from-a-reader or reviews.
One written by a reader who totally gets the story and loves it.
The other written by a reader who doesn't.
Try to limit each to 100 words.
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