Jeff Miller's Blog, page 12

Feels a bit surreal to get the Goodreads Newsletter for December...

Feels a bit surreal to get the Goodreads Newsletter for December and see my book in it.

New peak on the sales chart. And like an egg, I’m...

New peak on the sales chart.  And like an egg, I’m hard-boiled.

ilyagerner:I hold in my hand a copy of Jeff Miller’s The...

ilyagerner:

I hold in my hand a copy of Jeff Miller’s The Bubble Gum Thief, newly arrived in my mailbox!

Jeff’s a good writer even when he’s being an asspain about politics, so I suspect he’s an able storyteller too.  I’ll report my thoughts as soon I’ve read it, but for now I’m just happy to see a fellow tumblr-er done good.

Consider getting a copy of your own.

General rule of thumb … if you’re going to photograph yourself holding a piece of genre fiction, make sure there is a visible copy of The New Yorker in the background.

In all seriousness, thanks Ilya.

Word of Mouth

When people lived in caves, the entire world seemed to be comprised of whoever lived within the earshot.  So when someone drew something cool on the wall, they didn’t need a publicist or marketing agent to spread the word.  People found out by word of mouth.

But then inventions made it clear that the world was a bigger place.  The wheel, and the carriage, and the train, and the plane—all of these things showed us that there were lot of people far beyond earshot.  Most of them spoke different languages.  And if you wanted to get them to look at your cave drawings, you couldn’t do it on your own.  Entire industries—journalism, advertising, public relations—grew up with the sole purpose of helping people tell other people about things.  If you made a cool drawing, or if you wrote a cool book, you wanted these people to let the world know.  Word of mouth wasn’t enough.  You needed reviews, and notices, and features.

The internet has put us back in caves, so to speak.  Nobody is out of earshot anymore.  If there’s something cool, people find out.  OK Go and PSY didn’t need MTV.  Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t need the Times Book Review.  All they need was for people to like something and tell others.  All they needed was word of mouth.

It used to be that if you liked an author, you might tell your friends, and one of them might buy the book.  Now, if you like an author, you can write a blog post about it, or leave a review on Goodreads, or Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, and thousands of people may come across it.  A dozen or more of them might buy the book, and if they like it and leave reviews … well, I don’t have to tell you how something goes viral.  As these reviews accumulate, they start to matter more than anything you might find in the New York Times.  Some people fear this—they think the world ought be filled with gatekeepers that decide what is worthy of attention.  I don’t fear this.  I think we’re living in a greater artistic meritocracy ever before.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has told others about my book, no matter whether they told their friends and family, or they wrote a review of the book, or blogged about it.  These things matter more than ever to an author—it’s how careers are made these days.  I cannot adequately convey how much I appreciate your efforts.

This is not to take anything away from the Sheridan County...

This is not to take anything away from the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library, which I will always love, but my hometown library—the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County—has apparently ordered several copies of The Bubble Gum Thief, including one that is to reside at a branch just two and a half miles from where I live.

I have never been to the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library...

I have never been to the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library in Sheridan, Wyoming, but it is, without question, my favorite library in the entire world, because it is the first library that I know of to place an order for The Bubble Gum Thief.  

If I ever make it to the greater Sheridan, Wyoming area, you can bet that I’m going to head downtown, grab a burger at Sanford’s Grub Pub & Brewery, people watch at Mill Park, do a little shopping at Q Man Music & Antiques, and then suddenly remember the whole reason I went to downtown Sheridan, which was to head over to the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library.  And at the library, I’m going pick my book off the shelf, turn to the first, blank page, and write: “To the best library in the whole world” and then “forever in your debt, with love and admiration, Jeff Miller.”  Because, at the end of the day, there is no greater success an author can have than to find his book in a public library, waiting to be read, and read again.

Another screenshot of the Kindle Select 25, for scrapbook...

Another screenshot of the Kindle Select 25, for scrapbook purposes.

Two Days Away

The Bubble Gum Thief will be released in two days. This is the culmination of years of work, revisions, and negotiations.  The notion that the book might be published was the fantasy that got me through the worst parts of all of those things.  But what’s striking about this moment is how small it feels.  Being a “published author” pales in comparison to being a father, or a husband, or a son, or a friend.  So much of our passion for something is generated from the wholly-unreasonable expectation that life will be immeasurably altered and improved once some level of success is achieved.  But success, small or large, doesn’t change much about us at all.  And when success feels small, it’s because we realize just how much bigger the rest of the things in life really are.  

We’re two days away from the publication of a book I worked on for years, and it’s never felt less important to me.  That’s not to say that I don’t want the book to be a success (I hope it is) or that I don’t care if people like it (I care a lot).  It’s just that the moment could never live up to the expectations, and that as big as it is, it’s still smaller than the fact that we are trying to sleep-train the seven-month-old this week.

I’m one of the 25 “exciting” books for Kindle...

I’m one of the 25 “exciting” books for Kindle this week.  You can find them all here. 

Sorry, Michael Connelly, there’s a new kid in town.

Sorry, Michael Connelly, there’s a new kid in town.