U.L.'s Five Way to Not be Read
For those of you who have a book out on the market that you don’t want the general public to read, there are ways of accomplishing this futile goal. Let me take this idea a bit further. If for some reason you want to develop an advertising campaign but don’t want to be read, there is a way to do this. The answers will be in this blog post. For all of you who have worked for years to make your story just right, I’m going to give you five of the best ways to make your book unreadable to most people, basically damning you to the flames of the unread.
One thing to remember is that no matter how much people don’t want to read your book, you have to stay confident during the entire trying-to-be-read process or you’ve failed at your manuscript, failed yourself and everyone who believes in you, including your children, your husband or wife, and the characters whispering to you, desperately asking you to do the right thing.
Now let’s get started.
5) Not Enough Dumbing Down to the General Public. As mean or rude as this might seem, it’s not. Generally speaking, if it’s too philosophical or socially aware, it’s what people call preachy or deep or cerebral. On any level, these words generally mean most readers will have to think to ingest it. The problem is this: the general public doesn’t want to think or ingest. It’s simply too hard; not accessible enough. People, this is the age of the Twilight Saga. I have no qualms with Twilight, really, but it makes for a great example. Keep it simple. Lay out the obvious for everyone and then collect your check. By the way, this is not a knock on Stephanie Meyer, just an obvious observation.
4) Too Much Style. This one is highly debatable. If perhaps you become popular or viral as they call it nowadays, then maybe you can use a lot of style. Until then there are problems. Most people don’t want to try and figure out your style as a writer. They just want the story. Your skill in turning a phrase in your own specific way is pretty far down on the “important” meter. They simply compare you to someone else, claim you have to hone it to be more like them and then move on. They’ll even say things like “too many words” or “sentences are too short”. Let me put it another way. The general public doesn’t want to be surprised. Say things how they want to hear it. It’s only when you don’t want to be read when style points count.
3) It Doesn’t Fit Any Genre Easy Enough. So the cover drew you in. You pick it up and look at the back of the book, you know, to see what it’s about. You find out that it’s a science fiction/western based in an alternate universe. In that alternate universe it’s 2011. At the core it’s a romance. Friggin no thank you, unless it’s a comedy. Man, it’s got to be a western or science fiction or a character piece. Either or. Just be straight forward. I know there is someone out there saying, no way, man, I love Vonnegut. Nobody could figure out his genre for years and years. Well, that’s one, not a generality. There is a way to do it though, kind of. All you need to do is water down the niche elements and make it just, seriously, a romance.
At the risk of coming off condescending I’m moving on to another reason people won’t read your book.
2) Having Characters People Don’t Relate To. This is synonymous with Characters People Don’t Like. See, this is where it gets personal. I don’t need to like a character, because I don’t like most people anyway. I need an interesting character I can travel with throughout the story. We’re not going to define interesting in this post, but the point is I’m slowly discovering that most people don’t actually need an interesting character. They merely need interesting things to happen to a one dimensional character. Most people. You have to understand, we’re not talking about finding an agent or being published; we’re talking about being read, which in this day and age might be more important. If you’re character doesn’t believe in what the reader generally believes—forget it. Don’t believe me. I dare you.
And now for the number one reason why people won’t read your book.
1) You’re Not Popular Enough. I know there is someone who won’t believe this but fine, to each their own, as someone keeps telling me. Now let me just explain this real quick, just to put a damper on everybody’s hopes. There aren’t too many popular authors out there. There are substantially more hopeful authors. Let me put it a different way. Most authors consider a success as merely being published. They don’t consider that many authors will only sell a few hundred copies every few months. When you calculate a writer’s wage against the time put into actually writing the book, and then formulate it into an hourly wage, well, with that, most writers work for basically slave wages. I don’t know what movie I heard it in but an example of the amazing author wages went into a conversation. Part of the conversation went something like this:
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m a writer. “
“So…what do you do for money?”
Even if you don’t mind the wage, then you have to realize you’re still not going to get read, at least not until they’ve heard of you. I’ll use myself as an example. If you told 10,000 people that the most amazing super-duper great novel by U.L. Harper is out and that you’ve read it and that actually it’s beyond super-duper; it’s actually one of the best books you’ve read, then I might get 10,000 people to know my book is out. But they still want to touch it and ask questions about it and then look through it and then think about it. They might get to it one day if they meet me. Now do the same pitch for, I don’t know, Stephen King. I’m just saying it’s easier to sell if people know who you are. Now let’s say you’re not even trying to sell the book. You can have your book on a shelf at someone’s house and they still won’t read it before (plug in any popular author here), even if your book was given to them for free. Actually, there’s a better chance they’ll read it if they did pay.
I’m not saying don’t try. I’m trying too. I’m not saying it’s hopeless, because I have hope. I’m saying you have to be creative to get your name out there and be consistent and you can never sit back and wait.
Go ahead and comment. Maybe I missed one or two. Or maybe I have it completely wrong. Somehow, I don’t think so.
U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue, the forth coming short story book Guidelines for Rejects and the soon to be released In Blackness
One thing to remember is that no matter how much people don’t want to read your book, you have to stay confident during the entire trying-to-be-read process or you’ve failed at your manuscript, failed yourself and everyone who believes in you, including your children, your husband or wife, and the characters whispering to you, desperately asking you to do the right thing.
Now let’s get started.
5) Not Enough Dumbing Down to the General Public. As mean or rude as this might seem, it’s not. Generally speaking, if it’s too philosophical or socially aware, it’s what people call preachy or deep or cerebral. On any level, these words generally mean most readers will have to think to ingest it. The problem is this: the general public doesn’t want to think or ingest. It’s simply too hard; not accessible enough. People, this is the age of the Twilight Saga. I have no qualms with Twilight, really, but it makes for a great example. Keep it simple. Lay out the obvious for everyone and then collect your check. By the way, this is not a knock on Stephanie Meyer, just an obvious observation.
4) Too Much Style. This one is highly debatable. If perhaps you become popular or viral as they call it nowadays, then maybe you can use a lot of style. Until then there are problems. Most people don’t want to try and figure out your style as a writer. They just want the story. Your skill in turning a phrase in your own specific way is pretty far down on the “important” meter. They simply compare you to someone else, claim you have to hone it to be more like them and then move on. They’ll even say things like “too many words” or “sentences are too short”. Let me put it another way. The general public doesn’t want to be surprised. Say things how they want to hear it. It’s only when you don’t want to be read when style points count.
3) It Doesn’t Fit Any Genre Easy Enough. So the cover drew you in. You pick it up and look at the back of the book, you know, to see what it’s about. You find out that it’s a science fiction/western based in an alternate universe. In that alternate universe it’s 2011. At the core it’s a romance. Friggin no thank you, unless it’s a comedy. Man, it’s got to be a western or science fiction or a character piece. Either or. Just be straight forward. I know there is someone out there saying, no way, man, I love Vonnegut. Nobody could figure out his genre for years and years. Well, that’s one, not a generality. There is a way to do it though, kind of. All you need to do is water down the niche elements and make it just, seriously, a romance.
At the risk of coming off condescending I’m moving on to another reason people won’t read your book.
2) Having Characters People Don’t Relate To. This is synonymous with Characters People Don’t Like. See, this is where it gets personal. I don’t need to like a character, because I don’t like most people anyway. I need an interesting character I can travel with throughout the story. We’re not going to define interesting in this post, but the point is I’m slowly discovering that most people don’t actually need an interesting character. They merely need interesting things to happen to a one dimensional character. Most people. You have to understand, we’re not talking about finding an agent or being published; we’re talking about being read, which in this day and age might be more important. If you’re character doesn’t believe in what the reader generally believes—forget it. Don’t believe me. I dare you.
And now for the number one reason why people won’t read your book.
1) You’re Not Popular Enough. I know there is someone who won’t believe this but fine, to each their own, as someone keeps telling me. Now let me just explain this real quick, just to put a damper on everybody’s hopes. There aren’t too many popular authors out there. There are substantially more hopeful authors. Let me put it a different way. Most authors consider a success as merely being published. They don’t consider that many authors will only sell a few hundred copies every few months. When you calculate a writer’s wage against the time put into actually writing the book, and then formulate it into an hourly wage, well, with that, most writers work for basically slave wages. I don’t know what movie I heard it in but an example of the amazing author wages went into a conversation. Part of the conversation went something like this:
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m a writer. “
“So…what do you do for money?”
Even if you don’t mind the wage, then you have to realize you’re still not going to get read, at least not until they’ve heard of you. I’ll use myself as an example. If you told 10,000 people that the most amazing super-duper great novel by U.L. Harper is out and that you’ve read it and that actually it’s beyond super-duper; it’s actually one of the best books you’ve read, then I might get 10,000 people to know my book is out. But they still want to touch it and ask questions about it and then look through it and then think about it. They might get to it one day if they meet me. Now do the same pitch for, I don’t know, Stephen King. I’m just saying it’s easier to sell if people know who you are. Now let’s say you’re not even trying to sell the book. You can have your book on a shelf at someone’s house and they still won’t read it before (plug in any popular author here), even if your book was given to them for free. Actually, there’s a better chance they’ll read it if they did pay.
I’m not saying don’t try. I’m trying too. I’m not saying it’s hopeless, because I have hope. I’m saying you have to be creative to get your name out there and be consistent and you can never sit back and wait.
Go ahead and comment. Maybe I missed one or two. Or maybe I have it completely wrong. Somehow, I don’t think so.
U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue, the forth coming short story book Guidelines for Rejects and the soon to be released In Blackness
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