If Nobody Reads, Why Write?

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If Americans don’t read, as we’re reliably informed they don’t, then what’s the point of writing? Why do I, or any of us authors, bother creating stories for an ever-dwindling base of readers who read less and less? Why bother?

If people are getting stupider–sorry, if IQs are dropping, then why bother creating an artform that requires a modicum of intelligence to comprehend and enjoy?

Movies are where it’s at. Streaming is where it’s at. Everyone is glued to their phones and computers and tablets and TVs and other screens. And they want the most basic, boring, bland, on-the-nose entertainment out there, right?

Isn’t this what people have been saying since the dawn of the TV age? Television is that “vast wasteland,” as Newt Minow so aptly put it. That can apply to any mass media, right? It’s all bread and circuses. How can freaking books compete in this space?

You have you ask yourself why you do anything. I ask myself this question all the time as I spend time and money writing and publishing novels–sci-fi novels, at that!–for an audience that seems both underserved and facing a glut of books. But here’s something I always come back to: we call what’s on television, or maybe even streaming services, “programming.” 

Think about that: “TV programming.” Not the TV schedule. Not the TV itinerary. And we don’t refer to these as “TV shows” all the time; the official term is “TV PROGRAMMING.”

So I like to write to provide an alternative to this programming. I like to write for people, as small as my audience may be, who want something outside of the norm. Maybe in the world of cheap, poorly written eBooks they’ll come across one of mine and, hopefully, find it both worth the low price tag and well-written enough to make them think about things differently than what is normally programmed into their heads.

This sounds pretty arrogant, right? “Who is this guy, thinking he can make a difference?” And here’s my response to that: I don’t know. I don’t know if anything I do makes a difference, and not just writing books. Maybe it’s all for naught. Maybe we truly are just dust in the wind as the song goes, and all is vanity as is written in Ecclesiastes. 

And so what? So what? If all is vanity and nothing matters, that almost makes it worth toiling at something just to kill the time and make it at least feel like your existence mattered in the long-run, or even the short-run. Otherwise, what’s the point? 

It’s a bit like being a rock and roll musician. Rock and roll doesn’t matter, and hasn’t for a while. But there is still an audience for it–a small and shrinking audience–but it’s still there. Why not give them what they’re seeking while you can, while they’re still there to enjoy it?

That’s where I’m at now. It’s all quixotic. That’s my personality, I guess. Might as well tilt at those windmills while they’re there. 

People keep enjoying my own books, so maybe Americans are reading more than we think after all.