Behind-the-Scenes Hustling
“Good things come to those who hustle.” – Commonly attributed to Anaïs Nin but in actuality coined by Chuck Noll.
It took me a couple years to get the hang of this whole How to Be A Published Author gig. It’s astonishingly difficult, and so much more work than you can possibly realize until you’re doing it.
From the outside, publishing looks pretty straightforward. You write a book, you shop it around, you freak out when someone offers you a publishing contract (if you’re very lucky), you sign it, and then you polish it until voila! Your book is done! Then you wait for it to be released, when the whole world will of course explode with excitement because your book is AWESOME and duh, everyone will of course KNOW THAT.
It took me two books to realize that so much of this is wishful thinking/just plain naivete. Fifteen thousand books get published every month in the US. Wrap your head around that figure. FIFTEEN THOUSAND.
That’s insane competition. Add to that the weirdness that is the paradigm shift happening in the publishing industry and the whole self-publishing ebook revolution going on right now and there’s just a whole lot of deck stacked against any new author trying to break in. To think that you can just sit back and passively let people discover your book is fine, just not likely to result in the kind of book sales figures that you’ll be anxious to tell your mom about.
I’m not going to pretend I have this whole process locked down. I am, after all, still a Grade A Nobody in the publishing world. I have, however, learned that when you have a book coming out, you have to start hustling early.
There are six months between me and the publication of Bai Tide, but I’ve already started reaching out and laying the groundwork for appearances, signings, reviews, etc. like some kind of maniacal mutant octopus with three brains, twenty-four arms, and six computers. Emails are flying out left and right, my calendar is starting to look like it might be pretty booked for next year, and I’m starting to get the barest forward momentum started in terms of buzz.
But oh my gosh, you guys, it’s a ton of work. Tons and tons of work that most people never see because all this stuff is done behind the scenes. The average reader has NO idea how much work goes into getting a book into their hands. It’s bananas.
But then when someone reads your book, and tells you they like it, and leaves a positive review for you to revisit and enjoy whenever you’re having a bad day, man that just makes it all worth it.
If you learn nothing else, learn this: I will GLADLY send a hundred futile emails that go nowhere if it means introducing someone new to my work who will enjoy it. Hustling is hard work, but at least in the writing business the payoff is gratifying in the extreme.
Readers are the best people in the world. If you’ve read my work, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Truly, none of it would mean anything without you!
