A little stage setting is in order. Yesterday was a Saturday. I had a couple of morning hours to kill, and a slightly tweaked back, the result of an awkward movement at the gym the day before. (Characteristically, the movement was made not while actually exercising, but in twisting a half-turn out of someone’s way as I returned a loaded barbell to its rack. I tend to do the difficult things okay, but flub the easy ones.) So I walked, first around the local farmers’ market, admiring the groaning piles of organic veggies, the cases of grass-fed meats, the bins of salty oysters and the smattering of prepared food booths. Often I regret that I can’t actually afford the food at the Seattle markets; as much as I’d love to support the local growers, prices two to three (or more) times those at the grocery store have moved the farmers’ market experience solely into the realm of the well-heeled, for whom the “small food” fad has become another social status display. But a stroll around one sure can make me hungry. So in a peckish frame of mind I made my slow way down “The Ave,” with its predictable, comforting mix of take-out kitchens, cluttered cafes, big-screen sports bars, pho shops, used record dealers and “thrift” stores that are fast following the farmers’ market model—vintage chic at Nordstrom prices. (How on earth do students—presumably the target demographic—afford these places?) Just a couple of years ago there were a number of used book stores along the way, but they’ve mostly closed their doors—one long-standing favorite, I noticed, was being transformed into a branch of a major national bank, perhaps answering in part my question about the vintage clothes shoppers. Still, I enjoy a walk down The Ave today every bit as much as I did thirty years ago, when I was hardly older than most of the milling crowds that dart back and forth, cheerfully heedless of traffic and signals, busy about their inscrutable, urgent errands.
The day was cool and drizzly; the first real Autumn weather we’ve had after a welcome late-August and early-September respite from our spring and summer chill. The sky was close, gray and clammy, offering a kind of damp blanket that seemed to subdue both sounds and moods, as though someone had turned down some knobs somewhere and put our part of the world on mute for a while. But still there was a palpable (if quiet) frisson in the air, due to the impending noonish start of the University of Washington’s third football game of the season, to be played in distant Nebraska. The bars and taverns were full at eleven o’clock, which itself added to the cock-eyed feel of the day. Despite the first two lackluster wins of the season, glorified scrimmages against lesser schools, this was to be a grudge match with a Big-Ten powerhouse that no one—and I mean literally, no one—remotely anticipated that Washington could win. (Even the most rabid boosters prayed merely for a non-embarrassing performance and a minimum of injuries.) So along with the smothering weather and the vaguely tipsy atmosphere, there was sense of impending doom, as though the entire University neighborhood, south to Lake Washington and north to Ravenna, was a jittery, under-sized schoolboy waiting to go out on the recess playground and get his butt kicked by a bully he can’t hope to avoid. (The home squad ultimately would be drubbed soundly, but with no fatalities, so the game was considered something of a victory—such is the psyche of the hapless faithful.) It was through this rather tenuous ambiance that I followed my feet down a side street and into one of the surviving second-hand readeries. I suspect I was looking for comfort.
For a few moments I found it. It was one of those junk and jumble book stores that cry out for aimless browsing, with topics mixed and shouldered incongruously, the sci-fi merging with the self-help above the picture-books about trains. Textbook stalagmites totter at every turn this time of year. The proprietor and his cash machine are invisible behind unsorted piles of new arrivals. I looked about for perhaps ten minutes before spotting my perfect-bound doppelgänger just above eye level in the “literary” section. At least it was filed there, I suppose.
I have no ill feelings about seeing the book for sale. After all, one could order a used copy of it on eBay from an Australian dealer several weeks before it appeared in print. (What is the social equivalent of being remaindered before publication? No, don’t tell me.) I am delighted that someone owned and may even have read my novel before passing it on. Most of my favorite reads get recycled for store credit at places much like this one. And if it hadn’t been read? No hurt feelings. At least it’s “out there.” Kind of.
For therein lies the rub. Yesterday’s sighting was, with the exception of in-store reading displays, the first time I’d seen my novel on a retail shelf. Published as it was by a small (and quite wonderful) independent press based in Seattle, it did not enjoy the traditional bigger-house distribution and placement that used to ensure an almost identical selection in any chain “brick and mortar” bookstore in the country (whose number recently has dwindled to one). Any author my age has dreamed of the day they would stroll with feigned nonchalance past the window of a downtown book emporium and spot his or her new title stacked pyramid-style in the display window, perhaps with a sign announcing an upcoming appearance and chance to “meet the author.” But the book-selling model has changed, as writers are reminded in every imaginable forum in which lettered folk speak of the subject. Agents and “mainstream” publishers are shy of untried authors, untrendy subjects and non-predictable treatments. The fiction-publishing fortress particularly has shuttered its windows and pulled up its drawbridges to the vast majority of scribblers, even those with “credentials” that might once have earned their manuscripts at least a look-see. E-reader sales outstrip hard-copies by a considerable margin. Self-publishing no longer is the refuge of the talentless but determined. Print-on-demand saves trees, shelf space and overstock return fees. And so on.
So my unexpected sighting put me in mind, for a dreary half-hour or so, of the book marketing conundrum. An author today learns, from peers, schools, players and wags but one central, scared axiom: One must be one’s own PR department. One must charge the cliff, leap the guardrail, dive headfirst into the digital ocean and learn to swim with the sharks and jellyfish, for all other paths lead to obscurity. One must not—and this is said with sarcasm and scorn—imagine that one’s job as a writer simply is to worry about the writing and let someone else think about the selling. Those days have gone the way of the buggy and the Brothers Four. One must market or die.
At any given moment there are just over thirteen thousand “webinars” in progress teaching the tips and tricks of online promotion for writers—this combined with four thousand how-to market your book books, seventeen thousand how-to e-market your e-book e-books, and, if you live in a city with more than three traffic lights, between two and three dozen classes or workshops each night on web-based marketing for your memoir, cookbook, graphic novel, inspirational quote compendium, pet care guide, confessional or political rant. Or even, maybe, your novel. Each of these well-meaning encouragements (let’s be charitable, here) is doomed to failure and futility, for each misses an even more central, if not sacred, axiom of the Writer’s Dilemma: the Writing Brain (at least in the world of stories, novels and poems) and the Selling Brain (whatever its worlds), can not cohabit the same skull, if either is to thrive and madness to be averted. (Some part of me wants to add, “of course there are exceptions.” But there are none.) Oil and water. Yin and yang. Dumb and dumber. Whatever. Can’t do it.
Please imagine this: A world-class violinist is invited to play with a major orchestra at an international festival. She is young, saucy, vibrant and small of stature. Before taking the stage, the concert producer tells her that she must bench-press two hundred pounds. But why? she pleads. Look at me. That’s ridiculous. Violin playing has nothing to do with weightlifting! The reply is exasperated and self-righteous: It’s the new world. Get used to it. Or: A rookie power hitter leaps from AAA to the Big Show; a gap-to-gap lefty with a quick glove and some wheels to boot. The hottest prospect in last year’s draft. The next Griffey. A marquis superstar. He’s starting in left field, but before he puts his cleats on his manager insists that he translate a couple of pages of Persian poetry. I don’t speak Persian! He protests. And I don’t even like poetry! He will live his life on the bench, he is told—down in single-A—until he becomes proficient at both. An oil-rig roughneck shows up at a new platform in the North Atlantic, and must prove his chops as a hairstylist before he dons his work boots. You get my drift.
Writing fiction—that is, story telling as an art-form—isn’t networking. It isn’t schmoozing. It isn’t Search Engine Optimizing, it isn’t web design, it isn’t branding. Not only isn’t these things, it is pretty much inimical to them in any setting. If you have what it takes to be a story-teller, your head is (or should be) working full-time with a set of tackle that is as useless, and probably foreign, to the marketer as a stone mason’s tools would be to a watchmaker. Oh, you might dabble or experiment with a twelve-pound hammer (or a screwdriver the width of a capillary), but you’re terrifically unlikely to succeed, let alone excel, unless you stick the gifts you’ve got, however paltry.
I know the answer, of course, and some days I almost believe it. It really is as simple as Changing Times, however more grandly it might be phrased: Competence at creating and maintaining a digital presence and identity is now as basic a life-skill as operating a gas range or driving an automobile. It’s no longer esoterica. And internet “marketing,” for better or worse, is effectively synonymous with internet “existence”. You are a brand, and every post is a sales pitch, and all that codswallow. For me to complain about the burden of marketing as a writer, it would be argued, makes as much sense as a truck farmer complaining about having to haul his summer melons all the way to the roadside stand. Sure, yeah, it’s a different skill-set, but it’s no big deal. It’s just the way it is.
I’m not arguing. I’m just squirming. as I was when I left the bookstore and reflected, walking back down the rainy street, on my own dismal marketing efforts vis-à-vis said novel. I had a big release party where people felt obligated to buy it, which was a good (if obvious) strategy, but I also blew far more on the booze, food and entertainment than sales have recouped even to date, after publishing and dealer fees. So, Real World One, Paul Zip, on that score. I thrashed about blindly for a couple of months in the world of book blogs and list-serves, wikis and whatevers. I poked around in Goodreads, paying them some money for publicity, watching my “to read” list grow and grow while, after a few weeks, my readership slowed, choked and froze like a drainage ditch in a cold snap. I used—abused?—the forbearance of Facebook “friends.” I even tried Twitter, but I didn’t (and still don’t) really get it. (Or okay, even a little bit get it.) I did readings, drawing audiences nearly in the teens. I went to book fairs and sat with other writers answering questions, passing out post cards and selling nothing. I naively answered a few emails from book promotion services, all of which trotted out dog-and-pony shows of smash-seller successes (pretty much all get-rich quick guides), and not one of which ever had even attempted to market a work of fiction. I tried without success to get coverage—or hell, a mention—in any of the local papers, or on any public radio station. Even the public library turned down my offer of a book copy. Yep. Couldn’t even give it away. And truth be told, it ain’t such a bad novel ‘tall, and that’s not just me talking.
I stopped imagining that walk-by window with the pyramid of signed copies. After a while I ran out of—Ideas? Oomph? Confidence? All of the above, I fear. I went on to writing other stuff. I stopped checking my “metrics” on-line. I stopped passing out post-cards, or carrying around a few copies of the book in my car just in case. I never was any good at talking it up to people, so that wasn’t hard at all to stop. But after a while I barely mentioned it anymore. I guess, not even eighteen months after publication, that I pretty much stopped thinking about it. So the sighting at the book store not only caught me off-guard, it kind of kicked me in the memory teeth. I wandered back down The Ave., and all of the people I smiled at seemed to look back with disappointment in their eyes. I needed a change of scenery.
Not far from my house is a Catholic Elementary School, where each year in mid-September a Festival named in honor of sausage (“The Wurst Fest,”) is held on the grounds and in the classic old brick building. It’s a charming community event, off-limits to any commercial enterprises, so that all the food booths (as well as the crafts, book sale and so on) are staffed and supplied by parents and other volunteers. There is live music all day, and rides for the kids. Unfortunately they’re not the rickety old carny nightmare rides that delighted the youths and terrified their parents for decades, manned by chain-smoking, cherry-faced, Popeye-like characters whose life on the road was worn into their every facial crevice, unkempt beard and faded tattoo. They were replaced a few years ago by big inflatable contraptions that draw much shorter lines and probably damage fewer spines as well. But it’s still a fun place to spend an hour, and brings back for me a certain nostalgia, for my older son attended school there for six years, and I was often a volunteer and/or performer, even for a few years after he’d moved on. Now I’m just a wurst-chomping neighbor passing through, and after a few perimeter strolls of the concessions, stage and games for the wee ones, I was feeling a little better about the bookstore. I went upstairs to a sort of all-day restaurant and indoor beer garden (the converted “all-purpose” room), to see if I could catch a few minutes of the afore-mentioned Washington game versus Nebraska, which I correctly anticipated would be showing on a giant projection screen in front of the darkened stage.
I watched the better part of the second quarter. Though outsized, outmatched and outplayed by their opponents, our Husky offense managed some timely and lucky plays, including a Hail Mary touchdown pass by their young, untried quarterback, and the defense performed with almost heartwarming ignorance against their bigger, more seasoned and better-coached rivals, as if they thought that their early, pumped-up, adrenalin-boost hits would carry them through the grinding second half, when adrenalin gives way to sheer brute ballistics. But by hook and crook they left the first half down by just three points. I walked back through the festival to my car in an unexpectedly hopeful mood.
I’m working these days on a redraft of a novel I finished—or thought I had finished—last summer. I rushed it too soon a clamoring agent, long story; we’ve since parted ways. So I’ll be on my own again with this new version, having failed to find a taker for the first go-through. It’s a substantial revision, but nearly done now. And each time I sit down to work on it, I wonder why. My former publisher is on a long, maybe permanent break from the business. I’ll be in the same boat as every other scribe with a manuscript in one hand and a business card in the other, one foot in the old-school swamp of traditional publishing, one in the shoals of the digital sea. I’ll be clueless, wondering which publishing “model” might possibly assure not income, certainly, but any readership at all. I’ll take a deep breath and send queries to over-worked agents deep into career-change counseling. I’ll join the slush piles of University Press editors and clutter contest mail-rooms. I’ll keep one wary eye and one skeptical ear open to the yammering advice I’ll get about digital publishing and self-promotion, in the very same way I’d react to a chorus of strangers insisting that I apply for work as a Chippendale model. In other words, I’ll do my best.
Will I have any success?
Again: It was only three points at the half. Washington went into the game without a prayer. Though the sky was still heavy and my back still hurt, I went home thinking, just for a while (and ignorant of the progress of the second half), that hell, anything is possible. Maybe this novel will spark some tinder that the first one never found dry. Maybe I’ll Twitter my way to readership, or make a virtual splash in the blogosphere. Maybe the local press will take notice. Maybe I’ll strike a nerve. Maybe—aw, shoot I know it’s silly, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll be walking down the street past a downtown bookstore and—nah. Now I’m being silly.
But I’ll go ahead and complete the damned thing. What have I got to lose that I haven’t lost already? If you’re writing fiction in America today, you’re a junior-college second-string squad up against Nebraska on their home field. It’s fourth and long, but you’re only down by a field goal. Punt? Forget it. It’s Hail Mary all the way.
