Writers who are not famous have to choose daily where to spend most of their energy: writing, or promoting their writing.
Most writers usually choose writing, for two reasons:
- They didn’t study literature and writing in order to pitch stories to magazines and to craft book proposals for would-be agents. They went to school to become writers.
- Even when their work finds its way into The New York Times or The Atlantic or Fortune magazine … the feedback they get from those huge audiences of strangers is often less meaningful (and even less voluminous) than what they get from their regular readership.
But that’s also one reason most writers aren’t famous. For instance, they’re perfectly happy to be composing Writing Boots post # 4,494—(really)—for their faithful audience of some hundreds or thousands.
However: This inclination to write rather than sell often means the writing doesn’t often find new eyeballs, provoke unpredictable reactions, spark strange conversations, create new communities.
And those are good reasons to write, too.
So that’s what I and my publisher, Disruption Books, are out to do the first half of this year, by pushing my forthcoming book Soccer Dad just as hard and far as we can—through media interviews, podcasts, paid social media, live events. For the love of God, we’ve even made a book trailer (presumably to be pulled behind a BookMobile?).
But when you think of it, it’s a hell of a big job, to introduce a book to an audience of people who have never heard of David Murray, don’t know a Writing Boot from a soccer boot and rightly wonder why some random dude thinks his experience raising a sports kid is overflowing with wisdom they need.
No, not just introduce the book to those strangers: Actually convince them it’s good (even though it’s a yucky old book, which only 16% of Americans read for pleasure). Then, rhetorically strong-arm them into buying a copy, in hopes they open the fucker and actually read it. And maybe (great Scott!) even pass it on to someone they know, who might enjoy reading it too.
I mean Goddamn, right?!
I have no particular sales goals, no numbers in my mind at all. Just by turns grim determination and enthusiastic ambition to do this insanely difficult thing the best I know how: Partly because I and my publisher have a product whose usefulness and quality we deeply believe in. Partly because I genuinely look forward to what I may learn (and maybe even teach) in the conversations that might result. And partly, I’m sure, to make up for years of writing constantly when I might have been selling more frequently.
Because many of my readers are un-famous writers too, I’m going to bring you in on the parts of this process that I think might interest or edify, over the next six months—the book launches April 14 but the promotions will go on well after that—with occasional Boots posts titled “Sales Mode.”
And if I post here a little less than daily over the next half-year, now you know why.
