A friend of mine wrote a Pulitzer-prize winning book and everyone in his life said, “Oh, what a wonderful success the book will be!” “Yeah,” he replied, “except that it’s a book.” Even when you have a great publisher, as I do—books don’t sell themselves. Increasingly, in an era when 16% of Americans read books for pleasure, their writers have a huge role in selling them, damned near door to door. I’m surprised we don’t have to print them and sew them together, too.
From a letter sent this morning to my writer friend Charles McNair:
Things good here. Scout played her last season of soccer—her last game was a month ago—and seems to be as cheerfully ready to move on as she was terribly sad to see it end.
And I’m spending my life’s blood gearing up to sell this book of mine about the whole story.
Someone really should tell writers that if they want a chance to sell copies of even their best work, they’ll more time drumming than writing and editing.
Never mind. No writer would ever believe that.
And probably, no writer worth knowing would ever go through with it.
Alas: I’m going through with it … because I have this feeling that if I get it in front of enough people, a “ya gotta read this” thing will kick in and the book will go like kudzu and replace the Holy Bible as a sensible guide to living.
Which this country needs badly, Charles.
This isn’t about me.
It’s about our country.
David
You’ll read that as a wisecrack. And that’s how I want you to read it. But anyone who has recently tried (really tried) to promote a book knows it’s not a joke. To do what must be done—hundreds of introductions and solicitations and performances to hundreds of journalists and podcasters and people you meet in airport bars—one must spend approximately one year of one’s life behaving like an ever-more rabid, psychotic, hungry, horny wolverine, whose raging compulsions can only be sated by sales of a book, for $14.95.
But not actually being a wolverine but rather a person who must all the while maintain the outward grace of a distinguished author, the psychological requirement is a quiet inner belief that this book about soccer parenting, puzzle-making or typewriter repair “is really about everything,” as the writer eventually hears himself telling the lady at the dry-cleaner. One must work oneself into a worldview where it is self-evident that the history of civilization led to this wee, unassuming volume—and the future of civilization depends upon how many pre-orders we get. I mean it.
Of course I’m not actually making light of Soccer Dad with this post. Because Soccer Dad really is about everything, as least as far as I’m concerned: my family, my daughter, her life, our life. And whatever it is, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done: the most complete and heartfelt and honest. And maybe I also worry it’s the best thing I’ll ever write.
So for the love of Maradona, if you haven’t pre-ordered Soccer Dad (out in April), please do. Not for me. For your country. And for the future of civilization.
