Great post, ARX. I've been conversing with a brilliant (unnamed) non-fiction author about his struggles with marketing, who should be read far more than he has been. Marketing indie novels is a very different skillset than the act of writing. Success is not guaranteed or even likely regardless of quality, the world is too strange for a formula...
Regarding your comment about Delicious Tacos (whose The Pussy I've also read and I thought it was good writing although very repetitive), you wrote "In hindsight, I highly doubt it was in any way a conscious intention to become a literary figure (in fact, he freely admits that “showing face” on his blog was partly a mechanism for getting women to sleep with him). He was just being himself." This brings to mind the following thoughts from philosopher Emil Cioran on writing. He thought that one should only be writing if compelled. In other words, to write for writing’s sake or for attention will not achieve the desired effect: “In my opinion, a book should be written without thinking of others. You shouldn’t write for anyone, only for yourself….Everything I’ve written, I wrote to escape a sense of oppression, suffocation. It wasn’t from inspiration, as they say. It was a sort of getting free, to be able to breathe.” He also stressed the importance of writing in accordance with temperament: “A writer mustn’t know things in depth. If he speaks of something, he shouldn’t know everything about it, only the things that go with his temperament. He should not be objective. One can go into depth with a subject, but in a certain direction, not trying to cover the whole thing. For a writer the university is death.”
>This brings to mind the following thoughts from philosopher Emil Cioran on writing. He thought that one should only be writing if compelled. In other words, to write for writing’s sake or for attention will not achieve the desired effect
Couldn't agree more - for me, it's always been a compulsion. As if the text is channeling itself through you - as if you were just a means to it.
Thanks for sharing the Cioran quote. That's a beautiful one.
Always seems misguided to me to try to game publishing. It’s so so hard to make it in some large sense, you’re just as likely to guess wrong and waste a lot of energy and integrity in the process. Not that one should be stupid, but in the end all we have is our talent and integrity.
There's quite a lot to chew on in this article, both in the form of ideas I've myself considered as I ramp ever closer to the publishing of my first book, and ideas that I hadn't really thought of before. Marketing is a tricky creature to get a handle on, and it seems doubly tricky when it comes to marketing one's writing. Even when I try to plug my work to a warm market - that is to say friends, family, and close acquaintances, the people presumed to be the most likely to support my work - the returns in engagement I see are generally minimal. It was like that with the webcomic I'd been self publishing up until last year, and it's been like that with the work I've shared here. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a friend or family member say, "Oh yeah, I forgot you were doing X, Y, and Z. I need to read those!" only for them to remain unread over the years, I could probably buy a house.
Yet, when it comes to what would technically be considered the cold market of Substack's general populous, I've found a decent following. I mean, I'm hardly what one might call one of the big dogs, but through community engagement I've managed to gather a small number of readers who are very loyal about keeping up with my work. Naturally part of that is the fact that the people most interested in the work of writers are going to be other writers, but even so, it's funny how that goes. The people who've known me for much time and many things largely haven't given the thing that's most important to me the time of day, but people who know me for very little other than my writing devour it hungrily. There really is no true formula for it.
As an aside, I can't help but wonder if the fact I had to look up what autofiction is, is a sign that I'm older than my age. I'll say this much of the idea - twisting one's own life into fiction certainly does seem like a very millennial thing to do. Its prevalence makes some sense, too, considering how the "write what you know" idea was drilled into the heads of students in just about every writing class I ever saw or took throughout college. Personally, though, that sounds like a pretty boring prospect to me. I'd rather write about the weird things that live loud in my head - all the Vikings, the sea monsters, the malicious nature spirits, vampiric trees, malignant witches, and all that other fun pulpy stuff.
Really good observations. The struggle is real. Even with a platform and cultivating some sort of presence on one platform or another, I’m in roughly the same boat you are. A bit issue: lots of sales at first and then a book sort of dies. A few have a longer tail, which I guess signals that’s what I should be writing about more.
The autofiction question is a tricky thing. On the one hand, writing what you know helps make it feel more real. On the other, so much autofiction reveals that, apparently, all writers are the same. Or maybe they (we) just have similar temperaments that makes us want to write. I think a third possibility: writers see what someone successful did and then imitate it.
Same as it ever was. Writers have traded in their personalities for a few centuries now, like composers and musicians did and do. We’re no different. I think it’s about striking a balance between performative nonsense and what’s real.
Anyway, good post. You just got yourself a subscriber.
Every once in a while, someone will write a successful and high quality novel (those adjectives combined unusual enough in the publishing landscape as is) and be completely non-existent on social media. Two examples from last year are Nathan Hill and Benjamin Labatut. I’m just wondering…how?
I think your book is awesome and am really surprised to hear that few copies have sold. Keep at it dude, your stuff is new. So tired of the homogeneity of ideas that plagues the modern world.
Thanks for the link and mention but don't switch. I wish I could tell you what to do instead but I have negative foresight not positive. Don't jump on the auto-fiction bandwagon please. Honestly I assumed your first book was autofiction because it was a novel written by a Substacker. Now that I realize it's not I am more curious.
I definitely hear you, haha. I'm definitely not going to be spilling my guts on here or writing some cringe millennial sex-story sludge, but I'm hoping to add a voice element to my existing style of writing - I think, even without personal narrativization, it adds a lot of personality to the otherwise somewhat-disembodied experience of text alone.
Basically, I've concluded that I need some kind of podcast - even a limited one.
Great post, ARX. I've been conversing with a brilliant (unnamed) non-fiction author about his struggles with marketing, who should be read far more than he has been. Marketing indie novels is a very different skillset than the act of writing. Success is not guaranteed or even likely regardless of quality, the world is too strange for a formula...
Regarding your comment about Delicious Tacos (whose The Pussy I've also read and I thought it was good writing although very repetitive), you wrote "In hindsight, I highly doubt it was in any way a conscious intention to become a literary figure (in fact, he freely admits that “showing face” on his blog was partly a mechanism for getting women to sleep with him). He was just being himself." This brings to mind the following thoughts from philosopher Emil Cioran on writing. He thought that one should only be writing if compelled. In other words, to write for writing’s sake or for attention will not achieve the desired effect: “In my opinion, a book should be written without thinking of others. You shouldn’t write for anyone, only for yourself….Everything I’ve written, I wrote to escape a sense of oppression, suffocation. It wasn’t from inspiration, as they say. It was a sort of getting free, to be able to breathe.” He also stressed the importance of writing in accordance with temperament: “A writer mustn’t know things in depth. If he speaks of something, he shouldn’t know everything about it, only the things that go with his temperament. He should not be objective. One can go into depth with a subject, but in a certain direction, not trying to cover the whole thing. For a writer the university is death.”
>This brings to mind the following thoughts from philosopher Emil Cioran on writing. He thought that one should only be writing if compelled. In other words, to write for writing’s sake or for attention will not achieve the desired effect
Couldn't agree more - for me, it's always been a compulsion. As if the text is channeling itself through you - as if you were just a means to it.
Thanks for sharing the Cioran quote. That's a beautiful one.
Always seems misguided to me to try to game publishing. It’s so so hard to make it in some large sense, you’re just as likely to guess wrong and waste a lot of energy and integrity in the process. Not that one should be stupid, but in the end all we have is our talent and integrity.
There's quite a lot to chew on in this article, both in the form of ideas I've myself considered as I ramp ever closer to the publishing of my first book, and ideas that I hadn't really thought of before. Marketing is a tricky creature to get a handle on, and it seems doubly tricky when it comes to marketing one's writing. Even when I try to plug my work to a warm market - that is to say friends, family, and close acquaintances, the people presumed to be the most likely to support my work - the returns in engagement I see are generally minimal. It was like that with the webcomic I'd been self publishing up until last year, and it's been like that with the work I've shared here. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a friend or family member say, "Oh yeah, I forgot you were doing X, Y, and Z. I need to read those!" only for them to remain unread over the years, I could probably buy a house.
Yet, when it comes to what would technically be considered the cold market of Substack's general populous, I've found a decent following. I mean, I'm hardly what one might call one of the big dogs, but through community engagement I've managed to gather a small number of readers who are very loyal about keeping up with my work. Naturally part of that is the fact that the people most interested in the work of writers are going to be other writers, but even so, it's funny how that goes. The people who've known me for much time and many things largely haven't given the thing that's most important to me the time of day, but people who know me for very little other than my writing devour it hungrily. There really is no true formula for it.
As an aside, I can't help but wonder if the fact I had to look up what autofiction is, is a sign that I'm older than my age. I'll say this much of the idea - twisting one's own life into fiction certainly does seem like a very millennial thing to do. Its prevalence makes some sense, too, considering how the "write what you know" idea was drilled into the heads of students in just about every writing class I ever saw or took throughout college. Personally, though, that sounds like a pretty boring prospect to me. I'd rather write about the weird things that live loud in my head - all the Vikings, the sea monsters, the malicious nature spirits, vampiric trees, malignant witches, and all that other fun pulpy stuff.
I wish you the greatest possible success on your journey, my good man.
And yes, Substack is a godsend for writers, and not just the non-fiction stripe.
Really good observations. The struggle is real. Even with a platform and cultivating some sort of presence on one platform or another, I’m in roughly the same boat you are. A bit issue: lots of sales at first and then a book sort of dies. A few have a longer tail, which I guess signals that’s what I should be writing about more.
The autofiction question is a tricky thing. On the one hand, writing what you know helps make it feel more real. On the other, so much autofiction reveals that, apparently, all writers are the same. Or maybe they (we) just have similar temperaments that makes us want to write. I think a third possibility: writers see what someone successful did and then imitate it.
Same as it ever was. Writers have traded in their personalities for a few centuries now, like composers and musicians did and do. We’re no different. I think it’s about striking a balance between performative nonsense and what’s real.
Anyway, good post. You just got yourself a subscriber.
Thanks!
I very much agree on all points. That's a balanced and thoughtful way of thinking about trading in one's personality.
And yes - selling books is damn hard, haha.
Every once in a while, someone will write a successful and high quality novel (those adjectives combined unusual enough in the publishing landscape as is) and be completely non-existent on social media. Two examples from last year are Nathan Hill and Benjamin Labatut. I’m just wondering…how?
I think your book is awesome and am really surprised to hear that few copies have sold. Keep at it dude, your stuff is new. So tired of the homogeneity of ideas that plagues the modern world.
Fortunately, starting to get more and more traction these days. Appreciate the encouragement, my good man!
Thanks for the link and mention but don't switch. I wish I could tell you what to do instead but I have negative foresight not positive. Don't jump on the auto-fiction bandwagon please. Honestly I assumed your first book was autofiction because it was a novel written by a Substacker. Now that I realize it's not I am more curious.
I definitely hear you, haha. I'm definitely not going to be spilling my guts on here or writing some cringe millennial sex-story sludge, but I'm hoping to add a voice element to my existing style of writing - I think, even without personal narrativization, it adds a lot of personality to the otherwise somewhat-disembodied experience of text alone.
Basically, I've concluded that I need some kind of podcast - even a limited one.
it just seems all inevitable.
Great post