After three solid months of touring , I'm now home. The edits for the next book are spread over my desk and I'm working through them very slowly, but part of me is still tied up with The Book of Lost Things.
Some writers, and I am certainly one of them, always wonder if there was something more that they could have done for their book, if there was some extra push they could have given to it that would have helped it to be read by a few more people. Looking back, I'm not sure that there was in this case. I'm bone weary from travelling. The book was beautifully packaged by my publishers. I spoke about it to just about anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. The reviews, with two exceptions, were the best that I've had for any of my books. Maybe there could have been a little more media, but it's hard to get time on radio and, especially, television, and even newspapers are restricted in the amount of coverage that they can offer to books.
So, frankly, I'm not sure what more could have been done. Was the book a success? Well, it's a little early to tell, but ask any writer and he or she will almost certainly say that the book in question could have done better. Well, almost any writer, as I don't think Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling would provide a similar answer to the rest of us. (Then again, maybe even Dan looks at the sales for, say, Boise, Idaho and thinks, "Hmmm, they're a bit low. Wonder why I'm not liked so much in Boise? Perhaps I'd better go there for the next book and try to motivate the book troops . . .")
What is the measure of success? It rather depends upon which side of the artistic scales you choose to put your weight, although, in truth, the measures all tend to blend together at some point, complementing one another. From the writer's perspective, was the book one of which to be proud? Did it achieve what the writer set out to do artistically? (A third question, albeit one that can't be answered immediately after publication, is one of influence. There are a great many influential books that may not have sold in huge quantities, but affected the way that others viewed literature, or even the way that subsequent writers approached their work. In musical terms, it was said that only a handful of people bought copies of the Velvet Underground's first album, but all of them went out and formed bands afterward . . . )
Then there are the rather less esoteric issues: was it read, and did it sell? (These are two different things, incidentally, albeit rather subtly different.) Answering 'yes' to the artistic questions won't keep a writer in Grape Nuts and Cheerios, just as answering 'no' to the commercial questions will have a similar result. Then again, if you can't stand over the book with pride, why was it written? (There are clearly those out there who write from purely mercenary instincts, but it's probably better not to think about them too hard, or to encourage them by buying their books.) In the end, the ideal result for the writer would involve massive artistic satisfaction and massive sales, but that rarely happens, with the result that the bestsellers sometimes envy the critical acclaim of the literary writers, while the literary writers envy the bestsellers their sales.
But the hardest part, for me, has been coming to terms with the fact that, while I can write the book, I can't make it sell. Even publishers and booksellers can't quite manage to make a book sell, not alone. Each book needs a little bit of luck. Some books don't have any luck at all, and some seem to be gifted with luck out of all proportion to the quality of the work, but that element of luck is out of everybody's control. A writer can lay the groundwork for it by writing the best book that he can. The publisher can package and promote the book, and send the writer out to hustle his wares. The bookseller can put it front-of-store, or face out on the shelf, but all involved can then only sit back and hope for a positive reception, and some luck. That luck can take many forms: TV or radio book clubs, an endorsement from a celebrity, a big movie deal, a well-known literary prize or - the best kind - simply a slow building of word of mouth praise, an accretion of support that lifts the book up above its peers. Luck can come suddenly, or it can come gradually, but every book needs it. You can plan for it, but you can't make it happen.
We're all looking for a little luck, but it is available only in limited quantities. Perhaps that's true of all things, and not just books. For now, I have wait and see if some of that luck comes the way of The Book of Lost Things . . .
This week John read
half of one book, then gave up and picked up Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris instead
and listened to
So Divided by . . . And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens
Chainsaw of Life by Hellwood
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
On Reading Aloud, and Other Matters
The Book of Lost Things is officially published in the US on November 7th, and I am writing this in my New York hotel room as I gear myself up for another three weeks of touring.
Someone asked me recently if I still enjoyed doing it, or if I even had to do it. I suppose that the answer to the first part is yes, I still like touring, even if I'm starting to find myself a little (or very) dull by now, and after almost two solid months of it I'm a bit tired. As for having to do it, well, that's harder to answer. I was talking about this with some other authors, and there comes a point when you are seeing the same faces in the crowd, and you wonder if you're merely preaching to the converted. On the other hand, there were times when there would be nobody, or virtually nobody, occupying the seats in the bookstores, so better to be preaching to a sympathetic crowd than no crowd at all. In the end, I just hope that it helps the book, and I guess that, ultimately, helping the book is the main reason why I do it, especially in the case of The Book of Lost Things. I'm grateful for the opportunity to explain the book, to justify its existence, to try to convince people to give it a chance. Even if my presence in the bookstores makes only a small difference, it's a difference nonetheless.
I've also broken with my habit of many years, and have begun reading aloud from the book. I don't read very much - barely two pages - but even in that reading, I've discovered ways of improving the novel. I tend to read the Red Riding Hood
extract, but right from the start I began altering the last line of the reading. I discovered, in reading it aloud, that there was a better, more striking, more rhythmic ending to the extract, one that I'll incorporate into the paperback. I don't imagine that anyone reading the two books will spot much of a difference, but it felt better to me.
While I was touring in South Africa last month, I conducted a workshop for writers. It was the first time I had taken one alone, and only the second time that I had ever taken one. I found it exhausting, and I'm not sure how much people got out of it, but I did try as best I could to share whatever small insights I had gained into writing over the course of nine books. One thing I did encourage them to do, though, was to read their work aloud if they were having trouble with the flow of a section of their work. Actually, sometimes you don't even spot that there's a problem until you do read it aloud, and it's a pretty safe bet that if you stumble over your own work when you're reading it aloud, then a reader will have problems with it when he or she is reading it quietly at home. Or, as was the case with me and the Red Riding Hood extract, by reading aloud you find a way to improve on something that was pretty serviceable to begin with.
So, over the next few weeks, I'm probably going to read that Red Riding Hood extract on occasion, complete with its new last line, and each time I do so I'll be grateful for the opportunity that I have been given to read it in front of an audience, however large or small that audience may be.
And I will hope, as I read, that my little book finds its way into the hands of perhaps one or two more readers who might not otherwise have picked it up. In a strange way, I feel that I owe it to the book. It is now a repository for things that are important to me, things that I believe to be true, or hope to be true. A few days sacrificed, and a few early mornings endured, are a small price to pay in order to do it some justice.
This week John read
The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
The Book of The Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
and listened to
The Talking Animals by T-Bone Burnett
Grizzly Bear by Grizzly Bear
Marie Antoinette: The Soundtrack
Someone asked me recently if I still enjoyed doing it, or if I even had to do it. I suppose that the answer to the first part is yes, I still like touring, even if I'm starting to find myself a little (or very) dull by now, and after almost two solid months of it I'm a bit tired. As for having to do it, well, that's harder to answer. I was talking about this with some other authors, and there comes a point when you are seeing the same faces in the crowd, and you wonder if you're merely preaching to the converted. On the other hand, there were times when there would be nobody, or virtually nobody, occupying the seats in the bookstores, so better to be preaching to a sympathetic crowd than no crowd at all. In the end, I just hope that it helps the book, and I guess that, ultimately, helping the book is the main reason why I do it, especially in the case of The Book of Lost Things. I'm grateful for the opportunity to explain the book, to justify its existence, to try to convince people to give it a chance. Even if my presence in the bookstores makes only a small difference, it's a difference nonetheless.
I've also broken with my habit of many years, and have begun reading aloud from the book. I don't read very much - barely two pages - but even in that reading, I've discovered ways of improving the novel. I tend to read the Red Riding Hood
extract, but right from the start I began altering the last line of the reading. I discovered, in reading it aloud, that there was a better, more striking, more rhythmic ending to the extract, one that I'll incorporate into the paperback. I don't imagine that anyone reading the two books will spot much of a difference, but it felt better to me.
While I was touring in South Africa last month, I conducted a workshop for writers. It was the first time I had taken one alone, and only the second time that I had ever taken one. I found it exhausting, and I'm not sure how much people got out of it, but I did try as best I could to share whatever small insights I had gained into writing over the course of nine books. One thing I did encourage them to do, though, was to read their work aloud if they were having trouble with the flow of a section of their work. Actually, sometimes you don't even spot that there's a problem until you do read it aloud, and it's a pretty safe bet that if you stumble over your own work when you're reading it aloud, then a reader will have problems with it when he or she is reading it quietly at home. Or, as was the case with me and the Red Riding Hood extract, by reading aloud you find a way to improve on something that was pretty serviceable to begin with.
So, over the next few weeks, I'm probably going to read that Red Riding Hood extract on occasion, complete with its new last line, and each time I do so I'll be grateful for the opportunity that I have been given to read it in front of an audience, however large or small that audience may be.
And I will hope, as I read, that my little book finds its way into the hands of perhaps one or two more readers who might not otherwise have picked it up. In a strange way, I feel that I owe it to the book. It is now a repository for things that are important to me, things that I believe to be true, or hope to be true. A few days sacrificed, and a few early mornings endured, are a small price to pay in order to do it some justice.
This week John read
The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
The Book of The Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
and listened to
The Talking Animals by T-Bone Burnett
Grizzly Bear by Grizzly Bear
Marie Antoinette: The Soundtrack
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