I published my first novel in 1988. If my then-agent had said to me: “You’re to spend a good portion of your earnings each year on arranging personal appearances, buying print advertising, and paying for bookmarks, posters, direct mail campaigns, and publicists” I would have thought long and hard about the advisability of becoming a pro. Investing in self-promotion made no sense back then. Total earnings from that first novel were twenty thousand dollars (less my agent’s ten percent). If I’d spent any money on advertising the book myself, I’d have needed a subsidy to pay the mortgage and the grocery bills, either from a domestic partner or a day job. If conditions today had obtained back then, I’d have looked on writing as an avocation, not a profession.
When I began my career, the ‘publicity partnership’ between writer and publisher was only a gleam in some CFO’s eye. It was possible, then, for a reasonably productive mid-list writer to make a living. The publisher profited, too. Readership was climbing. Bookstore chains were expanding. Although the novel wasn’t the cultural icon it had been in the early and mid-20th century, writers of all but porn and Harlequin romances had a modicum of respect from the media- not to mention your Uncle Cyrus and the man who delivered the heating oil.
For nearly twenty years, I was a pretty contented midlist writer. I wrote from my office at home. I visited a few conventions every year. If I were in a bookstore, I’d offer to sign stock. If I were invited to participate on a panel, I’d do it, and happily. On the other hand, if someone invited me to speak, unless it was a charitable cause and my conscience plagued me, I’d turn the offer down. I really didn’t enjoy teaching the craft itself. I never toured, I never sent out postcards, or gave away stuff, or hired a publicist, or purchased prime space in a bookstore or took out an ad in a trade magazine, much less the New York Times. Until three years ago, I didn’t have a website. I figured if my publisher thought these things made financial sense, they’d do them for me. I thought this: My job is to make a living writing books that sell. The publisher’s job is to make a profit choosing what books to sell and how to sell them. A nice, uncomplicated division of labor in concept-(although frequently flawed in execution, I must admit.)
I had lunch with my editor in New York a few months after the royalty checks for 2004 were issued. My backlist was down. Which was okay, she said, because everyone’s backlist was down. People weren’t reading as much as they used to. What was important was the steady increase orders for my new novels over the past years.
Well, the latest data on the reading habits of Americans illustrated my editor’s concern for the future of commercial fiction as a category. (Here are the results of the study.) But that didn’t explain why readers were happy with the new Hemlock Falls novels, but were reading fewer of the old ones.
“What’s going on,” my editor said, “is that you’re the only writer I know who refuses to lift a finger to promote your books. The bookstores don’t keep all of your backlist on hand unless there’s a demand. If you got out more, it’d help a lot.”
I responded the way I’ve always responded to nudges from my publishers about self-promotion: “I’m flummoxed in front of a crowd. I hate talking about myself. And financially, the bottom line doesn’t make sense.” And then, in a burst of nervous defensiveness, “Why would people want to actually see me, anyway? Basically, I’m all about the books.”
“Ten years ago, when you started writing mysteries it didn’t matter. Five years ago, it began to matter. Now, it matters a lot.”
I’ve had a pleasant, happily productive career for almost twenty years. I write entertainments for intelligent women with the flu. I write escape novels for middle grade readers. I do it from my farm in Upstate New York in the summers and our small place in Florida in the winters. And no, I haven’t gotten out at all.
But I will in the future! Times have changed, and I’m going to try to move with them. I’ll be happy to come to bookstores with my cooking demonstration COOKING FOR ONE HUNDRED AND TWO—102 being the number of seats available in the dining room of the Inn at Hemlock Falls. And I’m available for lectures to book clubs, libraries and other organizations. Just e-mail me and ask.