{"id":1836,"date":"2023-05-04T09:39:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T13:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/?p=1836"},"modified":"2023-05-04T09:39:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T13:39:17","slug":"selling-books-the-realities-and-the-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/selling-books-the-realities-and-the-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling books: The realities and the fears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Louise Rachlis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you publish a book and no one reads it, are you still an author?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry yells at the rental car company about the car reservation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seinfeld<\/strong>: I don\u2019t understand. I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?\nAgent<\/strong>: Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars.\nSeinfeld<\/strong>: \u2026See, you know how to take<\/em> the reservation; you don\u2019t know how to hold <\/em>the reservation. And that\u2019s the most important part of the reservation\u2014the holding. Anybody can take them!<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Is it like that with books? Anyone can write<\/em> a book, but can anyone sell <\/em>the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love the idea of books, I love the writing of books, I don\u2019t love self-promotion. Hence, my book Feeling Good II<\/strong><\/a><\/em> on lulu.com has sold about a dozen copies, most to myself. I have $5.71 in unpaid revenue coming to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I overcame my reticence and actually posted on Facebook about publishing the book, I got dozens of hearts and thumbs up\u2014and no requests to buy the book. I have a friend who published a personal memoir about adoption. When she told the people she worked with that she had copies of her book to sell, one co-worker handed her a $20 bill, and said, \u201cKeep the book.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was fascinating to read recently about a Vermont man, Lloyd Devereux Richards who spent 14 years writing a book, a thriller called Stone Maidens<\/em>, and after 11 years, he\u2019d had no sales. His daughter made a TikTok video about his book, and it suddenly became a viral sensation and a bestseller on Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there was an article in the Globe and Mail<\/em> about the book On Writing and Failure<\/em> by Stephen Marche, who says that timing is key to a book\u2019s success. Reviewing On Writing and Failure<\/em>, Sandra Matin writes: \u201cWhile writing starts with one person, an empty page and an urge to say something, it ends with another person reading your words, digesting them and making a judgement. In the process the reader owns your words and makes something of them, an insight, a pleasure, or\u2014and this is the fate every writer fears\u2014the realization that this book is a sham, which should be thrown aside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe that fear is why it\u2019s so hard to promote our own books. But at least we know we\u2019re not alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Cover<\/a>
Feeling Good II: More life lessons from my friends<\/a> by Louise Rachlis<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe fear is why it\u2019s so hard to promote our own books. But at least we know we\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n
 Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-1836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-canadian-authors-association-ncr","7":"category-ottawa-writers","8":"tag-professional-writers","9":"tag-selling-books"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1836"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1839,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions\/1839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianauthors.org\/nationalcapitalregion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}