A reader asks, “Is it worth it — working so hard and long on a book to see it barely sell and get ignored by the media?”
A writer friend compared publishing a book to bringing a bucket of water down to the sea. I feel this way on many days when a client’s books doesn’t “perform in the marketplace.” And sometimes I think I’ve dried enough tears to fill an ocean.
Is it worth it? I wish I could yes, but all fruits bruise in their own way.
Spike Lee once said, after getting trashed by the critics, that that was the price for getting in the game. And then to quote a literary light and personal hero, Derek Jeter, who once said when the team was on a losing streak, “It makes you sick. How else can it make you feel. If doesn’t make you sick, you shouldn’t be competing.”
These words I took to heart when I started selling books, and eventually when I wrote my own. And to this day, I’m glad to be in the game and it makes me sick.
And since you put it that way, is anything worth it?
Filed under: Authors, Books, Publishing |
Betsy Lerner 
“…Bringing a bucket of water down to the sea” and “All fruits bruise in their own way.” Nice. Did you coin the second one? I’ve never heard that one before.
«Is anything worth it?»
Since it’s impossible to do nothing, and since we all have our quota of suffering to endure in this life, you might as well suffer for the love of something worthwhile.
It takes some of us longer to realize this.
I like it when I stop thinking like that. Accept that I’m gonna do it anyway. I trust maybe five people in the world to tell me to either keep going or stop and think about it.
“The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”
T.H. White wrote for Merlin to speak in “The Sword and the Stone:”