So How’s the Book Doing? (And how many books have you sold? And what was your print run?)

My amiga the crackerjack memoirist and writing teacher Sara Mansfield Taber has posted an oh-so-true toe-curling but chuckle-worthy blog post over at She Writes: “Writing Is a Humiliation Banquet.”

It reminds me of how gallery owners complain that customers (more often lookyloos) don’t know “gallery etiquette.” It’s the same with nonwriters and writers. Nonwriters usually mean well when they ask a writer, “So how’s the book doing?” Though alas, this is often followed by the more knife-like, “How many books have you sold?”

Uyyy doubly rude…

What they don’t realize is that (in most instances) this is akin to asking someone who was just turned down for a long overdue promotion, or maybe even fired, “So how much do you make?” because, as Sara Taber so eloquently points out, the book is almost never doing as well as its author had hoped it would, and for most literary books earnings tend to hover well below the level at which one might cobble together a non-food-stamps-worthy living. Furthermore, publishers report sales with such a long lag, a writer never really knows her overall sales numbers at any given moment.

Herewith some of my favorite replies (and if you’re an author with a book out, may they serve you):

(With a wink): I’m getting away with it… How about you?
(This is thanks to Paul Graybeal of Marfa’s Moonlight Gemstones, by the way.)

(Breathily, Nancy Reaganqesque): Why my dear, that’s like asking a woman her age! How have you been?

(Beaming, ready-to-judo): Oh, great! It’s been such fun! You know, I think everyone should write a book. Do you have a book you’d like to write?

(Shrugging, Jimmy Fallonesque): Well, I haven’t moved full-time onto my yacht– yet. But thanks for asking. How are you?

(Sweetly smiling): Not nearly enough. Would you like to buy one . . . or 6 for your friends?
(Thanks to Julia Bricklin for this one)

(Gleaming stare, revealing teeth): Sooooo verrrrrrrry welllllllll… in fact… my doctor has been able to… reduce my meds… (Continue staring silently for three beats…) Just kidding! How are you?

Notice, the trick is to lob that conversational ball back into their court. Unless you might have something aside from your book to offer them, for instance:

Won-der-fully! Thanks for asking! Oh, and by the way, I’ll be doing an event at the bookstore next Thursday at 6 pm, it would be wonderful if you could come!

Great! Oh, and by the way, if it works for your book group / workshop / class, I’d be delighted to come talk about the book!

The thing is, I don’t think most people asking these rude questions have any idea they’re being rude; I doubt they care all that much about one’s answer; they’re just asking out of innocent curiosity, to show enthusiasm, usually, and as casually as an acquaintance might ask about your kids (whom they don’t know), or your kitchen remodeling project, or even just chat about the weather (get any of that hail?).

Some who ask the rude question really do care, they do mean well– why, they’re delighted to know a real-live published author! For those folks, the “I’m getting away with it,” or “wonderfully, thanks for asking!” works fine.

But then there are those, usually with a toe in the publishing business, or ambitious to write / publish themselves–and usually they are men– who persist with the outrageous, “What was your print run?” (Yes, this has happened to me several times.)

Well, I say, bless ’em. Because they need blessing. I answer, “You know, I have no idea. I am so busy with my next book… ” and when they insist (yikes, some of them do), “What do you mean, you don’t know what was the print run?” I put on the Scarlett O’Hara:

“Why, golly gee, numbers just go in one ear and out the other.”

Or, to be a little more nose-in-the-air-y:

“Nowadays, you know, it’s almost all POD… print-on-demand.”

When a writer has spent several years working on a book she has more emotion invested in it than the casual reader would guess. So if it’s another writer who is asking and your book is doing splendidly, why rub in the salt? (327,583 as of last Tuesday! Take that!) Or, more likely, since your book isn’t selling anything like Dan Brown’s latest, why make your neighbor (oh, say, like the divorce lawyer with the car wash franchise who is going to write a novel “one day”) view you with head-shaking pity?

It’s NOTB, none of their business, they shouldn’t ask such questions, but they do, so… So what?

Dear writerly reader, why not consider “the question” an opportunity to practice your charmfest of impromptu dialogue writing skills?

“why not consider ‘the question’ an opportunity to practice your charmfest of impromptu dialogue writing skills?“

But I don’t find writing a “humiliation banquet,” quite the contrary. I am grateful that I have the skill and (most days) focus to write and that, in one way or another, my work finds readers. I’m always happy to see more royalties but I don’t measure my success as a writer by numbers alone. A single reader who approaches my work in a spirit of respect and intellectual curiosity, and to whom my book makes a meaningful difference, is worth more to me than 10,000 readers who just want a beachside page-turner.

(Bless you all who write beachside page-turners! May you all live happily ever after on your yachts! But I don’t read such books and wouldn’t have the wherewithal to write one, and anyway, even if I had a hundred bagilliwillion bucks, I couldn’t be bothered with a yacht. To start with, I’d have to deal with the yacht dealer, and then I’d have to decide on the floor plan, and then the upholstery, and then engine specifications, and then I’d have to staff it, and then I’d have to insure it… my God, I am falling into a dead snore just thinking about it!)

So how, with book sales presumably well under 327,583 as of last Tuesday, does one make a living as a writer? All I can say is, if you want to make a living writing literary books you’ll need to be (a) wildly lucky (b) incorrigibly persistent (c) exuberantly productive (d) more hard-headed than a rhino in a steel helmet inside a Panzer tank and (e) totally flummoxed by shopping (except for books, of course). And by the way, most literary writers don’t make a living from their books but from teaching, freelancing, editing, and/or other work / income.

The “humiliation banquet” comes with the promotion part… and for that, thank goodness for the vast and ever-growing literature on sports psychology!!

P.S. Check out my Conversations with Other Writers podcast, an interview with Sara Mansfield Taber about Born Under an Assumed Name, her fascinating and beautifully written memoir about growing up with a father who was an undercover CIA agent.

UPDATE: Susan J. Tweit offers this:

“Whenever someone asks me how much money I make from my writing or how many books I’ve sold, I have two responses, one of which I use when I feel like they’re serious and really interested in why anyone would write for a living, and the other of which is designed to flip the question back at them. The first is, ‘My freelance article work, teaching, and speaking make a small but comfortable living. My books are my passion projects, and I write them to change the world, not to earn a living or become famous.’ With this response, I’m inviting the questioner into a conversation about why we do the work we do, and whether our work lives up to the values we profess to hold.

“The second response is for those people who I don’t think are up for a serious conversation: I say, ‘You go first: How much money do you make?’ That usually shuts down the conversation right away. I think people are curious about making art for living, and in my experience from teaching writing workshops for a couple of decades, a lot of men think of writing as a way to earn some income in retirement. Which is so not the point of why I write!”