The Grasshopper Sunday Edition April 9, 2023: Good Days and Bad Days
You’ll have both as a writer, just like everything else
No Money Edition this week. Everybody has access.
I’m having a very good writing day so far. It’s one of those days when the words flow and edits are minimal. It helps that this has been a momentous week for news, which is fodder for my writing. You simply can’t make this up.
That’s a really good feeling and I’m enjoying it. But earlier this week I couldn’t seem to get it going and the stuff I published wasn’t getting read as much as normal for me.
We live in a world of instant gratification and it is no different for writers, if you put your stuff out there. And no, I’m not going on another rant about doing that. Though this newsletter is about writing, it is about writing in that world, a very different one than even a few years ago. We can get instant verification of whether what we are putting out there is any good.
There is one thing this has shown me. I’m terrible at judging what work will resonate with readers, those fickle creatures. The things I write on a good day, like today, should do well or so I’d think. I’ll be able to tell you how they’re doing by the time you read this issue of The Grasshopper because I’m publishing my two good day articles today, Thursday, and I’ll have some realistic numbers by midnight Saturday.*
*One is doing well and the other is slowly getting traction.
Talk about instant gratification.
Writing online can be a roller coaster ride as those numbers go up and down. This is especially true if you write topical content like my opinion and observation pieces. It’s ‘strike while the iron is hot’ writing. And it shares some of the attributes of daily reporting, except it’s a lot more flexible than journalism.
There are two kinds of writing that I have never done, journalism and technical writing. Tech writing is writing about procedures like installation manuals, in case you are not familiar with the term. It is so specialized and tightly defined, that it attracts a really different mindset than my own.
To some degree true journalism is the same. Both require a degree of accuracy and attention to detail that I admit is not my strong point. I like to play when I write. It’s one of the reasons I no longer write for other people’s money on their terms. I’ve given myself permission to enjoy those good days.
I’m not working on a novel at this point in time, and that bothers me. I have one that has a good start, more than a start, but I’ve set it aside for now. But I’d like to think that I’ll get back to it.
It’s a strange thing to leave a story in mid-telling. It wants to be told, is the only way I can describe it. Lately I’m feeling the same thing about my first novel. It wants to be read but it can’t get to people because it’s unpublished. It’s a weird form of procrastination to write two entire novels and not do much of anything with them.
That’s my form of writer’s block. I just don’t want to do the dance with agents and publishers, though I think at least one of my stories is saleable.
I think with new writers an officially published book, with an advance, is the holy grail. It’s something your mother can show her co-workers. I have a bunch of nonfiction books with my name on them, including foreign editions. My mom has them all on a bookshelf but I doubt she has read a word of any of them. They’re on mundane topics that she has no interest in, despite being a voracious reader at 91 years old.
I’d probably rather my mother did not read my novels. They inevitably reflect our lives and sometimes that’s not always complimentary. I know there is that craving for fame in writing as in other art forms but in my case, I’d rather it was not too close to home.
In Stephen King’s seminal memoir and writing tutorial, On Writing, part of his editing process is to find early readers to read and comment on early drafts. I have done this with both manuscripts and it is a weird feeling to put your baby in someone else’s hands because it’s both personal and not at all personal.
I’m still working that out and I suspect I’m not alone.
85% of published books sell less than 200 copies
That number makes sense to me, unfortunately. I used to work in a big independent bookstore and I loved it. But that is decades ago and it is long gone. To me bookstores used to be magical places.
Now they tend to depress me a little as I walk around and see so many new titles, knowing many of them will be remaindered or destroyed when they don’t sell. Every one has a bit of a writer’s hopes and dreams in it. But the reality is that most are just not that great. Marketing in publishing is still a throw it at the wall and see what sticks process.
Next Wednesday will be the first anniversary of The Grasshopper, with over 100 articles, rants, and musings about writing and being a writer during the online publishing Renaissance we are living in these days.
That stat about the average sales of most books doesn’t sound like the advent of a renaissance for writers, but I think it reflects the changing ways we consume creative content. I’m a little old school, in that I like to read an actual book rather than on a screen. But books are expensive, bulky, a pain when you move, and probably not great for the environment.
A year of writing like this has proven very rewarding. Financially it pays for the coffee and maybe an occasional donut, but it gives me an outlet for talking about our craft and my growing list of subscribers is a constant form of validation that my writing has some kind of value for readers. That’s simply huge.
It’s going to be an interesting second year for The Grasshopper and I suspect we are going to see more and more readers going to substack for their daily dose of the thoughts of other people. I have intentionally kept this thing loosey goosey and that seems to work.
My readers know I am a little obsessed with reading stats. It’s like reading meaning in the patterns of tea leaves. They tell me something is working here. My email opening rate hovers around 45-50% which is an open rate I would have prayed for when I was doing digital marketing. Anything that was over 10% was a home run.
Late last year I put a tab up on The Grasshopper home page called The Witness Chronicles. The intent was to publish some of my political writing from Medium, but I’ve been rethinking what it might be. You’ll be seeing the occasional email when I publish to it and, as always, your comments are welcomed. I’m trying to get better at replying to them because I think of this as an ongoing dialog.
Until next time…did you write today?
Martin
1269 words
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