My Sales Numbers

I found something more cutting and disheartening than getting rejection from literary agents. My book sales numbers. I just got my Q2 numbers back and yeah, um, not the fly-off-the-shelf numbers I would have liked to see. At first, I was laid low. But then, I got some perspective. Very few authors are ever going to get the Harry-Potter-Twilight experience. Very few even get the midlist, big-publishing house experience. Most writers write a book, several hundred people read it, and ten minutes later it’s at the Goodwill for 10 cents.

However, instead of getting a dozen donuts and watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I went mountain biking. And I haven’t mountain biked in months. So there I was, huffing and sweating and puffing and cursing the mile I rode up the mountain, climbing, climbing, climbing, when a walker came by and I stopped, er collapsed, to let him walk by. And we had a typical exchange.

Walker: Hard work, huh?
Me: Yeah. Brutal, but fun.
Walker: Good for you though.

He went on by, I clipped into my pedals and continued the climb and it struck me; the writing game is good for me. All life is a struggle. That’s one of the themes in my novel, The Never Prayer. Maybe you are one of the lucky hundred to have read it.

All life is struggle, and me struggling in the writing game is valuable to me, to those around me, to other writers. It’s brutal fun. And it’s good for me.

The story doesn’t end there. So I’ve been watching a lot of House M.D. I’m struggling through season 8 to get to the finale and God only knows why they didn’t keep House in prison for half the season. House in prison was delicious.

So while I’m biking, I’m conceding that the writing game is good for my psyche, however painful and however much of a struggle it is, and I think about House M.D. and happiness. House believes that only people who lie to themselves can be happy. That life is inherently too difficult to be enjoyed.

That may or may not be the case. However, having a dream, having a goal, believing the lie that maybe, maybe I’ll be one of the lucky writers to break through and make it, well, it keeps me going. It doesn’t keep me happy, but in the better moments, it keeps me satisfied.

And maybe satisfaction is enough no matter what my numbers are.

Aaron’s Radio Debut – I’m not much but I’m all I think about

So, Monday, I am being interviewed on Bookmark Radio!  Yeah, Monday, April 30, 2012 at 4 p.m. mountain. I get to talk about me, my book, some more about me, and if you haven’t had enough, a little bit more of me.  Just click on the link above.  It’s an internet radio program, which is awesome!

In a way, given my nature, this is all rather unfortunate.  I mean, I’m naturally self-aborbed.  I know, real freakin’ shocker there.  Yes, I’m a solipsist.  Love that word.  But being self-centered has brought me lots of sorrow.

But in a sense, this is the normal, human condition.   Even the caretaker types have their own brand of self-centeredness.  It’s call co-dependence.  “I don’t want to think about me, so I’ll think about you, but it’s really about me.”

I believe that the natural progression in my life and the lives of the monkeys around me is to move from selfish desire to selfless service.  The older I get, the less I care about my own, stupid drama, and the more interested I am in the stupid drama of others.

But here I am, promoting myself, my book, me.  It can be a hard, lonely thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to be interviewed, at a real radio station, the big leagues, taking internet radio by storm, but still, really, me talking about me?  For an extended amount of time?  At least I’ve had practice.

One thing I’m learning, and believe me, it’s not been an easy lesson, is that The Never Prayer is less about me, and more about the universal power that story has in the lives of the people in the world.  If one person is moved, inspired, shaken by my book, doesn’t that justify the time and effort and energy I spent writing and selling it?

The politically correct answer is yes, yes it does.  I’m not so sure.  If I’m sacrificing time with my children and my wife, if other parts of my life are suffering, if I’m hurting others to write, what is the real good of that one person being affected by my writing?  I don’t know.  I try and juggle it all.  Lord, I do try.

Only time will tell if my work has been worth it.  So we’ll talk about that, good and evil, love and desire, demons and angels, on Monday, April 30, at 4 p.m. mountain.  Let the drama continue!