What Bookselling is Teaching Me About Writing
You may know that when I was laid off from my full-time job in the wine industry in May, I decided to go all-in on my passion: books, writing books, and helping others write them. Working part-time in a bookshop (which is just as lovely as you might imagine) has been a particularly eye-opening experience. I thought I knew a lot about the writing and publishing machine, but the experience of actually pressing books into people's hands has added considerable color to what I already knew.
It may not be earth-shattering news that bookstores return books that don't sell to the publisher, but the process of physically pulling these books from shelves to ship back to their publishers has profoundly illustrated for me the power that each bookseller, each reader (that's you!) has in keeping books on the shelf. It's why I try to point our customers in the direction of less splashy titles. It's why buying books from your local bookstore, where your own book will one day appear (if it hasn't already!), is so important.
I think of it as "do unto other authors and their books as I hope they'll do unto me and mine." We can't buy all the books or read all the books, but we can read and recommend them one by one. It really does make a difference.
It is also eye-opening to see how people engage with and select their books. People read for all kinds of reasons. Some want to read the books that everyone else is reading. Some people want to discover a hidden gem. Some need an equivalent of a vacation in book form. Some want to feel as though they have walked in another's shoes and learned something new about humanity and the world. There is no right or wrong reason because, guess what, these reasons all sell books!
Seeing readers choose and buy books is also a vivid illustration of audience--that faceless group we're supposed to keep in mind as we spin our tales on the page. You might try going to your bookstore and watching (in a non-creepy way!) other shoppers--particularly the ones perusing the genre you are writing. How are they selecting books? What questions do they ask the booksellers? Imagine who might choose your book and why.
A version of this post first appeared in Here’s the Story, my newsletter inspiring you to create your best work that goes out each Sunday evening.
