Writing a book takes time, imagination, research, good organisational skills, drive and hard work. There will be lots and lots of thankless hours at the page putting down words, most of which will never make the final cut. To write a good book you will need to have life experience, a solid grasp of language and years and years of reading behind you. And it helps if you're a genius. Though it isn't obligatory as the history of literature will attest.
Generally, you will have to focus all your energies on the task, whether you write in stolen moments between the needs of work and family, or you have managed to find months to do nothing but write. Writing a book is a multifaceted, complex undertaking that requires skills that can be learnt on the job but are most often honed over years if not decades or reading, writing and research.
By the end of all that you should have a book, and most importantly, you will be a writer. And if you get published, from then on you can strut around with the knowledge that you are an author. No one can take that away from you. You have the book to prove it.
So, it's odd when you discover, in the months leading to publication, there is an expectation that you have also, in your spare time, honed a huge range of other skills while teaching yourself how to write. Skills like delivering world class speeches to large rooms full of people, or producing witty banter for a podcast interview, or writing killer scripts for a hundred short Tik-Tok videos, which showcase your acting chops and hip dance moves, videos you also know how to edit, with special effects, all done between sessions at the gym toning up for the casual shots for Instagram of yourself semi-naked on the beach or by the pool in some luxury hotel.
Instead of concentrating on finishing the final edits of the book, your time will be spent hurriedly following other authors on social media trying to get inspiration for your own social feeds. You'll probably see a hundred box opening videos, filmed in a style reminiscent of those stilted home videos from the fifties. There will be cover reveals, which were big about fifteen years ago and didn't really increase sales back then. You'll see uncomfortable authors talking directly to the screen, trying for emotions they don't feel, saying things they wouldn't ordinarily say, in videos which have all the spontaneity of a hostage video.
A lot has been said on the personalities of writers. The idea that they are all introverts is pretty well established. These attempts at self-promotion in the digital age will only reinforce the stereotype. But writers are not all introverts, some are outgoing, some are crazy extroverts. But they have spent most of their lives training to be writers. These are people who spend hours, days, months, years at a time writing and reading. Often, that's all they know. That's their job, their vocation, and their skillset.
Over the years I have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of authors on camera, behind the mic and on stage. Usually, I did this after watching the authors being filmed, photographed, choreographed and coached by an experienced social media team. And I can say few, if any, were comfortable doing any of it. Even the handful of extroverts. Over the years I did learn how to make authors feel a little bit more comfortable in interviews by asking better questions and developing a more relaxed style, but most wished they were somewhere else. And remember, this was with a professional, well-oiled machine, where the team would use tried and tested formulas for success.
Imagine the anxiety in an author trying to do all that themselves.
Even the most extroverted writer will be shit in front of a camera without training. And no training can be successful without motivation. What is their motivation to become digital marketing experts? A few extra book sales? Clicks? At what cost though, their dignity?
They overcame all the obstacles to become writers because that was their one desire. They got good because the end goal meant something to them.
Now they just want to finish the edits and then write their next book. That's what motivates them.
Sure, if forced, they will stretch themselves for a handful of clicks. They will try to do the job traditionally done by the publisher’s marketing team. They will even attempt to build a platform, sign up people to newsletters that will never be written, stammer in front of the camera, build networks of other hopeful authors and refresh their phones incessantly in the hope that someone, somewhere has liked their amateur content.
What is the alternative?
The world has changed forever. Publishers don’t have the options they once had. The days of cost effective two-page ad spreads in the generous literary sections in national newspapers are gone. As are the author profiles in those magazines you’d once find littering all the lounge rooms and doctors waiting rooms across the land. High rating TV talk shows are also dead, and with them the opportunity to spruik your book to an audience of millions. And radio? Well radio has been lost in a tidal wave of podcasts which have divided listeners into tinier and tinier segments, so that now, to get the reach of a single old school radio interview, you have to do a hundred separate podcasts in an unending stream of repeated stories.
Books are content. The best content. Other media are always profiting off the content found in books. Films, music, television, documentaries, radio and podcast all utilise the work done by lone authors. Surely the publishing and bookselling world can find ways to profit off the best content in the world, too? Imagine what they could do if instead of each individual publishing house or bookshop spending money separately, they pooled their resources and really put some muscle behind driving home the message that books are the engine of culture?
Allan Lane, the fellow who helped found Penguin Books in 1935, changed reading in the English-speaking world by publishing cheap paperbacks of high-quality literature. And in a genius move gave them all those distinctive horizontal bands which all but guaranteed a good read. That was just one person and an idea. Those Penguins gave millions of people access to writing that would have been expensive and out of reach. It was like dropping the velvet rope and inviting everyone into the VIP section. And once in, people began to demand more from their reading.
That’s the kind of thinking we need now. We need to stop chasing the easy sale and give people a reason to read. Especially now. As Michelle Obama famously said, when they go low, we go high. We need to remind people that books contain multitudes, that they are considered thought, that they are researched, that they help you see the world with clarity, that they give you reason to live and help you make the world a better place.
I was a reluctant reader, I found reading exhausting, it was only when someone gave me a book worth all the trouble that I became a reader. No other artform was so generous, so rich, so thought provoking. I was hooked.
We shouldn’t be afraid to recommend the best that writing offers.
We just need a few Allan Lanes and a more coordinated approach.
Until then, authors will have to buy a ring light, do a crash course in video editing, take some media training, develop a content strategy, join a gym or dance class and find something else other than their books to talk about.
Generally, you will have to focus all your energies on the task, whether you write in stolen moments between the needs of work and family, or you have managed to find months to do nothing but write. Writing a book is a multifaceted, complex undertaking that requires skills that can be learnt on the job but are most often honed over years if not decades or reading, writing and research.
By the end of all that you should have a book, and most importantly, you will be a writer. And if you get published, from then on you can strut around with the knowledge that you are an author. No one can take that away from you. You have the book to prove it.
So, it's odd when you discover, in the months leading to publication, there is an expectation that you have also, in your spare time, honed a huge range of other skills while teaching yourself how to write. Skills like delivering world class speeches to large rooms full of people, or producing witty banter for a podcast interview, or writing killer scripts for a hundred short Tik-Tok videos, which showcase your acting chops and hip dance moves, videos you also know how to edit, with special effects, all done between sessions at the gym toning up for the casual shots for Instagram of yourself semi-naked on the beach or by the pool in some luxury hotel.
Instead of concentrating on finishing the final edits of the book, your time will be spent hurriedly following other authors on social media trying to get inspiration for your own social feeds. You'll probably see a hundred box opening videos, filmed in a style reminiscent of those stilted home videos from the fifties. There will be cover reveals, which were big about fifteen years ago and didn't really increase sales back then. You'll see uncomfortable authors talking directly to the screen, trying for emotions they don't feel, saying things they wouldn't ordinarily say, in videos which have all the spontaneity of a hostage video.
A lot has been said on the personalities of writers. The idea that they are all introverts is pretty well established. These attempts at self-promotion in the digital age will only reinforce the stereotype. But writers are not all introverts, some are outgoing, some are crazy extroverts. But they have spent most of their lives training to be writers. These are people who spend hours, days, months, years at a time writing and reading. Often, that's all they know. That's their job, their vocation, and their skillset.
Over the years I have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of authors on camera, behind the mic and on stage. Usually, I did this after watching the authors being filmed, photographed, choreographed and coached by an experienced social media team. And I can say few, if any, were comfortable doing any of it. Even the handful of extroverts. Over the years I did learn how to make authors feel a little bit more comfortable in interviews by asking better questions and developing a more relaxed style, but most wished they were somewhere else. And remember, this was with a professional, well-oiled machine, where the team would use tried and tested formulas for success.
Imagine the anxiety in an author trying to do all that themselves.
Even the most extroverted writer will be shit in front of a camera without training. And no training can be successful without motivation. What is their motivation to become digital marketing experts? A few extra book sales? Clicks? At what cost though, their dignity?
They overcame all the obstacles to become writers because that was their one desire. They got good because the end goal meant something to them.
Now they just want to finish the edits and then write their next book. That's what motivates them.
Sure, if forced, they will stretch themselves for a handful of clicks. They will try to do the job traditionally done by the publisher’s marketing team. They will even attempt to build a platform, sign up people to newsletters that will never be written, stammer in front of the camera, build networks of other hopeful authors and refresh their phones incessantly in the hope that someone, somewhere has liked their amateur content.
What is the alternative?
The world has changed forever. Publishers don’t have the options they once had. The days of cost effective two-page ad spreads in the generous literary sections in national newspapers are gone. As are the author profiles in those magazines you’d once find littering all the lounge rooms and doctors waiting rooms across the land. High rating TV talk shows are also dead, and with them the opportunity to spruik your book to an audience of millions. And radio? Well radio has been lost in a tidal wave of podcasts which have divided listeners into tinier and tinier segments, so that now, to get the reach of a single old school radio interview, you have to do a hundred separate podcasts in an unending stream of repeated stories.
Books are content. The best content. Other media are always profiting off the content found in books. Films, music, television, documentaries, radio and podcast all utilise the work done by lone authors. Surely the publishing and bookselling world can find ways to profit off the best content in the world, too? Imagine what they could do if instead of each individual publishing house or bookshop spending money separately, they pooled their resources and really put some muscle behind driving home the message that books are the engine of culture?
Allan Lane, the fellow who helped found Penguin Books in 1935, changed reading in the English-speaking world by publishing cheap paperbacks of high-quality literature. And in a genius move gave them all those distinctive horizontal bands which all but guaranteed a good read. That was just one person and an idea. Those Penguins gave millions of people access to writing that would have been expensive and out of reach. It was like dropping the velvet rope and inviting everyone into the VIP section. And once in, people began to demand more from their reading.
That’s the kind of thinking we need now. We need to stop chasing the easy sale and give people a reason to read. Especially now. As Michelle Obama famously said, when they go low, we go high. We need to remind people that books contain multitudes, that they are considered thought, that they are researched, that they help you see the world with clarity, that they give you reason to live and help you make the world a better place.
I was a reluctant reader, I found reading exhausting, it was only when someone gave me a book worth all the trouble that I became a reader. No other artform was so generous, so rich, so thought provoking. I was hooked.
We shouldn’t be afraid to recommend the best that writing offers.
We just need a few Allan Lanes and a more coordinated approach.
Until then, authors will have to buy a ring light, do a crash course in video editing, take some media training, develop a content strategy, join a gym or dance class and find something else other than their books to talk about.
About the author
John Purcell is a book industry professional with over twenty years experience and the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
John Purcell is a book industry professional with over twenty years experience and the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
