Elsewhere on social media, a writer told the tale of doing a book-signing, and having a guy come up and ask why he ought to buy that writer's book, in a friendly, convince-me kind of way.
It's the wrong question, asked of the wrong person. The author can tell you what their book is about, who the major characters are, and perhaps even why they wrote the book. They can't tell you why you should buy it and read it. Only you can.
To put it another way: "You have clearly mistaken literature for vacuum cleaners. That's not how books work. Pick it up, read a few pages. Does it speak to you? If not, put it down, go to the shelves and try one of the thousands of other books."
The purpose of sales is to convince you to make a choice between essentially identical items -- Hoover or Electrolux, Camels or Luckies, MickeyD's or Burger Thing. Books are not essentially identical, at least good ones aren't, and what appeals to one reader may leave another reader cold. Flashy covers, blurbs, promotions and yes, even book signings notwithstanding, it's the reader who works out why they ought to buy a particular book.
Update
6 months ago
2 comments:
So, the answer isn't "So I won't starve"? That would certainly be my first thought if I were that author.
Except for a tiny handful of big names, your favorite authors are skipping meals, unless they have some other source of income. One book sale more or less is probably not going to make much difference to a traditionally-published author. Self-pub, they might make the price of a candy bar on that sale, as long as it wasn't anything exotic.
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