Adventures in the Book Trade

Reflections on publishing a book in the age of algorithms

[The writer] knows he has a short span of life, that the day will come when he must pass through the wall of oblivion, and he wants to leave a scratch on that wall. —William Faulkner

It’s been just over a month since Empire of Ink came out, and it seems like as good a time as any to step back and reflect.

All in all, the launch has gone about as well as I could have hoped: reviews in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, some fun book talks and interviews, and a smattering of social media chatter. But let's face it: unless your name happens to be Stephen King or Brené Brown, you're probably not making a full-time living writing books in this day and age.

As the initial burst of launch-day publicity subsides, I'm trying to let go of thinking too much about the numbers while still doing what I can to help the book find readers. But I take comfort in knowing that writers have been struggling with some version of this dilemma for centuries.

One of the themes I explore in the book is how nineteenth-century newspaper publishers had to become jacks of all trades: printing, editing, selling subscriptions, hawking ads, delivering the papers—sometimes even trading their literary wares for a basket of eggs or a bottle of whiskey. Today, their literary descendants are expected to be web designers, video producers, publicists, social media managers, and marketing departments of one.

At some level, there’s no escaping the numbers. Everyone wants to feel like their work matters to someone. These days most of us are suckers for the dopamine hit of an occasional like, comment, or review. And a stray one-star rating from a dubious bot account in Ethiopia can be enough to make you question your life choices.

When my first book came out in 2007, authors lived in a simpler world. Social media was barely a thing. You hoped to get a few reviews, maybe line up some readings and speaking gigs to sustain public interest. Bonus points if you could figure out how to cobble together a website.

Nineteen years later, the digital media landscape has exploded while traditional publishing continues to contract. And while I’m lucky to have the privilege of working with a terrific team at Basic Books, a lot of the day-to-day work of promoting the book still falls to you as an author. You may think you’re going to spend your days staring out the window thinking Big Thoughts, but you had better be prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the mechanics of social media marketing: Would this piece work better as a Substack essay, a LinkedIn post, or an Instagram reel? When’s the optimal time to post? How often is too often? When is it good enough to call it done? These are the questions that try a writer’s soul.

Another major change I’ve noticed this time around is the relentless barrage of AI-powered author scam emails. I get about two or three of these a day now, usually masquerading as famous writers, agents, or book club organizers. I confess I nearly fell for a couple of them—I received a particularly credible-sounding fan email from someone purporting to be Rick Atkinson, which went straight to my head and briefly caused me to suspend my critical faculties before I realized it was yet another bot. By now I've learned to tune out these entreaties almost automatically (to the point where I have almost passed on a couple of real ones).

Clearly the scam artists have spotted a real business opportunity by appealing to writers’ fragile egos. Millions of books are published every year, and I’m reasonably certain that almost all of the writers involved would like more attention than they’re currently getting. I’m certainly not immune from that temptation.

But at the end of the day, the most gratifying moments for me haven’t been the likes or ratings or even reviews, but rather hearing directly from what appear to be actual people who’ve read the book.

So, I’ll close with an old-fashioned appeal: If you bought the book and enjoyed it, I’d love to hear from you. And if you really want to help the book find its way into the world, I’d be thrilled if you left an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads.

But more than anything, I'm grateful to everyone who’s spent any amount of time with my work. Life is short, and we're all just trying to leave a few scratches on the wall.