It must be exhausting to be an author. (Misshelved #9)

So you’ve written a book. We, your fellow authors, publishing industry professionals and adoring public, offer our congratulations!

You haven’t really been paid for your book yet, of course. You may have received some small percentage of an advance that's lower now than it would have been had you sold this book last year or the year before that or the year before that, but that’s not going to cover many bills, so you better not quit your day job. According to your contract, by the way, those advance payments will be disbursed to you in quarters instead of the once-standard thirds. You know the drill: The pandemic has necessitated tightening budgets even as white male publishing executives get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and celebrities line their pockets with six-figure advances for books that won’t earn out. 

Don’t forget, too, that art should always be free and accessible. You don’t really need to eat, do you? You never know who art will help. It’s selfish of you to ask that people pay for your book. Everybody should be reading it free of charge! Yeah, yeah, they could borrow it from a library, but not everybody has access to a library. Sure, people in other countries are reading your book now, even though the publishing rights haven’t sold in those countries and now they probably won’t, but you should just be excited that people are reading your book at all! Don’t worry about the illegal downloads of the book: The people who downloaded it were never going to pay for it.

We noticed that you mention queer identities in your book. We also noticed that you don’t mention whether you are a member of the alphabet army in your author bio. Now, we understand that you wanted to write inclusively. But the representation in your book is awful. Absolutely awful. How is it awful, you ask? Oh, well, there’s nothing really wrong with it. But you’re not queer. You’re just writing queer characters for diversity points. That makes it bad representation, even if there’s nothing wrong with it on the page. 

Wait. You are queer? And you’re still figuring out the details of your identity? Quick. Out yourself. Choose a label. No, we don’t like that label. We’re going to nitpick that label. That’s not what you said you were six months ago. We don’t care that it’s not safe for you to be discussing this. You’re a public figure now! Better not change that label again. People don’t change. If you change that label, we'll call you a liar, because you’d be a liar. Oh. You’ve actually been out this whole time and you just didn’t include it in your author bio? Well, you better have been performing that identity and performing it correctly. No, we don’t know what that means. It changes depending on the day. Hold on: The queer character you wrote isn’t a perfect mirror of your own experiences? All right, nevermind—the representation you wrote is bad after all.

You're a Black author. An Indigenous author. An author of color. But are you the right kind? You don't look like you are. Your skin is too dark. Your skin is too light. You can't claim multiple identities. What do you mean, you're only one thing? Where are you from? You don't talk about your personal experiences enough. That isn't the exact experience you wrote about. You're appropriating from your fellow authors of color. Have you considered writing about your own experiences? Not the fun ones. We don't care about those. Sell us your trauma. Pain sells. You didn't need that part of you kept private. You wanted to be an author. Your soul is for sale.

Actually, upon further consideration, you should probably share every element of your identity. Are you a sexual assault survivor? Are you chronically ill? Mentally ill? Are you disabled? How much do you weigh? Where do you live? Were you bullied as a child? Are you bullied now? Who are your friends? Have they ever made mistakes? Have you ever made a mistake? Did you publicly apologize even though it was a private situation? Did you get good grades in school? How old are you? What’s your day job? Does your employer know that you’re a novelist? Do they know you made mistakes? We deserve to know.

All these discussions of your identity must be rough on your mental health. Tough luck, babe, because we need you to stay on social media. You need to be engaging! How else are people going to learn about your book? It certainly won't be through your publicist: You'll be lucky if you're even assigned one. Check your contract! You have to post a certain number of times per day, even though this will, statistically speaking, do very little to sell your book to the general public. Create content! Ignore the books you're supposed to be writing. Tweet instead. Dance for TikTok. Buy a ring light. Make that Instagram profile shine. You're a marketer now! You thought an author's only job is to write books? Oh, honey.

Now, don't forget: While you're on all these platforms, you have to engage with everything. Is there a crisis happening? You need to respond to it. A scandal? We need you to weigh in. You might still be learning about it or have nothing to do with it, but if you say nothing, we’ll assume you side with the villain—and there is always a villain. When the currency is content, silence isn't neutral: It's negative. Why didn't you answer our DM? We demand that you answer our DM. If you're not answering us, you're gatekeeping us. You're a toxic person because you don't answer us. You need to answer us now or more of us will harass you. If you don't answer us now, you're problematic. What's taking you so long? Uh, okay, you clearly half-assed this answer. Why didn’t you try harder? Why didn't you give us more? You obviously didn't take enough time to learn about the situation. You shouldn't have spoken up about this. You should probably apologize.

Whoa, you weren't supposed to respond to that. That's a review! Reviews are for readers. What's that you say? Why did we tag you in it if we didn't want you to respond to it? Oh, no reason. Ignore how we insult your physical appearance. Ignore how we make assumptions about your identity. Ignore how little material from your book we actually discuss. We're the professionals now. Anybody can be a reviewer, dontcha know? Give us your book in advance. Don't look at our follower count. Don't wonder how much influence we actually have. We're your readers. We deserve it. We deserve it now. We won't buy it unless you give it to us early. You don't have control over your review copies? Of course you do. You're the author.

We're getting closer to release day! Remind us: Why should we buy your book again? The book isn't enough for us. We need signed copies. We need special editions. We need swag. You're giving us art cards, right? Tote bags? Keychains? Better spend some of your measly advance on incentives for us. Spend even more to ship them to us yourself. Nobody will help you sell this book. Every sale counts. Count your preorders. Hold them dear. Don't think about how much time and money you've sunk into this.

Oh, you lucked out! You're working with an independent bookstore. That's wonderful! They remembered to promote that you were working with them, right? Does their staff know? Did they order the right number of books? Did they remember to order the books at all? Ouch. Maybe you should remind them. No one can love your book as much as you can.

You should go on tour and do events, though. We want to meet you! We want you to sign your book for us. We want you to take a selfie with us. What’s that? No, no, no, no: Your publisher isn’t going to pay for that, silly head. You can, though. Take the rest of that little advance and go meet your adoring public. Let's hope the bookstores remember you're coming. Let's hope the schools prepped the kiddos. Let's hope the festivals remembered to invite you. Let's hope anyone actually shows up.

It's release day! Your book is out in the world!

Did it hit the list? Is it a bestseller? 

No?

Pity.

So, when's the next one?
 

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Nicole Brinkley has short hair and loves dragons. The rest changes without notice. She is the manager of Oblong Books and the host of the Misshelved podcast. Her opinions are her own. If you like this newsletter, consider supporting her on Patreon.

This essay was edited by Stephanie Appell. Read more of Stephanie's work at bookpage.com, where she is the children's and YA editor, or say hi on Twitter @noseinabookgirl. Her opinions are also her own.