The other publishing answers!

"Unlikeable" female protagonists, my terrible Venn diagrams, and more...

Aaaaaand, finally! Back in 1975, I asked you all for your writing-related questions, and now, from my nursing home porch, I’m answering the last of them. These last ones, like the penultimate ones, are all about publishing, either directly or indirectly.

This unlikeable woman will be our spirit guide today.

My Agent Doesn’t “Like” My Female Protagonist:

What is the best response to my agent when she says she's concerned about a female protagonist being too "unlikeable"? The whole point of this character is her unlikeability, but I've tried to make her compelling in other ways--intelligent, frank, funny, insightful. 

I also feel like it's such a gendered expectation! Unlike men, women have always been held to a standard of "likeability." But is this the reality I'm up against in the publishing world? Do readers—and the publishers I'm hoping to sell the book to—really care about a character's likeability? 

Oof, I hate this. If you’re a man writing about men, those characters can do whatever they want. Likewise, a woman writing a man or a man writing a woman—you’re probably golden. But if you’re a woman writing a woman, suddenly we care about likability, and moral purity, and whether she makes “good choices.” If she makes bad choices, then at the very least, we need to see her severely punished for them. Here’s something deeply sad: When I was writing The Great Believers, I thought to myself, multiple times, Well at least if most of my characters are men, people won’t judge them for their mistakes. They’ll love them for their mistakes, instead. (I mean, this in and of itself is great; it’s the inverse that I lament.)

Since the agent in question is a woman, I might at least start by pointing out this double standard, as gently as you can. For one thing, you could refer her to Claire Messud’s heroic 2013 answer to a Publisher’s Weekly question about whether she’d want to be friends with her character.

But I’d also see if there’s something behind her comment. We sometimes say “unlikeable” when we actually mean that we can’t understand a character’s motivations (for poor decisions or good ones), or that the interiority isn’t deep enough, or that there isn’t enough on the line, or that the mode of narration keeps us at arm’s length…

Perhaps we’re more likely to articulate these issues more directly in other circumstances, but when it’s a woman writing about a woman, we’re blinkered by misogyny and we just blurt out “Unlikeable! Unlikeable! She turned me into a newt! If she weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood, and therefore a witch!”

You might ask if she can articulate why she finds the character unlikeable. If the issue is that the character makes bad decisions or has too much sex or isn’t apologetic enough for going back to work after she has a baby, I’d try to talk some sense into her and—if that doesn’t work—I’d personally be tempted to run for the hills and find another agent. But if it’s ultimately a craft issue, and you can help her get to that, you might wind up with some solid editing advice and be able to address an issue that editors and readers could find distancing as well.

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How Do I Gloss a Culture for an Outside Audience?

As a writer of color, trying to write about an unfamiliar, politically complex region hasn't been easy. While most of the time it’s to do with the political and cultural background of the region that the western audience is not familiar with, it's also the syntax and diction of my sentences as a ESL writer as well as perhaps a lack of understanding of how my western audience thinks… I have tried many strategies, and in an effort to simplify the complexity, my book has become a web of cultural and political references shrouded in magic realism and mythology. While I think there is nothing wrong with it, I do worry about clarity of ideas and confusing the reader. I would love to hear your take on how to effectively ground the reader in an unfamiliar world like that and how to pace the novel so the reader wants to read on even though not everything would make sense at the outset. 

Let’s back up for a second and get theoretical.

After you draft for yourself, you start revising for the world. And every writer needs to consider, at some point, how much overlap there is likely to be between the likely knowledge/experience of the book’s readers and the world of the book. So for instance, if you write a book set in Azerbaijan that includes a lot of Russian dialogue, and you publish it in America, you’ll need to contend with this reality (with apologies for my terrible tech skills):

On the other hand, if you write a novel about one of Taylor Swift’s backup dancers, you’re dealing with this Venn diagram:

And on the other hand (we’ve got three hands here, folks) this is what J. R. R. Tolkien was contending with:

The next thing you need to ask yourself is how much you care about the readers who won’t already know the world you’re writing about. Maybe you don’t care about them at all (e.g., “If anyone out there doesn’t understand the rules of cricket, this book just isn’t for them, and I’m not going to stop and explain it all”) or maybe you care hugely (e.g., “I’m writing about Inuit culture, but for an international audience, and I really want this to be accessible to absolutely everyone"), or something in between.

To whatever extent you’re aiming to explain the context to someone who isn’t familiar with it, now you need to ask if you’re talking to the audience as if we’re outsiders, or as if we already know this world, but you’re going to drop us enough clues along the way. (For instance, the former might look like “My uncle used to make many pogácsa, small Hungarian cheese biscuits originally baked in the ashes of the fireplace,” while the latter might look like “My uncle used to make pogácsák, which I believed were only a Hungarian thing until college, when my Turkish roommate made them in our dorm oven, sprinkling so much cheese on the dough that they burned into little black biscuit grenades.”) Both of these work! Consistency matters, though (don’t talk to us in one sentence like we know what you’re talking about and in the next one like we don’t); and there’s an art to not landing awkwardly in the middle (e.g., “My uncle made a batch of pogácsa, shaping the little cheesy Hungarian biscuits into balls and then baking them”—which sounds like trying to be natural and failing at it).

If you want my absolute deep dive on this topic, here’s a recording of the talk I gave about it at Tin House a few years ago—although if you do listen, I have to apologize in advance for mixing up my Bronte sisters.

While I haven’t read your book, I wonder if the magic and mythology might not be creating additional layers of difficulty both for you and the reader. (Notice that while you said the intent was to simplify, you then said the politics were now “shrouded” in those elements.) Writers early in their careers are often tempted to obfuscate, rather than to clarify or simplify. Putting a hazy filter over everything won’t make it better; focusing your lens will, I promise.

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What Makes a Book Sell?

I have a question about book promotion. I recently published my first book in May. I don't think it's going to sell a lot of copies, based on reading the tea leaves so far, but I know that's sadly typical of most books. (It’s still brought some great opportunities and people into my life, for which I’m very grateful.)

I've also learned throughout this whole process that book promotion is a LOT of asking friends and strangers for favors (eg, "will you host my event / come to my event / buy my book / review my book / etc."). I'd like to think I've gotten a bit better at it, or at least less shy, but I'm curious if you had any tips for doing this sort of thing. Do you think any promotion you personally did helped your book sales? Or is the secret really just writing an un-ignorably good book?

Writing a really good book is pretty important, yes, but there’s a lot of it all that’s beyond your control.

Look, I made another lousy Venn diagram!

Consider the areas of overlap to be the times when a great book does well. So, all that area in the “great book” circle that doesn’t overlap with anything else—those are the great books that might get overlooked, or might be doing well but aren’t hitting it huge. Which of course isn’t fair, but it’s life.

Let’s look at the “dumb luck” circle. Dumb luck is going to pick up on some great books, and some fine ones, and some really stupid ones. Your press and its publicity and marketing departments and the budget your press spends on your book all count for more than that. What counts the most, I really believe, is word of mouth—but word of mouth often starts because of the effort that a press puts into promoting a book, which is why I put those two circles together. Honestly, “dumb luck” should have overlapped with them too, but that’s beyond my geometry skills.

So essentially you’re playing a game with very little strategy and a WHOLE lot that’s out of your control. Like so:

But there are things you can do that help somewhat.

• Network, in a natural way. Go to conferences, go to other people’s readings, know booksellers, be friends with writers. Don’t be skeezy. Just make actual friends.

• Be friendly to any booksellers, journalists, interviewers, etc. you encounter on the way. Bookstore readings are partly about the people who show up, but largely about getting to know the booksellers, and letting them get to know you. If they like you, they’ll keep selling your book. And they’ll remember you when your next book comes out.

• Write and publish essays (personal, or craft-related) about topics related to your book. I published this article about writing across difference when The Great Believers came out, and it didn’t feel like an embarrassing reach to me. (I do love-hate those essays where they’re like “Here are some thoughts on grilled cheese. Speaking of grilled cheese, a character in my new book <link to buy> eats a grilled cheese on page 42!”)

• Say yes to literally everything, except for sexual favors and things that would cost you money or dignity. Later on, if things are going well, you can embark on the elaborate process of teaching yourself to say no.

• Share your journey, organically, on social media. You don’t need to be on every platform, but you need to be findable, and ideally you’ll have a platform where you can share your emotional roller coaster so other people feel involved. No one loves the account that’s all book promotion all the time. But an account that’s 1/3 facts about donkeys, and 1/3 recipes, and 1/6 “OMG my paperbacks came in the mail and here’s me opening the box and freaking out” and 1/6 “by the way, you can buy my book/come to my reading”—that can be delightful and effective.

• Write another book. Not every great book will be recognized, but if you write FIVE great books, your odds get a lot better. It’s healthy to think of your first book as your foot in the door of the publishing world, not as the verdict on how all your books are going to do.

• For your next book: If you’re with a small press that doesn’t have much of a publicity and marketing department, or if you were unhappy with the publicity you got, you can always hire an independent publicist. They’re pricey, though (definitely five digits), so we end up with the paradox that people at smaller presses who likely got smaller advances can’t really afford them unless they’re independently wealthy. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve never used one and haven’t regretted that, although I’m at a Big Five publisher with an absolutely crackerjack publicity department. You generally need to hire an independent publicist a year out from publication.

• Start a scandal, but, like, a fun one. Sleep with Nick Jonas, maybe? Show up at a conference with a cage full of mice? Go on an all-butter diet and never stop talking about it?

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It’s Been Ages Since I Published… What’s New?

It has been many years since I have published (a decade actually almost exactly!)

What would you say is different about publishing in this era? We are the same age but I feel 90 currently.

My past books have been a failure sales-wise and I am sick of failing. What can I do differently? My book is not out for a few months, but already I feel lost and tired just thinking about it.

This question happens to come from a particularly brilliant writer, one whose book I can’t wait to read next year. I have a feeling it’s going to do ridiculously well, and I’m going to look back on this question and laugh, but here goes:

My first novel came out in 2011, so I’ve experienced a 12-year range in publishing. Already in 2011, social media was important, although it was much more about your own Facebook network (of people you actually knew) rather than reaching out to the unknown masses on other platforms. Goodreads was already important, and I was looking at it too much. Online most-anticipated and best-of-the-year lists were already around to torment us all.

All of the advice in my answer to the question above applies, with the addition of reaching out to all the contacts you’ve built up over the years. (Remember that your foot is already in that door; use it!)

I do think bookstore events have changed. Almost every “reading” now is an in-conversation with a local author—with maybe five minutes of the author actually reading from the book. I love this development. No one was there for story hour, they were there to get the behind-the-book insights. And having someone else up there with you can help in awkward moments—the guy who has more of a comment than a question, or the audience of three.

You’re likely to have more Zoom events in the mix, of course. Which is great, because there was no way we were getting to rural North Dakota on book tour, but now those people can attend events. Spend some time thinking about your Zoom background, and making it fun/book-oriented.

Larger presses are much better now at online marketing, which includes whipping up graphics (like one that lists your tour dates) or just bragging on your book when something good happens.

Male authors are still getting away with wearing the same jeans and blazer and t-shirt to every event, so that’s nice for them.

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I Disavow My Book!

How can I, as an academic writer, make peace with having written a book in the non-recent past (in this case 15 years out) that I would today have framed and approached quite differently?

I have moved on in research interests and am not really intrinsically interested in returning to the subject area, other than the feeling that getting that different framing into my own collected work would, in the scope of a lifetime, be satisfying.

Especially interested in your thoughts on this as someone who is bringing the lens of a fiction writer to the whole issue.

I mean, let’s look at the inverse: Wouldn’t it be pretty alarming if you, as an academic and intellectual, had not changed your thinking or interests at all in fifteen years? Wouldn’t it be sad if I, as a fiction writer, had not evolved in style and topic and thinking in the twelve years since my first novel came out?

When I visit high schools or colleges, I often get the following question: “Sometimes I think I wrote something good and then I look back at it like two weeks later and I want to barf. Does that mean my writing is bad?” And the answer is: Of course not, it means you’re rapidly evolving in your skills and tastes. I tell them that this takes so much longer when you’re older—that it might take ten years now for me to look back and go “I can’t believe I wrote like this,” which means my evolution has slowed (but is still happening). And I tell them how lucky they are to be learning so quickly.

If someone asks you about that book, you can (joyfully!) explain how your thinking has changed.

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And, a Reminder That You Can Learn All the Things

Last time, I mentioned Pub Crawl, the month of online publishing education every February from StoryStudio Chicago, where I’m Artistic Director. We just announced our keynote: I’ll be in conversation with Masie Cochran, the Editorial Director of Tin House Books.

It’s only $260 for the entire month (with scholarships available)—and the idea is that you could attend every weeknight, or you could just pop in for the classes you need. Everything is both live and recorded.

It would be great to see you there!