Long ago in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, you didn’t see the writers of your favorite books. They were mysterious people who lived far away in castles on high mountains and they sent in their stories in silken packages on the backs of dragons. Okay, maybe I had a particularly vivid imagination, but you see my point. Pre-internet contact was complicated. You rarely even knew what state an author lived in, much less what they looked like. If you wanted to tell an author you loved their work, you had to write an actual letter on paper and send it to them via their publisher. If you were very lucky, they’d write back. I still have letters from Alexander Key and E L Konigsberg. Marguerite Henry never responded, dang it.
These days it’s easy to find us. Every author has a website, and presence on at least four social media sites. A lot of us send out monthly newsletters and maintain email contact with our fans. We pack up anywhere from five to three dozen times a year to attend conventions, book-selling events and in-store discussion panels. Everyone who’s interested knows where we live and what we look like.
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of events aren’t nearly as well attended as they once were. Could be the current political and economic situation in the country – incomes are limited and entertainment is one of the first things we cut when it’s time to tighten our belts. But it’s even happening with free events. The draw of an in-person meetup with a favorite author has waned, and signed books don’t seem to be the thrill they once were.
In a way, I’m glad of it. There’s nothing so lovely as meeting fans, but like a great many of us who work in the modern equivalent of a dark cave, I’m not exactly a social butterfly. In-person events are exhausting, and I can only manage a few each year. They’re expensive, too. We have to pay for several nights in a hotel, extra stock of books, space at the tables, any food we eat while we’re away from home, and transportation to and from the place. Ideally we’d sell enough books to balance the cost, but book prices are so high now that half the readers walk away without buying anything at all.
Online presence isn’t enough to build a career, though. There are costs to it that average readers don’t know about, not to mention the expense of time. Posting on social media once or twice a week won’t cut it. In order to convince the algorithm to treat you favorably, it takes multiple posts daily. That’s on top of actually, you know, writing.
So tell me what you, the readers, want from us. Do you wish we’d make more online content? More in person appearances? Or should we just concentrate on writing stories?