On my desk is a New Yorker cartoon depicting a book-infested office. “We’d like to publish it,” a smiling editor is telling an author, “do nothing to promote it, and watch it disappear from the shelves in less than a month.”
Happily, that has not been my experience with The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, my novel out on May 19. The book’s sales have been perky, I’ve learned, especially--and explicably-- (is it the bagel references?) in
This would suggest there’s little angst associated with publishing. Au contraire, my curious friends. I wouldn’t recommend this emotional circus to anyone whose skin is thinner than your average mama rhino.
It’s Amazon.com that’s the killer. Every author is sternly instructed not to check the site and every author ignores this warning, logging on at least seventeen times a day. Wow, I’m 787 on Kindle, my book’s gonna be a bestseller. You start surfing the net for a villa to rent—maybe buy!--on the
Amazon reviews are even more rattling. As I write this I have 60, overwhelmingly four- and five-star, filled with head-swelling remarks like the one from Shirleen of Dayton who said she “can’t wait for my third book” and Amy from North Fond du Lac who found the voice “lovely and witty.” It’s the less enthusiastic exceptions, flung from women who sound suspiciously like the mean girls in junior high. that make an author weep.
So I’d like to give a shout-out to D. (what’s wrong, lady, ‘fraid to admit your real name?) Sommerfeld from
