Flop or No Flop
In case you're wondering how the new book is going
Hi there, beloved subscribers, it’s been a while. How is everyone? Enjoying planet earth? Perhaps dreaming of tootling around space like those sweet nerds on the Artemis II?
Personally, I’ve been suffering a little. Although I mostly love being a writer, there are some days/months/years when it feels really fucking hard, when I spend hours and hours in my dingy little office with my unwashed hair, writing sentences and then deleting them, inventing characters I will never use, feverishly playing online boggle, spitefully/despairingly grinding my teeth while reading the work of more successful authors and generally hating every word I produce. At times like this I do begin to wonder if throwing away my cushy lawyer job to pursue my passion for being poor doubting myself never leaving the house writing was the wisest decision I could have made.
Sorry if this comes across as whiny—I do know being a published author is a huge privilege. But I sometimes get so tiiiired of the desperate cheerfulness writers feel obliged to adopt in our public personas.
As an antidote to the forced cheerfulness, I did enjoy this piece by Harold Rogers where he talks about his debut novel, Tropicália, being an absolute flop. Rogers got a $125k advance, and before it came out he was imagining hitting the NYT bestseller list, winning a Pulitzer, etc…and as it turned out he sold just 763 copies. It reminded me of the time when I first signed a publishing deal for The Opposite of Success and wrote myself a little note which I thought I could use to ground myself if/when I became famous, which…ahahahahahahHAHAHAHAAAHAaaaa.
Meanwhile, my latest novel, Do We Deserve This? has been out for more than 6 months and, like Rogers’ book, has maybe been a bit of a flop? I don’t have any sales figures but it can’t be a good sign that when people post about it on Instagram the vibe is often “I really enjoyed this novel which absolutely nobody is talking about” (I mean…it’s nice that they like it, but it’s a bit like getting a hand job from someone while they whisper you’re such a fucking loser in your ear).
Flop or no flop, I will say that the publication experience this time around has been less stressful than after my debut came out. Back then, I had to come to terms with the fact that I would not be instantly flung into literary superstardom like a fat piece of sexy spacejunk—while rationally I never expected that would happen, I dreamed that it might, and then I had to watch while the Mysterious Whims of the Book Market abducted my dream, brutally murdered it and then tossed its corpse into the ocean. It wasn’t a total disaster, the book sold okay and was thrillingly shortlisted for the Readings Prize…but I did not become Australia’s Most Beloved Comic Novelist overnight. Rude!!!
Anyway, it’s easier to deal with the second time around. My new book may not have gotten to number one (1) or even one thousand (1000) on the bestseller lists, but I’m here to tell you that becoming a novelist has brought me incalculable (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) quantities of riches happiness fame influence creative satisfaction mild curiosity when I tell people what I do for a living. Which is definitely worth years of creative agony and significant financial sacrifice, right? RIGHT? RIIIIIGHGHGHGHGHGTTTTTTTT??????
On another note, I’m excited about this new book club Readings is running, in which the always excellent Michael Williams will be talking to various smart people about The Odyssey. Just to balance out all that erudition I’m going to have a crack at writing a recap which I promise will be thoughtful and considered dumb as hell. Not sure when that will hit your inboxes as I have yet to either acquire or read the book, but…um, see you some time in the next 3 to 23 months?
Until then,
Eleanor xx
You’re MY Most Beloved Comic Novelist!