I admit, I was made a little sad when my writing mentor, long ago, told me that book tours aren't all that fun. A book tour always sounded to me like an affirming reward that combined my two favorite things in the world: traveling the US and adulation from strangers. Intellectually I realize that they are nothing more than a spendy marketing tool that publishers are starting to abandon. But how glamorous does it sound? Okay, E.L. says they aren't glamorous, they're a chore. You have to be on all the time, eat food you don't want, talk to people who ask you the same questions over and over. But still...there seems to be a bit of a reward there. You get to tell people "I'm going on book tour!" Right?
As I am still a member of the hopeful wanna-be crowd, as well as someone who is working to let go of ego (yeah, right), it still makes me sad to read stuff like this:
K. Gessen is my age, graduated Harvard the same year I graduated the Ladycollege. I don't know what led up to his small bit of literary stardom (founding a lit mag that the NY snarkerati find pretentious--why didn't I do that???) but he grabbed himself a piece of that elusive cookie and now gets to publish epistles in which he enumerates the mundane events of his book tour and talk about what he learned from it.
I suppose one day I'll understand these people, my fellow sons and daughters of privilege who went to pretty schools, had the right mentors, spent a lot of time wallowing in their own psychology (please see my 03.09.08 entry on the primacy of the emotional life), recognizing their own shallowness and looking good in all manner of wool coats and sweaters*. Maybe I'll understand public malcontent in the face of success. Maybe I will be published and successful someday and find all manner of things wrong with it. I certainly hope not. Gratitude is very important to me. I've been sitting here in Austin's independent coffeehouses for going on two years writing novels that may or may not be read someday by strangers. That is the goal, but it is not a reward for being smart, clever, or well-connected.
Maybe all of those Stranger "How's Your Book Tour" pieces just sound assholish no matter who writes them. You think?
*I will someday leave Austin for someplace where I can wear lots of wool. Oh, god, I love cold weather clothing!
Posted by Zerd at June 7, 2008 04:20 PM