Hustler's Lament

Non-stop work and self-promotion take a toll.

Jul 20, 2022

While I’m busy “shamelessly” self-promoting…perhaps you would like to buy one of my books?

It’s been five weeks since my memoir was published, and I am utterly fried from promoting it. My book is published by a tiny indie press, so most of the PR work falls to me.

Honestly, this was also the case for the anthologies I published with bigger houses—I wound up creating and publicizing a lot more events than the three each publisher would spring for; out of my own pocket, I paid for ads on literary websites and Facebook; I drummed up coverage from newspapers, magazines, radio shows and more.

Every time I have to call attention to my work and ask people to pay for it, I sort of hold my nose before diving in.

It paid off for those books. More than 50K copies of Goodbye to All That have been sold, prompting Seal Press to have me reissue it in 2021 with seven new essays, and more than 30K copies of Never Can Say Goodbye have been sold. That gave me the impression that I could easily do it all again for And You May Find Yourself… and that my efforts would be worthwhile.

But while I’m not bad at this, I don’t love doing it, and I’m freaking exhausted. This comes on top of the exhaustion borne of promoting everything else I do—three different newsletters including this one (the others of which involve reading and responding to and editing other people’s writing), remote classes through Kingston Writers’ Studio, my work as a freelance writer and editor. (I feel like I keep making new pieces of myself to sell off, with diminishing returns. So I make more pieces to sell off, which only devalues all of them.)

I guess I’m a “creator” now, and the creator economy never sleeps. (Neither do I, really, thank you apocalyptic world and menopause.) I’d better get used to it, because this appears to be the only way to survive as an independent writer/editor/teacher these days, particularly one who is not employed by or affiliated with legacy media, a big traditional publisher, or a major university.

No matter how much I accomplish in this field, I have to keep re-selling myself.

I put on a good face as I muscle through it, but the truth is that every time I have to call attention to my work and ask people to pay for it, I sort of hold my nose before diving in. It’s not that I don’t believe in what I’m selling. That’s one good thing about where I’m at right now: I wholeheartedly believe in everything I’m offering, as opposed to many of the times that I’ve worked or freelanced for companies, in which case I often felt like a shill.

I know myself to be a good writer/editor/teacher. Subscribers enjoy my newsletters. I have good taste and instincts as an editor; writers have good experiences being edited by me; and readers respond positively to the resulting essays and articles. While I’m sure my memoir isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, if I do say so myself, I think it’s really good, and I’m hearing from so many readers that they love it.

Sure, there are some things I’d change now that the book is out (including a few typos and rejected copyedits that made it in—for instance, please disregard the parenthetical line “(Remember Color Me Beautiful?)” on p.25 because I had already made the joke about that very 80s enterprise in the prior lines, thank you very much. I did not need to elbow readers in the ribs, essentially asking, Did you see that joke I made?! How about that joke!). But by and large, I stand by this book.

It feels crass being the one to say nice things about my work, though. Again and again and again. About every fucking thing I create. I worry that people might be sick of hearing from me, and witnessing as I constantly hawk multiple products. Also, I worry that more popular, better connected people in the field who don’t have to hustle as hard are judging me, especially when I try to push myself forward. A common refrain in my imagination: Who the hell does she think she is? Maybe that’s projection, but also, maybe it’s not? I don’t know. I just pitched something to a major glossy magazine (to which I’m a past contributor), and I found it so humiliating just to email a younger, well-known editor who’s never worked with me before.

Part of my “brand” seems to be repeatedly surprising everyone who doubted me…

No matter how much I accomplish in this field, I have to keep re-selling myself. I feel as if I’m a perpetual outsider, an underdog. First I was too young to be taken seriously, and now I’m too old. Regardless of my age, I’ve always been awkward and a little weird. I’ve never been well-enough connected, never got in with the right people. Any time I began to, they moved on and were replaced by a whole other retinue of people I’d have to try and impress if I wanted to get any work.

Part of my “brand” seems to be repeatedly surprising everyone who doubted me, like all the agents and editors who for years told me Goodbye to All That was a great idea but I shouldn’t do it—“anthologies don’t sell” “you don’t have a big enough platform” etc. I find myself often finally saying, “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself, my own way,” with minimal resources. But even after I succeed that way, I have to prove myself anew, to the same old doubters, or to newer players in a field with a constantly revolving door.

My god, I’m tired of this routine. And I don’t see a way out of it, other than somehow making And You May Find Yourself… a huge surprise hit.

📚📚📚

Speaking of which, recently my publisher told me the book was doing well. Naturally, I got very excited. In my head I cued up Ani DiFranco’s “The Million You Never Made,” envisioning a montage in which I learned the song on ukulele and made a viral video that all the major publishers who passed on my book watched, wallowing in abject regret. I may not be able to change the whole fucking world but I can be the million that you never made…

Then she told me that sales were in the 500-unit range—oh—and the needle scratched the record playing on the turntable in my mind.

At the risk of coming off as rather meta, please bear with me as promote some book stuff…

On August 18th I’ll be in conversation over Zoom with author Liz Prato about our generation, and about our two books: her essay collection, Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning, and my memoir-in-essays. It will be moderated by Rumpus editor Katie Kosma. There are only 100 spots, and several are already taken! Sign up.
Look at this nice graphic Liz made. Sign up!
On September 8th, I’ll have another remote in-conversation with author Megan Stielstra, via Oblong Books in Rhinebeck. Register!
I got to make a (fairly batshit) Larghearted Boy playlist for And You May Find Yourself…, something I’ve always wanted to do, and one of the carrots I would dangle for myself when I considered ditching the book.
Please bear with me as I also promote my KWS class. The current one is going so well, I’m going to offer it again over two Mondays in late August. Apply!
Apply!