Why I’m Not Giving You a Copy of My Book For Christmas

Selling is hard. It takes a very special breed of person to sell things for a living, and I am not that breed. I suppose there is a bit in my mutt blood somewhere—I work in Business Development, which is a fancy way of saying I sell my company’s services on behalf of the company. But when selling my own wares, I find the whole enterprise kind of skeevy.

When I sell for my company, 1. I sell in writing, and 2. I sell them, the company. For me, it’s much easier to sell something or someone else. I can brag about them on their behalf—and believe it, too. I can do this, and I’m good at it, because it doesn’t make me feel: (check one or more below)

• Egotistical
• Self-serving
• Self-involved
• Boorish
• Tasteless
• Clueless
• Impolite
• Embarrassed/shy

Those are things I feel when I try to tell someone about my book face-to-face. Those are things I feel when someone hands me $15 cold hard cash for a copy of my book. It’s an overwhelming sense of “Oh God I hope they are buying this because they want to read it and not just to make me feel good.” I don’t want people to give me money to make me feel good. I want them to exchange money for the joy of reading—it’s a transaction, not a favor. I want to know that they at least anticipate the joy of that reading (even if it is a glimmer of voyeurism at reading the inner thoughts of someone they know personally or professionally).

And so, the inverse of this is true. Just as I don’t want people to force the book on themselves because of a feeling of compulsory politeness, I neither want to do the forcing. As I’ve stated before on this blog, I am very aware of the reality that not everyone likes to read, not everyone who likes to read likes novels, and not everyone who likes novels will like THIS novel. Just because you like me doesn’t mean you will like my writing, and THAT’S OKAY. I am not so egotistical or desperate that I think every single person in the world needs to read my book. That would be silly. I don’t call myself a “soon to be best-selling author” as some in my circles do.

I want to find my audience and I want them to find me. I want this process to be organic. I want people to hear about the book, read the free samples, and get so sucked in that they can’t not buy the rest of the book. I want to build trust in my audience that I’ll deliver on the promise made in the premise I am not selling anything other than a great story and all that comes with that. . I want people to review the book and not my sparkling personality.

Sure, there’s a part of me in the book. Maybe all of me. But whether someone buys the book, owns the book, reads the book, or not—that is not a reflection on me as a person. It is a reflection that they are not my audience, and that is okay.

So if you want my book, you have to buy it or borrow it or ask for it for your birthday. If you want it, you and I will find a way to make that happen. But it won’t be in any Christmas packages from me this holiday season. Not only is it probably the most self-serving and impersonal gift I could imagine (“you’ll like it because I wrote it!”), I want my readers to want to read the book more than I want them to own it.

“Thus ends the ringing endorsement of my own modesty,” she said humbly.