Digital Malaise
Author of Before and After The Book Deal (my personal publishing bible), Courtney Maum, recently posted about training our digital audiences to read us (as opposed to glancing at micro posts or watching videos) as well as pay us (paywall? Patreon?) for our work because, ultimately, the goal is selling books. The article sent me into a long think: Could this be true? What does it entail? Do I even care? If not, why? Am I afraid to care? Do I care too much?
It doesn’t take much to detonate an explosion of questions in my mind. It’ll happen whether I’m cogitating my mortality or deciding what socks to wear. (I share this trait with my narrator Jones.)
I went on a clicking spree, exploring my website’s analytics, numbers, and maps, which led to charts and graphs, which led to a series of terrible visuals—morbid, bottom-dwelling flatlines followed by desperate, violent spikes, as if someone had pressed defibrillator paddles to my words, except nobody yelled, “Clear!” and nothing was resuscitated. I went behind the curtain, reading about engagement, bounce history, and exit stats. Shit I knew nothing about. Shit that left me feeling worse than before.
We can all agree that our digital landscape is too vast. Too many platforms. Too many threads. Shit is lost as quickly as it’s discovered. Half the time, when I intend to post about my book, I regain focus in the middle of six simultaneous chats about crows, rock tumbling, or rope arts (I make vulva wall hangings). It’s too easy for my fingers to wander from Crows to Crow Fledglings to Crows Who Eat From Your Hand to Crows in Classic Literature to Corvidae Representation in the Postmodern Industrial Revolution. It’s impossible for me to stay in one place when everything is so fucking specialized. And now, even with the feature turned off, AI is stinking up the joint with its dumb offerings: If you’re looking for crow sculptures encrusted with Swarovski crystals, let me know. I mean, I am. But also, fuck you.
I know Maum is right. I respect her wisdom and advice. She’s also funny. Which is a huge plus for me.
There’s no escaping our digital worlds. I wouldn’t want to. I’m self-absorbed enough to really enjoy my little author’s corner, invisible as it may be, and my freaky FYP.
BUT, and this was the important part, after my existential disturbance, my toxic dip into website performance, and wrestling with how I might train my scant audience—I’d like to apologize to the word audience because, with or without the adjective, at its smallest, the word is bigger than that—to read me (which, btw, is what we’re doing right here, right now, you and I), I was left with an implacable desire to see people. Actual people. IRL. Jonesing for a bookstore, a cafe, a footpath. And something told me that was the point.
I’ll do the online stuff, yes, fine. But maybe I’m one of those authors who does better in person. Probably a theatre thing. Maybe no matter what I do, TO JONES will be a slow burn, finding a handful of readers in unpredictable ways over years and years. One thing’s for certain, but I don’t know what that one thing is.
Book cover coming soon!
Cah-caw.
Dirty from Heavy Usage
