Personal essays
How Big is a Dozen
The gas inspection
I got an automated call from the gas company the other day.
I had to call them back and schedule a home inspection or they’d shut off my gas and then I’d have to pay to get it turned back on.
Aren’t they the sweetest people? Every three years they have to inspect my gas line. There are so many ways they could communicate this. I might have chosen another approach. But not the gas ompany.
My last run in with them was when I changed the bill from being in Kim’s name to my name about four years after she died.
“Oh,” they said, “we’ll have to set you up as a new customer.”
I tried to point out to them that someone had been paying the bill for the past 48 months and that the check had both Kim and my name on it and that we’d been a customer of theirs for twenty years.
No, they insisted. I was a new customer so they had to turn the gas off, do a reading, then turn the gas on.
“Oh,” they said, “and because you’re a new customer we need a deposit to turn the gas on.”
Anyway, my point is, I wasn’t surprised by their rude and aggressive tone in my more recent encounter.
The window
I called the automated line and scheduled an appointment for yesterday and was told that it would be scheduled between 8 am and midnight.
I assumed this time would be narrowed before my actual appointment and sure enough I got a follow-up email Friday telling me I had to be home between 8 am and 8 pm.
A twelve hour window.
But what else could I do? Although I can buy gas from many different suppliers, I have only one choice of distributor so I showered early yesterday in case they got here at 8 am.
I had a couple of meetings, ate a couple of meals, drank a couple of cups of coffee, finished a talk I’m giving in Macedonia, and shipped my latest book, “The Case of the Vanishing Bodies.”
Around 4 pm I got an automated courtesy call that the technician was in my area.
The gas truck pulled up and parked across the street. About ten minutes later the guy knocked on my door. I let him in. He walked to the basement, waved his device near my meter, told me there was no leak and came back upstairs.
In an effort to be friendly, he told me, “it’s a beautiful day. You should get outside.”
I smiled and nodded. What good would it have done to tell him that I would have but I had to wait for him from 8 am to 8 pm.
Twelve is an unreasonably large number.
My book
I mentioned that I published my book yesterday.
It was my second book this year.
Please stop me the next time I tell you that I’m going to write two books this year.
I always forget how much work it is.
On the other hand, I learned a lot.
First, I had to learn the material enough to use it myself. Then I had to learn it even better to teach it to others at in-person workshops. Finally, I had to really understand it and how it all fit together to craft and write my books.
Is it worth it?
I generally choose topics that I want to learn more about so yes, it’s worth it for the understanding that I get.
I’ve joked for years that it’s also worth it for both of my readers.
Although my books sell considerably better than that, it turns out that low sales is not such a joke for many authors.
The stats
A depressing number of friends have shared Elle Griffin’s essay “No one buys books” with me. The first place I saw it referenced was in a post by Dr. Wave.
Of the 58000 books published in 2020, 268 of them sold more than one hundred thousand copies. That’s less than half a percent. Most of these are books with an author with a track-record or with a particularly newsworthy tie in. They are generally books with big advances and an advertising and marketing budget.
Only ten percent of all books, just under six thousand in 2020, sold more than two thousand copies.
Half of all books published that year sold fewer than __ copies.
What do you think that number is?
The title of this essay gives it away. 12. Half of all titles sell fewer than a dozen copies. And that number includes the copies bought by the friends and family of the author.
Of course I’d love to sell more books than I do, but I do ok. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you told a friend or two, but I’m pretty happy with my book sales.
Half of all books never sell twelve copies.
Twelve is a very small number.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 214. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe