Did Coronavirus Kill My Book?
Photo credit: Fred Kearney on Unsplash.
Far down the long list of things I really shouldn’t be worrying about during a global pandemic is what impact it will have on the book I’m trying to get published.
The whole reason I started this blog in the first place was to promote my first novel, Bit Flip. Though I enjoy pontificating about life in Silicon Valley (themes that echo those in the book), my goal is to build an audience in anticipation of eventual publication. There… I said it. That’s the point of all this.
Yet, for the past several months, like everything else in our lives, it’s been hijacked by Coronavirus. I don’t want to write about Coronavirus. I’m an entrepreneur and aspiring author, not an epidemiologist! But ignoring it seems tone deaf. Coronavirus has impacted every person, business and human endeavor. The only questions are how consequential is the impact, and is it permanent or temporary?
These questions are equally impossible to ignore in the publishing world. For my literary endeavors, I’ve thought about the impact of Coronavirus along two dimensions:
The enduring relevance of the story itself, and
How it will change what agents, publishers and readers will want in a book.
The first is a dimension I control. In the extreme, I could decide the novel is no longer realistic or relevant in a post-Covid world and alter or scrap the whole thing. Among the events depicted in the book are a trade show, air travel, an off-site meeting and dining in restaurants. When is the next time we’re going to do any of that stuff? And yet, re-writing the novel to incorporate social distancing, Zoom conferences and plexiglass shields seems absurd. This isn’t a story about pandemics or an attempt to document our lives under one. Other topics I don’t mention include the Trump administration, the economic implosion, the environmental crisis or any other aspects of our daily news cycle that just aren’t relevant to this story. But at what point does the context of a global event become so big that you can no longer ignore it? Could a story set in 1940s Europe just ignore WWII? Seems hard to do.
That brings me to the second dimension. What do agents and publishers want to produce, and, most importantly, what do people want to read? Personally, I’ll tell you what I’m not reading is books about pandemics! Same goes for the movies and shows I’m watching. It doesn’t seem weird to watch Ozark and wonder why the characters aren’t social distancing. In general, dystopian stories aren’t as appealing when you’re living a dystopian reality. I read about Coronavirus enough in the regular news. If I wanted to read more about it, I’d read non-fiction. That’s not what I’m looking for in fiction. I don’t anticipate anyone saying, "I’m going to relax with a novel about Novel Coronavirus."
The signs seem to be that publishers are still signing authors and still publishing books. After all, reading is one of the few things we’re still allowed to do. I’ve heard some in the publishing world say they’re looking for “feel good” stories as a counter to the everyday stresses in our lives at the moment. I’m not sure Bit Flip is a “feel good” story — it’s not an escape, but rather a slightly cynical take on life in the Bay Area. But it’s also satirical, introspective and emotional. It’s a larger story about a person and his journey that (I hope) has resonance beyond the specific context of his time and place.
The other reality to consider is the publishing world moves so slowly that this pandemic will hopefully be long over and our lives will be back to normal by the time the book is in print. So my decision is to persevere with the story I set out to tell. To make it as good as I possibly can, and get it out into the world.
A quick update for those of you who have been following my progress on the book more closely. I’ve definitely found writing the first draft of the book to be much easier and less time-consuming than editing the book. I’m also appreciating that editing is what distinguishes something good from something great. So I’m investing the time to polish what I’ve got, thanks to the encouragement and constructive feedback of many of you. I recently finished a third major edit and am in the midst of a fourth edit — mostly to shorten the manuscript. I’ve also decided to hire a professional editor who I will work with over the summer to get the story as tight as possible — at which point I will make another push for a traditional publishing deal. If that doesn’t materialize, I’ll end up self-publishing, most likely by the end of this bizarre year.