People Aren't Reading My Book

A bit of a click-baity title as I can neither confirm nor deny that to be true (unless I'm going purely off of book sales). But I've also had good conversations with local friends who *have* been reading the book and letting me know what they think of particular stories, which is great. I love having those conversations because readers don't always get that face to face time with authors. I think the chats are as fun for me as they are for others.

But, if I'm basing this assumption off the metrics of the interactive parts of the book, a better way to say it would be "people aren't interacting with the book." This is both disappointing and unsurprising.

Rob and I had this conversation well before the book came out this past May. Would people know how to interact with the book? Was the technology we embedded in the pages well-known enough that the majority of readers would simply know what to do? Would they even care?

The overwhelming results and corresponding numbers seem to point to 'no' on all of those questions. And now that's got me second-guessing the amped-up interactivity of my third book, which is currently in progress. I have some crazy ideas that I want to implement in order to really add to the reading experience...but if no one seems to be interacting at the most basic level with book two, why should I expect any different kind of behavior with book three?

Stepping away from the relationship of book to reader, I have to approach the next book holistically. Other than the stories, the disparate parts won't make much sense by themselves. Together, however, they become an EXPERIENCE. The imagery, the videos, the audio, the covers...all of it becomes a literary, experiential behemoth. I would be creating something that pulls from many disciplines, highlights not only my own work, but that of several other creative friends and their talents, and the whole book (or series of books, as it may be) ends up becoming something most would be hard-pressed to forget.

But if none of the readers engage with the project fully, does it even matter that it was created at all? Will it be enough for me, the writer and orchestrator of this experience, to have created something big and tangible and substantial? I honestly don't know.

When Rob first asked me whether it would matter if no one engaged with the little easter eggs in the book, I responded with a firm 'no' pretty much immediately. The intent was the creation of the thing. Now we've created the thing, but the moving parts aren't being put to use. So do I continue on the current path with the current plans? Do I keep reaching up and out to create something new and different, knowing it may all be for naught in the end? Or do I strip it down and simplify it all and allow time for the readers to catch up with all that I have in mind?

It's a tough call. Creating the thing the way I want it requires a lot of heavy lifting that I have no problems doing. I would just hate to see the entirety of a thing go to waste and sit in the dark, gathering dust because of a lack of engagement.

Buy a copy of my latest collection, The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories today. 

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