This is one of the strangest markets humans have ever built. Everyone agrees that there are “too many books,” while simultaneously insisting that “every voice deserves to be heard.” Both statements are true, and together they create a glorious traffic jam where thousands of people are politely honking at each other with launch announcements.
Several things happened at once.
First, the barriers disappeared. Decades ago, getting a book into readers’ hands required convincing a publisher, a printer, distributors, and bookstores. Now, anyone with a keyboard and a few dollars can publish worldwide in a day. That’s an extraordinary achievement for freedom of expression. It also means the gate that once filtered manuscripts is gone. The result is predictable: abundance.
Second, writing and publishing became different professions.
Writing a novel is one craft.
Publishing it is another.
Marketing it is yet another.
Many writers love the first and hate the other two. Yet today’s market quietly expects every author to become a social media personality, video editor, advertiser, psychologist, salesperson, newsletter manager, and community builder. For many, that is far more exhausting than writing the book itself.
Third, attention became the rarest currency.
Books are no longer competing only with books. They’re competing with streaming services, games, podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, endless scrolling, and the thousand tiny interruptions modern life manufactures before breakfast. A reader who finishes even ten books a year is already unusual in many countries. Yet millions of new books appear annually.
So the real shortage isn’t books.
It’s readers’ time.
Then comes quality.
This is where discussions become uncomfortable because everyone wants to be encouraging. Encouragement is kind. Reality is kinder.
Not every published book is good.
Not every bestseller is well written.
Not every masterpiece sells.
The market rewards many things besides literary quality: timing, genre trends, marketing skill, luck, networking, an existing audience, emotional resonance, and sometimes pure accident. Quality matters, but it is only one variable among many.
This explains why the loudest voices often dominate. An average novel with exceptional marketing can outsell a brilliant novel hidden in silence. That’s frustrating, but it isn’t unique to books. Restaurants, music, films, and even scientific ideas often follow the same pattern. Visibility is frequently mistaken for value.
Then there is the public performance of struggling.
Some authors genuinely suffer because they invested years of work and hope into a book that vanished without notice. That disappointment is understandable.
Others have unintentionally turned desperation into a marketing strategy.
“Please buy my book.”
“My dream depends on you.”
“If you loved it, tell everyone.”
“If I don’t sell, I can’t continue writing.”
Readers can smell emotional pressure. Some respond with generosity. Others quietly walk away because nobody likes feeling responsible for someone else’s career. A book should invite curiosity, not guilt.
My own position, though, sits outside this cycle.
I write because my thoughts need a home.
If readers arrive, I welcome them.
If sales come, I am grateful.
But my identity doesn’t depend on ranking charts or bestseller badges.
I believe that, ironically, that attitude may be psychologically healthier than chasing algorithms every day. It protects the reason I started writing in the first place.
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t market my work. It means marketing becomes an invitation rather than a plea.
There is another uncomfortable observation.
There probably are too many people calling themselves authors.
Not because they shouldn’t be allowed to publish.
Because publishing a book and becoming an author are related but not identical ideas.
Some people have something they simply must say.
Others merely want the label.
Those motivations produce very different careers.
History quietly reminds us that most books disappear. Even traditionally published books often sell only a few hundred or a few thousand copies before slipping into obscurity. We tend to remember the survivors and forget the vast literary graveyard beneath them.
Perhaps the greatest mistake is measuring success only by sales.
If your goal is wealth, books are statistically a terrible business. There are easier ways to make money than spending years wrestling commas into submission while arguing with fictional people who refuse to behave.
If your goal is expression, however, the calculation changes completely.
A book can outlive its author.
It can comfort one stranger twenty years later.
It can change one life without ever appearing on a bestseller list.
That isn’t failure.
The market is noisy. Literature is quiet. They overlap, but they are not the same thing.
Many writers confuse the marketplace with the purpose of writing. The marketplace asks, “How many copies?” Writing asks a different question: “Was this worth saying?”
Those are not enemies, but they should never be mistaken for each other. The tragedy begins when an author spends years creating something deeply personal, only to decide its value can be measured only by a sales dashboard. That is like judging a symphony solely by how many people hummed it in the supermarket.
We people, have a remarkable talent for inventing rulers that measure everything except the thing that actually matters.
Here is more from me:
Understanding. Reasoning. Forgiveness.
Off Script: Why We Question, Where Philosophy Came From, and What It Means to Think Differently
The Essential Role of Empathy in Writing: Why It’s the Most Important Skill for an Author
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