It’s meant to be a magical time – you’ve been working your guts out as a writer for the past decade, focussing on the goal of getting a book published. Now it’s happened – there’s an actual book, full of your words, out in the world – and you just feel kind of … anxious. Shouldn’t you be revelling in the critical praise and enjoying room service in nice hotels before you head to your next festival appearance? Isn’t the hard work all over?
Turns out, publishing a book is a more emotionally complex experience than I, for one, realised.
I’m a debut author, with my memoir No Country Woman having hit the shelves in August. The book is about my experiences growing up as a migrant in Australia, and is deeply personal. In the lead up to the book’s release, I was very much focussed on the actual process of finalising edits and getting the thing to the point where the publisher could hit print, and I wasn’t thinking much beyond that.
When the early copies of the book arrived in the mail, I was practically euphoric. I wanted to tell everyone, including the post office clerk who handed me the parcel, that I am now I published author. I spent a silly amount of time trying to get my cat to pose with the books for an Instagram photo. I thought to myself, if this is how excited I am and the book hasn’t even been released yet, it can only keep getting better!
In reality though, having my book out in the world has been more of a crazy mix of feelings than expected, and not always positive ones.
There is a great deal of emotional vulnerability that comes with sharing a major piece of creative work– and in my case, this is further exacerbated by my book being a memoir. I quite literally opened the doors to my life to strangers, and once the book was on shelves it felt like there was nothing to do except sit back and wait for the Goodreads reviews to roll in.
When you primarily write online, you’re used to having a bit of a feedback loop with readers. There are website comments, Twitter, Facebook; when you share the article link to your networks, you immediately know whether it’s being read and what people generally think of it, whether that’s good or bad.
With a book, in contrast, this feedback is greatly reduced, and the feedback you do get is incredibly public. One day you have a review out in The Sydney Morning Herald, and an interview running on ABC, next minute you have nothing but an unexplained three star Goodreads rating, that leaves you guessing.
Arguably, it’s healthier not to get too caught up in these random bits of feedback, but it’s hard to let it go when you’re waiting to see if people think your life’s work to date is worth anything.
I’ve been surprised by how anxious I feel when I see a stranger has posted about my book online. Despite only having received positive feedback so far, I still feel a flash of nerves, if only for a few seconds. Did they get it? Did they connect to my stories about experiencing racism growing up in Australia? Will they feel defensive, or dismissive, or angry? Will they commiserate?
On one hand, I think this is a good thing – my nerves are a signifier that I actually give a shit, and I always want to be the kind of writer who cares about the quality of their work, and what impact it’s having in the world.
On the other hand, though, the anxiety can drown out the really positive fact that regardless of what every individual reader thinks, my book has impacted some people and those people have been moved to write a review or email me directly, and to connect with me as a direct result.
Writing is a curious passion, because the majority of our time as writers is spent alone working on our craft, until suddenly we’re at festivals and book launches, briefly immersed in our audience. And then, just as quickly, we’re back on our own, refreshing our social media feeds, wondering if anyone is reading our wok at all.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this first month of having No Country Woman in the world, it’s how important it is to cherish the moments of connection we have with readers when they occur. Undoubtedly the most rewarding thing about having this book in the world has been meeting readers with similar migrant background to me, who have gone out of their way to tell me that my book meant something to them.
Inevitably, there will be many more people who won’t read the book, or won’t feel much when they do. That’s just how it goes. But I’m not writing to be the next bestseller (although of course that would be nice!) – I’m writing because I want to start a conversation, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a small one for now.
In my moments of panic, I try to remind myself of the interactions that I’ve had with readers, especially when they’ve been moved to share their own story with me – it’s such a privilege to be published and to be able to share my words and thoughts with an audience, no matter how big. The rest should just be white noise.
Zoya Patel
Zoya Patel is a writer and editor based in Canberra. She is the Founding Editor of independent feminist journal, Feminartsy, through which she publishes the work of writers from across Australia, hosts monthly feminist reading nights, and co-hosts the Read Like a Feminist bookclub. Zoya's debut book, No Country Woman, a collection of memoir essays on race, identity and the diaspora is out now through Hachette Australia.