This post, from Patricia Volonakis Davis, originally appeared in the notes section of her Facebook page and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.
3) Publishers want books they can immediately sell for films in which producers will star Tom Hanks and Jessica Biel. Librarians want books they can adore. And retail booksellers just want books they don’t have to return for credit. (And if those books could fly off the shelves by themselves as a customer is wishing for them, that would be very nice, too.)
4) A “bestseller” does not mean what you think it means. At all. In other words, you might still be BROKE.
5) Selling your book in Costco is no more demeaning than having your relatives and friends buy fifty copies each, so they can gift them on all their acquaintances.
6) Your spouse is sick of hearing you talk about your book, no matter how many times they swear otherwise. They were sick of it after the first week.
7) You say you’re embarrassed when people ask you to sign their copy of your book, but you’re not fooling anybody.
8) You wrote a BOOK, not The Declaration of Independence. Hundreds of thousands of people do the same every year. So please, get over yourself. (Note- I recently added this last not only as a reminder to myself, but for other writers and literary agents, magazine editors, publicists and publishers by association.)
Patricia V. Davis is the founder and editor-in-chief of the non-partisan HS Radio e-magazine and podcast at www.harlotssauce.com, and her essays, opinion articles and celebrity interviews have appeared in various newspapers and magazines nationally and internationally. She is also the author of ‘Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss and Greece’. You can view her blog here, and her Red Room author page here.