I Would Do Anything For Sales... But I Won't Do That

A Literal Literary Loser's Limits

I have never been shy about promoting my books. Over the past month, in conjunction with the 2022 Winter Olympics, I have been flogging my Figure Skating Mysteries far and wide.

I’ve always been a huge advocate of tying book sales to the current news-cycle, or anything else I could peg them on. I even do a presentation called: Exploiting Your Family History For Fun and Profit! (Coincidentally, there is one scheduled for tonight!)

I certainly exploited my family history when it came to my latest novel, “The Nesting Dolls.” I was born in the Soviet Union - in Odessa, Ukraine to be precise - and immigrated to America in the 1970s.

“The Nesting Dolls” takes place in Odessa, USSR in the 1930s; in Odessa, USSR in the 1970s - whereupon the characters immigrate to America; and in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, present day.

Ukraine is all over the news these days. What a wonderful opportunity for cross-promotion!

I’ve always considered book publicity to be a game. You strategize, you make a move, and if you score enough points - as measured in sales - you win! I’m one of those weirdos who actually finds the process fun.

But there is nothing fun about people being bombed out of their homes. My 22 year old son, who spent a year living in another former Soviet state, Moldova, while studying Russian, and a summer in Moscow on an internship, and who grew up hearing stories of Odessa and even visited with my parents when he was 12, wrote about our family’s complicated feelings for Ukraine on his own blog, here.

I’m not going to talk about that aspect of it at this time.

Instead, I’m going to talk about how book Influencer Zibby Owens wrote a post entitled: War and Words: Why Authors Should Keep Posting About Their Books, Especially Now. Marketing your book is the gift you give the reader — the promise of emotional escape and release.

Yeah, that’s great if your book is say, a figure skating mystery (though one of my series titles, “Axel of Evil,” actually takes place in Russia, and there are Russian and Ukrainian characters sprinkled throughout the rest… just try to write about figure skating without them).

But what if your book is about Jews living in the Ukraine, and about the antisemitism they faced there that drove them to do whatever they had to, in order to escape? What if the characters in your book are Russian speakers, as so many living in the Ukraine then and now are? What if, despite being born in the Ukraine, and speaking Russian as their native language, your characters are still considered neither, their nationality listed as Jew on their internal passport?

What if your story is much, much more nuanced that the current news cycle would like to acknowledge?

And what if, in spite of being a self-described publicity whore, you just don’t feel like now is the time to sell books? Not while your parents are watching their youth go up in flames. Not while their friends are frantic about family members left behind. Not while the world waits to see if a maniac with nuclear weapons will actually be crazy enough to use them.

I used to think I’d do anything for press… but it seems that even I won’t do that.

(Sorry, Zibby. And sorry, Meatloaf - RIP.)