I had a lovely thing happen to me this morning. I got a message from a “fan”. The delightful thing is that I don’t know this person at all. They said how much they enjoyed my book, Beast-speaker, and said they’re looking forward to book two. Now, I’ve had similar messages before but this was the first one from a complete stranger. A complete stranger!
On one or two occasions I’ve sent a little message to an author whose work I particularly value. Each time I’ve had a moment of hesitation when I’ve thought, “Hold on. Is this just a little bit stalker-ish?” Thankfully, each time, the recipient of my little epistle was gracious and friendly. (Phew!) Now I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end, and it’s great. Maybe, once you’ve had as many books published and have as many fans as Stephen King has, you become a little more matter of fact about it all but at the moment bluebirds are definitely chirping on my shoulder.
I often struggle with the thought, “Am I kidding myself? Should I be persevering with this writing game or not?” And then along comes something like this morning’s email, or someone says something encouraging, or I sell another copy of my book, and I think, “Maybe I’m not so bad at this, after all!”
I remember meeting one of my author heroes at a writing thing a few years back. I was so excited. I lined up with all the other star-struck sycophants, clutching a book I’d just bought for the author to sign. When I got to the table I said something to the person (I probably gushed a tad bit) and was immediately struck dumb by the author’s acerbic, slightly biting reply. Ok, I’ll be honest with you: they were just plain rude. My little balloon of giddy happiness popped and all the joy immediately left the room. I wanted to apologise for wasting their time but I thought that might sound sarcastic (which it was) so I didn’t.
Later that day I told myself the person was probably tired, or hormonal, or had a whiffy tummy from eating something off at lunch. And, I promised myself that when (if) I ever had fans of my own, I would do my utmost to always be gracious and kind. So far it’s going well but, then again, I’ve not yet been inundated on a large scale.
Have you even written some fan mail? Have you ever received some fan mail? Am I allowed to be a bit thrilled or am I in danger of being overcome with hubris? I value your opinion.
Love your blog. Hope you get heaps more fan mail.xxxxx
Thank you, Pamela. Cheers. 🙂
It is a good feeling when someone does something like that, isn’t it? I’ve had a couple of those. And I can understand what happened when you visited your favourite author. Sometimes I fantasise about having book signings with lines going around the block but when I think about sitting there for hours and saying the same thing to a bunch of people I don’t know I think by the end of it I’d probably be a bit irritated too. However, I hope I would remind myself (and I hope I’d have other people to remind me as well) that it’s something special for everyone who’s come to see you.
I always think a smile and a simple ‘thank you’ isn’t too hard to do, even for the most unsociable of characters. I’m sure you’ll always be gracious, Lynne.
It’s a great feeling. I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end, and enjoy them equally. Giving the feedback is a little more scary than receiving it. When I’ve loved the stories and characters of some other author and mustered the courage to tell them so, it’s always a relief to receive a gracious reply. Like you, I always aim to do the same when strangers go out of their way to give me positive feedback. (As you say, it’s not a regular event.)
I seem to do the accepting of praise very badly, especially face to face. I’m not really a gregarious person, so being confronted by a stranger is always difficult for me. Even if I smile it is not always recognised as such. I just have one of those faces that doesn’t work in a way that a TV reality show would recommend. Which is what writing is about for me. It is a way of connecting with people so that they don’t have to deal with the “real me”. They get the inner one, which is edited to be witty and droll.
It is also annoying when people ask when the next volume of dog tales is coming out. I’m probably trying to write something entirely different. I don’t “market” myself to meet readers’ expectations.
The real thing I learnt from people who comment to me is that readers read our words with far less attention than we write them. We might agonise for days over a phrase and all that the reader reports to us is “that, you know, that thing about …” All readers seem to get from our hard work is a general emotional buzz of no specific content.
I was once followed around at a conference by a person who claimed they were a great fan of all my work. After a while it became apparent from the pieces they mentioned that they had me confused with someone else entirely. I knew even less what to do in that situation.
My favourite responses are all via print. Mostly email these days, but I did get a handwritten letter from a lady in a retirement village who said she spread the reading of Dog Tales out over a fortnight so she could enjoy it more.
Overall, if I have fans at all they should write to me. If they meet me in person they are inevitably disappointed. And I don’t know what to do to repair that.
I, too, cringe a little when I’m praised ‘face to face’, but it’s lovely to receive some encouragement via email or facebook or a letter. I’m not very good at making small talk, either. However, I think if I was doing a book signing I would try to remember what it’s like to be a fan. I hope I would do my best to be polite and to answer the question that has been burning in my “fan’s” brain. We don’t have to be gregarious or the life of the party, but we should be polite and try to be kind. I’m sure you’re both of those things, Ken.