People don’t read books much anymore. I don’t read books much anymore. I used to read all the time. When I wasn’t reading I was hunting through used book stores to find more books to read. The walls of my room were lined with bookshelves, many double layered. Now most of my books are in boxes in my garage that are so hard to get to, when my daughter needs to read a book for school that I know I have, it is easier to just buy it for her from Amazon then spend I don’t know how long trying to find it in one of those boxes that are piled on top of each other.
It’s not that I have stopped reading altogether, just for the most part books. I mainly read newspapers and articles on my phone. I have subscriptions to the New York Times, Washington Post and Hartford Courant. I’m thinking about subscribing to the Atlantic. When it does come to books, I listen to them more than I read them. I have an Audible subscription, but I have even fallen behind in that. I have four credits I haven’t used. I get a new credit each month. I am currently listening to Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Aims Carlin.
The only books I have read lately are books my daughter has had to read for school. I read them so we can discuss them together. She has to read Beowulf now so I will probably read that along with Grendel, John Gardner’s fictionalization of the story of the monster in Beowulf. I am also looking forward to reading Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach, the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She is a great writer, funny and knowledgeable.
I just wrote a new book myself: The Friends and Family Guide to the Opioid Overdose Epidemic. People may think that whenever a writer publishes a book, as soon as they get the physical copy of the book, they sit down and read it cover to cover. No. Not me. By the time the book is published, with all the rewriting and multiple drafts it took to get to the final product, I probably read it 200 times. I do occasionally read sections and marvel that words I wrote actually made it onto a page in a real book.
When I was a kid, writing a book was my dream, a life’s achievement, like making it to the major leagues or making a million dollars. Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac were my heroes. If I wasn’t drinking beer and talking about books with other writers on a Saturday Night, I was locked away in my room with my portable typewriter, tapping away, working on the great American novel. More people read back then. There were book clubs and book stores, and instead of sitting on the phone watching reels, people had books in their hands. Even now, when I do read it is on a Kindle. I don’t remember when I last held a physical book other than my own when I opened up the box my gratis copies came in. If they had Kindles when I was a kid, I wouldn’t have so many boxes of books in my garage.
I was lamenting to a friend the other day how hard it was to get my book known, how hard it was to reach a large audience. He suggested I try new venues like Tiktok and Instagram.
In my house the other night everyone -me, my wife, my daughter-was watching reels on their phone, even the three of us who were also watching TV at the same time.
I do have a TikTok account where I am known as oldmanjumps. I am an old man who jumps rope. At my height I had over 200 followers. Now my knees hurt too much to jump and if I do a jumping Tiktok, that jumping is the only jumping I have done since the last Tiktok.
Should I take the content of my book and try to put it on tiktok to try to reach a larger audience? Should I start my own youtube channel for opioid issues (I actually have – PeterCanning@medicscribe -, but haven’t promoted it yet. I did it just as a way to show videos on this blog.)
Doing TikTok or Youtube videos would help settle my creative urge and maybe even help me sell a few books. I have never been much of a self-promoter. Part of it is because I am busy enough with the two jobs and the basketball playing daughter. She’ll be in college in another year. Maybe I’ll have more time.
I’m sitting in the car in the dark writing this. My daughter is at basketball practice in the gym I am outside of. She can drive now so the only reason I am here is there was a parent;s meeting I had to go to so I drove her. On the ride here we discussed the remains of the day which she has to write an essay on. We had a good conversation.
In the book, the narrator is a butler who tries to be the best butler in the world and to serve his owner with dignity. While he achieves his goal, the cost is that he sacrificed himself. He loses himself in his job. He turned down love and personal happiness. Now he is old and he realizes he has missed out on much of what life has to offer. He needs to decide now how to live the rest of his life, how to deal with the remains of the day.
I am sixty-seven, and like all people I have regrets, but for the most part I am happy with the choices I have made. (I wish I had kids earlier and more of them, though I don’t think I would have been as good of a Dad if I hadn’t lived my life to the point that I was ready to let someone else be more more important than me,
For a writer the dilemma can be what is more important, writing a good book or getting people to read the books you have written. I take joy in writing even if no one reads what I write just like maybe a gardener who lives alone enjoys his garden that no one else will see.
But I still would like people to read what I write. I started this blog years ago as a way to keep my name prominent, keep people buying my books. It has helped. All my books remain in print and continue to sell. I get small royalties checks twice a year. But now people don’t read blogs as much as they used to just like they don’t read books as much as I use to read them.
Maybe a new Tiktok channel is in my future.
Here’s a start:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6E2g1Vc
Last I checked I had 1 view.