Books require patience

Books require patience at every level — creating them, producing them, marketing them, selling them, and reading them.

Jeff Deutsch, In Praise of Good Bookstores

There are reports of writers churning out a book in a manner of days, but this is rare. Most writers invest months, even years, in writing their books. It takes patience. Then more patience may be required while trying to find someone willing to publish it.

As Jeff Deutsch points out in the line quoted above from In Praise of Good Bookstores, the other steps in the life of a book require patience, as well.

An agent may be needed to sell that book to a publisher, but the agent will probably want to read the book first. Then someone at a publishing house, and perhaps several publishing houses, must read the book to determine if it is worth publishing. Then comes the editing, which requires more patience while the anxious author waits, and then the cover design and the marketing, which add to the wait.

Some readers can knock off a book a day, but most of us read more slowly. It may take us days, weeks, months, even years to finish a book. It it's a good book, it may take readers and critics several years, even decades, to determine just how good it really is. It all takes time.

Yet as a bookseller, Deutsch's main point is that selling books requires patience, too, and this is often ignored by booksellers eager to make a profit. If a book doesn't sell quickly, it may be yanked from the shelf too quickly and replaced with a newer book that may have a better chance at success.

Deutsch argues that books need to be given a chance to find their readers, and vice versa. That takes patience.