Shyness doesn't sell books

 I've often wondered how I would have managed if I'd been born with a stammer or chronic shyness. The modern writer has to be able to perform, often to a huge audience. It's almost like being a stand-up comedian, except that the questions never change and you always end up telling the same jokes.

Anthony Horowitz, The Word Is Murder

Neither a stammer nor chronic shyness should be a handicap for a writer, and until recently it wasn't. Many, if not most, writers have been at least somewhat introverted. It can be difficult for extroverts to sit alone in a room for long periods of time and write. They want to get up and go somewhere and do something with other people. Instead of writing about their lives, they just want to live them. Introverts live their lives, then want to take time to think about their experiences and their ideas. Sometimes these thoughts come out in written form.

Lewis Carroll was shy. So was E.B. White, Joan Didion and so many, many others. Other writers have probably had stammers. It didn't matter. Nobody stammers on paper, and it is on paper where writers are most themselves.

What Anthony Horowitz is referring to in his novel The Word Is Murder is how in today's publishing world authors are expected to sell their own books. In the old days money was set aside for publicity campaigns, and ads ran in many major publications. I can recall when a large ad for an Anthony Grey novel called Peking ran in Sports Illustrated for several weeks in the 1980s, and the novel has nothing to do with sports.

Most newspapers of any size carried book reviews. Today there are fewer newspapers, very few of which still carry book reviews. There were literary critics, such as Alfred Kazin, who were almost as well known as the writers they wrote about, and to be written about by one of these critics was all the publicity necessary to sell quite a few copies.

Those days are gone. Now writers can't just finish one book and start on the next one. In between they must go out in public and sell that book. That means doing signings in bookstores, making speeches at book fairs and festivals and often sitting behind tables covered with their books for entire weekends talking with readers. They are also expected to make videos to promote their books. On YouTube you can find several videos featuring Horowitz talking about his various books. There is no sign of either shyness or a stammer. Lucky for him. But think of those writers, and there must be many of them, who cannot speak as fluently as they can write. This part of their job must be a torment for them.

J.K. Rowling is one shy contemporary author who has managed to sell a great many books. Most of those like her are not as fortunate.