I LOVE your book: why writers (usually) like to hear from readers

“If you don't get feedback from your performers and your audience, you're going to be working in a vacuum.” Peter Maxwell Davies

The Passion of Creation, by Leonid Pasternak, 1892. Yes, Boris’s dad.

When I started working as a newspaper journalist in 1991, the public’s response to my articles was notable only when I got something wrong. My massive scoop about Pocklington holding the world ballooning championships? Not a dicky bird. My slight mistype in the crossword answers? A postbag the size of my tummy.

I’ve felt a slight echo of this while writing books. Naturally the writing process is fairly solitary, apart from lunchtimes in the pub. It all gets a bit more sociable once you submit a manuscript and the editors, designers, proofreaders, publicity folk, and sometimes even bookshops (at least one of my books has had an extensive cover change following advice from a major bookseller) all join the party. But this is still all pretty collaborative, the general public has not yet been graciously granted a preview.

This all changes once the thing is out in the wild. Now, it’s open season, for good and for bad. Nevertheless, there’s a strong feeling that despite the stack of pristine author copies on the desk beside you, the work of the last couple of years has largely disappeared into a black hole. One minute you’re liasing with the finest minds at your publishing house, next minute you’re sitting all alone with a cheese and apple sandwich, refreshing the Amazon sales page every 15 minutes, and wondering if it’s too early for a bath. It all feels like a one way broadcast. As George Bernard Shaw once noted, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Or, to steal another cleverer person’s thoughts (in this case composer Peter Maxwell Davies), “If you don't get feedback from your performers and your audience, you're going to be working in a vacuum.”

Times have moved on from the days when science fiction giant Robert Heinlein relied on his multiple choice answer sheet to reply to letters from readers. Along the same lines as Molesworth’s Self-Adjusting Thank-You Letter, he simply ticked the answers that applied and whammed it into the post. May I draw your attention to his first and last answers, not to mention the second and second to last ones.

This is one of the plus points of the social interwebs, though of course you can get too much feedback/hot takes. A decade ago I was the main comments moderator at The Independent newspaper, by some distance the most profoundly upsetting role in what I hesitatingly call my career – if you find the stuff published ‘below the line’ a bit unpleasant, imagine what kind of appallingness doesn’t get through. But grammar-challenged Nazis who can’t spell Obama aside, it’s good to know that your work is at least being considered. If somebody finds it wanting then so be it, as long as it’s framed in a reasonably courteous way (NB: if you hate the book, please don’t @ the author if you’re posting online, it’s really quite upsetting). Here’s an example of how and how not to do it from Amazon, two reviews of my book Bookshelf:

*searches for face palm emoji*

There are half a dozen other ‘critical reviews’ along similar lines for this book which I might egotictically point out has been translated into half a dozen languages and sold 60,000+ copies.…

I’ve certainly noticed a big change between publishing my first book in 2010 (Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution) and most recent this year (Rooms of Their Own) in terms of its reception online. Partly this is because I’ve become much less worried about banging on about my books to ‘Followers’ and ‘Friends’. But also, other people – people who are not related to me or indeed have ever met me – now happily tweet and insta things without me having to yell in their virtual ears incessantly. This is obviously A Good Thing for all concerned and means I can genuinely have some kind of conversation/interaction with people who are at least mildly interested in my work.

What I’ve found interesting is the generally high levels of politeness displayed by the/my bookreading public when making direct contact. When people who don’t know me from Adam decide to @ me, nine times out of ten they start with something along the lines of ‘Apologies for contacting you out of the blue and I hope it’s not a bother but I’ve never got in touch with an author before’. If this is how you would contact an author, let me assure you that a) it’s a nice polite way to do so but also 2) far from a bother, every writer I know loves it when somebody gets in touch to say something nice. I’m not suggesting that you turn up on their doorstep with a hamper of marmalade and a box of chocs because that’s a little bit too chummy (see Heinlein, above), but just dropping them a line saying ‘Hey, love your stuff, keep it up’ is 100% welcome.

Indeed, I do it myself with writers I particularly admire. After reading a book I’ve particularly enjoyed I often, as the media love to say, ‘turn to Twitter’ and thank the writer for entertaining me. On this basis, I’ve discussed – briefly, but nevertheless entirely on the basis of a ‘cold’ tweet – the film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes with Jonathan Coe, the single-page comic insert in Station Eleven with Emily St John Mandel, and the real life inspiration for the locations in At Hawthorn Time with Melissa Harrison.

So if you ever feel moved to let me know how great my books are, please let me assure you in advance of a warm reception. Certainly a bit warmer than Heinlein’s.

What I read last week:  I am a bit of a sucker for poetry anthologies and really enjoyed The Emergency Poet: An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology edited by Deborah Alma. More DH Lawrence than I was expecting but none the worse for that.

What I’m reading this week: Just finished Jenny Uglow’s Words and Pictures: Writers, Artists and a Peculiarly British Tradition. Nice but strangely bitty, felt like she was using up the results of research from previous books (something I always never do)

What I’m planning to read next week: Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser. Over the last few years I’ve been veeerrry slowly rereading the Flashman series, this time in chronological rather than publication order. This is up next.