I’ve said before that as an author, you can have a career writing books that only 0.01% of the country wants to read, as long as that 0.01% of the country can find you.

The corollary is that in order to get to that point, some portion of the 99.99% who don’t love your books may try you out and hate your writing.

Unless they were racist or misogynist or transphobic or some other form of bigoted in expressing those opinions, someone trying you out and not liking you has nothing to do with you or your career.

Or, correction: At a very minimum, it has nothing to do with you. But I’ve read books because someone wrote a review that trashed the book... and made me think I would like it.

For the vast majority of authors, the main problem is almost always obscurity.

People who talk about books... are making books less obscure. Because they love books. They are awesome people.

Maybe it’s not YOUR books. But that’s okay, because other people aren’t all about you.

Anyone who claims they know exactly how you get from 0% of the country wanting to read your books to 0.01% of the country wanting to read them is... definitely lying. There is a lot of luck, privilege, and many twists and turns.

But I’m pretty sure that mashing your thumb on the people who are delightedly talking about books and saying, “don’t talk about my book!” is not part of the equation.