EXPRESS YOURSELF
What is a Book, Anyway?
Reflections on ‘success’ as an author
What is a book?
I’ve been asking friends and colleagues this question for months. My second book proposal was turned down earlier in the year with a near-universal refrain of “we can’t figure out how to market it,” and afterward, I took a serious look at the pinnacle of achievement that many (if not most) writers keep in view: a book contract. Or, more specifically, a published book.
What is this magical thing, a published book in our hands? Why do we crave it so much? What is a book anyway?
Skipping over the obvious — paper and ink — a book is a story. Story in a specific form that has (one hopes) been revised and responded to, mind-massaged with a good editor, copy edited and proofread and graced with a well-designed cover. But at its core, it’s a story that snagged someone’s imagination some crisp autumn day, or maybe on a sleepless summer night. While walking in the woods or nursing a baby or bagging groceries — story whispered to you.
Story is endless. It came to people who crafted visions on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago, to purveyors of oral narrative like Homer, and to authors thirsty for printed copies of their works after Gutenberg first demonstrated the potential…
