Reality Television Run Amok, or a Clever Scam?

While I personally find other writers fascinating, especially successful ones, I never thought I would see the day that reality television would be set up around making a previously self- or unpublished author a bestselling one. I mean, let's face it. Watching a person write is NOT riveting. Yeah, there was that whole Johnny Depp movie, Secret Window, and it involved axes, car crashes, fires and strange accents, but let's face it. In my world, the only murders taking place are on paper or involving green plant-like things.

So a reality television show involving writers, and the making of a bestselling author, seems a long shot at best from the outset. But it seems someone is determined to do it. SEEMS is the operative word here. The show is Book Millionaire, and the idea, which might seem novel (heh heh. Literary pun. Get it? Novel?)is really nothing more than a nifty little ploy to propel its creator, Lori Prokop, into her OWN successful realm of publishing.

To read more about this little venture, visit the blog of Lee Goldberg, as he expounds on it quite well. He amusingly riffs on the life of an author.

Let me give you a taste of what you can hope for: I had El Pollo Loco for lunch today, picked up my daughter at school, and got a haircut. Will they get to do that? I think not. I've earned those perks the hard way, pal.

Suffice it to say that I think this one is going nowhere fast, and reality television is safe from writers, at least in FRONT of the camera, for one more day. I'm not sure it's a scam, but it didn't sound very appealing to me. Want to know what it's REALLY like, the life of a published novelist? Oh, the stories I could tell you. Oh, the insecurities. The waiting. The wondering. The bad reviews. The fear your book will tank.

Even established bestselling authors have angst everytime a book comes out.

Consider Tess Gerritsen's blog, where she talks about the feeling when one of her books is scathingly reviewed.

Everybody's a critic.
Imagine this scenario. You have just given birth to a brand new baby, and it has been a long, difficult labor. For a year you've thought of little else. You've lost sleep over it, obsessed over it, tortured yourself over it, and at last you proudly carry your baby out of the hospital.

Then a complete stranger comes up to you and says, "That's a really ugly kid." Or: "It's deformed!" Or: "People like you shouldn't even have babies."

That's what it's like to get a bad review. I'm not talking about the ho-hum "coulda been better" reviews. I'm talking about a really, really nasty one where the reviewer comes after your baby with an ice pick. I doubt there's an author alive with skin thick enough to be able to just brush these off. After all these years as a novelist, truly cruel reviews still make me double over in pain and make me want to crawl into bed and pull the sheets over my head. They make me want to never write another word. Writers may tell you that they don't care about reviews, but they do. Every artist does. We all remember our truly awful reviews. We remember who wrote them. And we never, ever forgive or forget.

Rob, my partner here at ReadersRoom.com, seems convinced I'm bats. Nuts. A hamburger short of a happy meal. He watches me go from utter joy at a great review, or comment, to the depths of despair as I wait for the sound of the big toilet flushing on what is left of my career.

This, see, is something you can't share with many people. You can't tell them about the insecurities, the fear your book will tank, that returns will be enormous, that reviews will be horrendous, that you'll never meet your sell-through, and that even if you do, your next book will never be up to snuff. If you share it on writing lists, where unpublished writers abound, they consider you ungrateful, rude, or overly dramatic. At least you HAVE a contract.

When I was unpublished, I only ever came close to quitting once, and that was very close to the time when I finally sold a manuscript. It seems that now I am there, in the bookstores, with the well-reviewed hardback book, I talk about quitting every other day. Sometimes every other hour.

Does this business breed neurotics, or are neurotics just attracted to it? Have I always been this way?

I'm not sure, but I can promise you I no longer obsessively check my Amazon and BN.com rankings every hour. I have some stupid stalker guy doing that FOR me. Why are people attracted to anyone who has even the slightest semi-celebrity? You tell me. Most of the world hasn't a clue who I am. I'm hardly a household name, and yet writers from India email me in droves, seeking advice in getting a U.S. literary agent.

Note to the one who just wrote me, commenting on my lovely picture: I'm sorry that your compliments have fallen on deaf ears, but I DON'T HAVE THE MAGIC POTION. Most days I'm lucky if my car starts, the kids aren't sick, and the dog makes it outside before the urge to go "hits" him.

What are you gleaning from all this? I have more attention from strange people than I need, I'm not rich, I'm decidedly more neurotic than I was when I started, and my dog has an incontinence problem.

Oh, the glamorous life. "Honey, the limo is here!"