Do Authors Really Want The Truth?

 

There are so many conflicts of interest that authors must contend with that it is not clear how a writer gets any honest answers or feedback from anyone. People who are personally close or hired by the author simply do not feel obliged to say what is really on their minds. This leaves it up to the author, blinded by ego and a lack of book marketing knowledge, to determine what should be done to make their book a success.  

Have a look:

·        
Self-Publishers — Their agenda is to sign you up and they make money even if your book sells few copies, thus your goals are not aligned.

·         Spouse, Family Members, Friends or Colleagues — A few might be honest but most are not telling you what you don’t want to hear for fear you will be hurt or kill the messenger. 

·         Fellow Authors — They secretly don’t want you to succeed even though some will be collegial towards you. It is a friendly competition to get published and marketed, so even well-intentioned writers may not be as nice or as harsh as they should be.

·         Readers —They can be honest but they tend to only share feedback or reviews if they are compelled by the extremes — they really love or hate your book, so it is a distortion of how most readers may feel. They are being honest, but just not representative of the vast majority of your readers. 

·         Publicists and Marketers — Some of them can do really good jobs but they constantly have to make the author feel good and motivate them to not give up. To get hired, the promoters hype up not only their abilities and present ideal outcomes if they were to be employed, but they feel obligated to play up an author’s book to the author and make them feel really good about a book the promoter may not have read. 

It seems that authors surround themselves with yes people, those who tell them what they want to hear, or at least, not tell them what they don’t want to hear.  

I once saw an off-Broadway play as a teenager, four decades ago, that sticks with me. It was about a guy who thought his family did not love him so he hired people to play his family and rented a house for them. The second family was nice to him and told him they loved him. At some point, the hired family seemed to actually grow fond of him. He either could not believe that they really loved him or that he could be loved, and ended up killing himself. Authors should learn from this. 

Authors are surrounded by pay-to-say employees, so don’t look for truth there. The people who are closest to you won’t speak up and if they did, you will hold it against them.  

Authors want to be lied to.  

They won’t admit it, but they do. They are fragile souls who want to be loved, not just for the quality of their writing but for the value of the story conveyed or the substance of the message being shared. To criticize or reject their book is to dismiss pieces of their lives and their lived experiences or imagined worlds. 

Writers reflect the softness of the world we live in at large. Society today is about participation trophies, watered down standards, and lowering the bar to pass muster. It focuses on making money but not on working hard. Our nation is a bit dumber, lazier, and more entitled than at any point in the last 50 years.  

Ok, so what was the point of me exposing the weak side of authors? I want you, dear writer, to embrace truth and to be aware of not just when people sugar code things to you, but when they lie by omission and when you lie to yourself. But most importantly, when truth is shared, however rarely, embrace it.

 

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 5,000,000 page views. With 5,400+ posts over the past 14 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2025.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum