Why your friends hate your novel

I recently received an email from an old friend who’s also a novelist, though in a very different genre.

“Hi Alice, I’m feeling low and in need of advice. Maybe everybody secretly dislikes me, but my friends and family, neighbours and acquaintances generally just don’t care about my books. They’ve sold great, and one was even a USA Today bestseller, but none of the people I know is even remotely interested. Is this normal? Am I being too thin-skinned? Have you felt this? Or is it just me?”

I sympathised with this person sooooooo much that it inspired me to address this point, and to ask permission to quote part of the email here. Here’s my response.

Hi X,

You’re dead right, they don’t, they really don’t, care about your novels. And yes, it happens almost all the time, to almost all of us. And yes, it really does hurt.

But — looked at from another angle — why should our friends and family love our books? Reading is such a personal thing! Even in my own book club (called Edgeways, because none of us can get a word in edgeways, lol) we probably disagree about books — rarely about other topics — much more than we agree.

My guess is that this happens because there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ view about books — even dependably well-written and well-edited books (we don’t…