Publishing a Book Is Terrible

It is only slightly exaggerating to say that everything about publishing a book is terrible, even when things go well. Maybe this is a matter of temperament, and people blessed with good temperaments live in full knowledge of the wonder and sense of grace they should feel about every aspect of the privilege it is to put a book into the world, and it just happens that I and every writer I know have bad temperaments. For Philip Roth, who published some thirty-plus books and won every possible literary award—or every award but one—writing was “frustration, daily frustration, not to mention humiliation.” If writing felt like humiliation to Philip Roth, what hope do any of the rest of us have? The idea that some sign of outward success, some award or sales figure, could satisfy us is a mistake, I think. The soul one pours into a novel or a collection of poems, the years of effort a book represents—what possible response from the world could be adequate recompense for that?

GARTH GREENWELL