The best thing about being an author by Keren David

I met up with a friend this week who has been published for slightly longer than I have - 10 years for her, nine for me. And - once we’d got the inevitable moaning out of the way – our conversation turned to the good stuff. The things that keep us going.

There are good reviews, of course, and the occasional prize shortlisting. There are invitations to festivals and parties, There are the wonderful friendships we forge with other writers, there are inspiring booksellers and librarians who put their heart and soul into putting our books into the hands of readers. And there are fabulous editors, agents, publicists, sales and marketing people out there too.

But above all of this, comes the readers themselves. Readers who take the time to write to you, or come up to you on a school visit to whisper about how much a particular book meant to them. Readers who tell you that your book changed their life. Readers who haven’t yet read your book, but listen to you talking about it and then rush up to buy it at the end of the talk.

Someone told me this week that all her daughter’s male friends had read my first book  -  even those who hadn’t read any other books -  because ‘you really got it’.  I’m not telling you that to show off, I’m telling you because it made me glow  with pure joy inside all day.

Publishing is a rough old business.  If you stick with it for 10 years you need the hide of a rhino to survive the setbacks, the rejections, the casually insulting low advances, the bad reviews You generally need an alternative income. You don’t look at goodreads. Some hashtags need to be muted on Twitter. It’s easy to feel down-hearted.  Sometimes I look at bouncy, enthusiastic, excited debut authors and feel about 100 years old, and bitter with it.

And yet. A meeting with keen readers will chase all that away. So this is a big thank you to readers who think to get in touch with authors when they’ve enjoyed a book. You mean more to us than you can possibly imagine.