My answer to this is as binary as the question itself: Yes, very much and no, not at all.
I’m a writer. Clearly, I value peoples’ opinions more than their money. However, since they’re a dime a dozen these days, what I really care about is how people think of me after I’m dead – the sum of my accomplishments is what counts.
My dream is to publish a book that’ll stand the test of time for hundreds of years to come.
Book printing at scale has been around for close to 600 years now. Around 2–3 million books are published every year. The time frame in which books rise and fall gets shorter and shorter.
Of the ~150 best-selling books of all time, over 14% have been published in the 2000s. Extend that to the 1970s and you have half the list. Over 90% were published after 1900.
Of course sales isn’t the only metric that determines whether a book becomes an all-time classic (think of ancient, Greek writings of Seneca and the like), but the numbers indicate a direction:
My chances of accomplishing this get slimmer by the day.
So yes, this bothers me tremendously.
I’m a writer. Clearly, I’m fighting for the scarcest resource on the planet: peoples’ time. Since it’s so precious, I’m happy if I can help just one person change for the better.
If no one ever read a single word of what I’ve written again, I’d die happy knowing I’ve had the privilege of helping so many people in my lifetime.
Over the past 2.5 years, tens of thousands of people have read my stuff, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. I do not take it for granted. I’m just a beginner and I know exactly that I’m not entitled to anyone’s attention.
I take comfort in how far I’ve come, let the gratitude propel me forward and appreciate that I get to have a small impact on a few people while I’m here.
So no, this doesn’t bother me at all.
