If a Tree Falls

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the world’s largest book seller is named after the world’s largest tropical rainforest. I’ll bet most readers are familiar with the philosophical thought experiment of “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?” Sadly, many self-published authors can ask a similar question about their work. If your audience is small, does your work matter?

As I continue to hunt for an agent to represent my middle grade sci-fi/fantasy manuscript, I sometimes find myself fighting against this same self-doubt. Yes, I’ve sold a couple of short stories recently. Yes, my 2014 self-pubbed debut novel Storm Orphans still sells a few copies a month, but finding readers in the vast forest of more than 12 million books on Amazon is a daunting task. Doing it without an agent or a publishing company promoting you is even tougher. It’s easy to imagine your words lying forgotten and rotten in that forest, no one noticing their passing.

For any of my unrepresented writing peers facing the same uncertainty, I offer you this: Keep writing for you. Write because it feels good to put words on the page. Write because those stories and voices in your head aren’t likely to leave you alone until you set them free. Write because if even one person values your work, you have an audience and something to grow on. Fallen trees, even silent ones, leave roots and seeds behind. You never know when something new and beautiful will blossom.