The seminal challenge today for a writer, especially of literary, contemporary, or experimental fiction, is to engage with readers without plunging through pools of writers. Here’s one idea: Wherever you live, there’s bound to be dozens if not hundreds of reading groups. Ask one or more of them if they would consent to read a draft of your novel or a few of your short stories and discuss it/them. (Bring pastries and booze when the big day comes!).

I am a consultant to the electricity industry in my day job. Usually when I mention that to people at a party, they slither away towards the bar. Except every five years or so, when the energy industry gets hot in the stock market. Then I hold court with people seeking free investment advice.

Whether I am helping them communicate about their technology to customers or venture capitalists, often, clients ask me, well, what should we say? How should we respond? My answer always is, “honesty seems to work best in my experience.”

I’ve been writing fiction for about fifteen years. Mostly short stories, Now I’ve completed a novel. I am in a slow (painfully so often) transition out of consulting to something else. What, I am not sure. But I know that writing, and writing fiction, will be part of it. Writing has been part and parcel of my life since sixth grade when I started a family newspaper (it lasted two editions).

Honestly, what does a fiction writer want? To connect with readers, I think. If you write mysteries, thrillers, crime, romance, science fiction, etc., it’s a little easier. Genre writing is pretty organized and a very open field today given the disruptions to the traditional publishing business model. But if you write literary fiction, which is what I think I am writing, it’s not so easy. Literary fiction is still very controlled by the traditional publishing apparatus. If you don’t have a academic platform or an MFA (Masters in Fine Arts), it’s really difficult to reach readers of literary fiction.

Writers are passionate readers for the most part. Most writers hope to find readers through other writers. We all participate in writers groups, on-line and face-to face. Let’s face it though. We are mostly reaching people like ourselves, people who have a story to tell…and sell. Isn’t the real goal to connect with readers?

Only a pure reader can give a writer pure feedback, free of a subconscious “I would  have done it this way,” or “They say never to do this in workshop,” or “She’ll never get an agent with this as a first chapter.” Readers are looking for great reads, great ideas, great story concepts, engaging characters, momentum in the plot. This is doubly true because writing is so subjective. They don’t care how a book got to them. They crave a great read.

Trying to connect with readers through other writers is like trying to sink to the bottom of a salt-laden sea. Mostly, you float on top of what other writers think and say.

As you write a novel or a short story, shouldn’t you inform your thoughts on revision based on what other readers think? I’m not talking about line edits, I’m talking about more general impressions.

Genre writers have expertly applied social media to interact with their readers. But let’s not kid ourselves. This is as much soliciting feedback and engagement as marketing, building loyalty among the customer base or fans, as it might be informing the writing or revision process. It’s hard enough to get feedback from five people (in a critique group, say) to converge on useful revisions that don’t destroy the story. Imagine soliciting from dozens or hundreds on-line?

We all know (or should know) that the vast majority of literary journals out there are read (or place on their shelves) by other writers and exist because academics survive under the publish or perish paradigm. I don’t care how much noise their staff makes about “seeking new literary talent, fresh voices, etc,” what they really want is for wanna-bees to buy or subscribe to their publication. I mean, I can’t tell you how many of these lit journals I’ve purchased or read over the years because, in submitting, I am admonished to read the journal to understand what they publish. I read them, and have no earthly clue what they expect in their submissions. These are the journals which have the gall (well, fewer do this today) to demand that you submit to them exclusively while they take their sweet time, often months, to respond. Most operate under the slave labor of graduate students, too.

When it comes to literary novels, the buying public, the customer, is largely conditioned by the opinions of leading opinion-makers, namely the New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and a few other leading outlets. With few exceptions, these channels are part of the traditional publishing model. The five big publishing houses remaining (with their myriad acquired presses), much like the characterization of Goldman Sachs as the “vampire squid,” courtesy of Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, are for the most part impenetrable without a New York agent. As just one example, many of the short stories published in The New Yorker (Yes, The New Yorker) appear timed to help the author promote a collection or a new novel. I doubt anyone at the publication is going to admit that this is deliberate, but my informal analysis, and the suspicions I have heard from many others, suggests it’s a credible conclusion.

If you write literary fiction, then, you have a few poor choices – try to penetrate the traditional publishing apparatus, try to break into the recognized literary journals set up for a publish or perish paradigm, or publish in the proliferating print and on-line journals essentially established to gratify writers with more writers as readers – at best.

So, I maintain that the seminal challenge today for a writer, especially of literary, contemporary, or experimental fiction, is to engage with readers without plunging through pools of writers. Here’s one idea: Wherever you live, there’s bound to be dozens if not hundreds of reading groups. Ask one or more of them if they would consent to read a draft of your novel and discuss it. (Bring pastries and booze, chocolate and red wine, when the big day comes!). Or work with branches of your local library to arrange a discussion of your draft or stories.

Yes, we need all the help we can get with editing and revising. I maintain (two decades of experience as the lead writer, chief editor, reporter, and technical and business specialist for an industry trade publication taught me this) that writers cannot edit their own stuff.

But what we crave is the feedback from the reading experience. That, more than anything, will keep us from becoming “workshop boy or girl.”

Your thoughts on how to connect with real readers are welcome.