I’m Not Chasing the Algorithm

by James Allen

The serenity of writing is its own small ecosystem—quiet, self-sustaining, and largely indifferent to the noise of marketing. I write because something in the back of my mind insists on being said, not because I’m chasing charts, algorithms, or the promise of going viral. I’m not chasing the algorithm like some low-reputation lawyer chasing an ambulance. And yet, in the world of self-publishing, this calm tends to confuse people whose job is to keep the water permanently stirred.

I seem to unintentionally frustrate a great many book marketers. They arrive in my inbox with proposals from book clubs, “professional” promoters, SEO specialists, and assorted literary miracle-workers. My replies are consistent: I don’t accept unsolicited email, and your message has been moved to spam for several reasons. It’s not personal; it’s simply a boundary. But boundaries, it seems, are kryptonite to an industry that survives on the assumption that persistence eventually wears people down.

To be clear, I enjoy email from readers—people who want to talk about an actual book, a specific passage, or a moment that resonated with them. Those messages are welcome. They are the quiet proof that something I wrote found a home in someone else’s mind. They tend to be thoughtful, specific, and refreshingly human. The frustration comes from the other kind of email: the unsolicited pitches that multiply like dandelions after rain and show roughly the same regard for context.

The first message never bothers me. I was in sales once; I understand the logic of asking. Everyone has a quota somewhere. But once you’ve been told no, the polite thing—the professional thing—is to move on. Instead, I get second and third attempts, each one sounding more like a used-car salesman who can’t believe I’m walking away from such a “fantastic opportunity.” That’s when the Midwest bluntness kicks in: apparently you didn’t pay attention to my first response. The answer is no. This interaction is concluded.

Those are the more visible moments, but they point to a deeper misunderstanding. Many marketers don’t grasp my motivation because it doesn’t fit neatly inside a funnel diagram. I’m perfectly content to let my books and my audience grow organically—slowly, honestly, and at whatever pace genuine readers arrive. I’m not in literature to be famous, or even widely read. I’m grateful—genuinely grateful—to the readers who have purchased my work or taken the time to read it. But gratitude does not obligate me to chase exposure for exposure’s sake.

The marketer’s worldview is simple: why write a book if you don’t intend to market it aggressively? My answer is equally simple: because the idea wouldn’t leave me alone. Because something in my mind said, You need to put this on paper or it will keep bothering you. Writing, for me, begins as catharsis, not commerce. Publication is simply what happens after the words refuse to stay quiet.

Some of that urgency comes from family history—parents and grandparents who faded into dementia, their stories dissolving with them one memory at a time. I have seen what happens when a life goes largely unrecorded. I write so that a part of me exists after the version of me I know today disappears. I write so nieces and nephews—the next branches on the family tree—have some record of where they came from and who was here before them. And I write because ideas, good or bad, deserve at least the courtesy of being given air.

This is where my so-called “radical” view of book marketing enters the conversation. I believe the author should be paid. I should not be paying a marketer, a promoter, or a book-talk impresario for the privilege of being visible. If my work has value, compensation should flow toward the person who created it. That’s how most other skilled labor works, and I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for why literature should operate upside down.

The same principle applies to book clubs and appearances. If you want my time, you pay for it. This is not volunteer labor, and it is not exposure I’m seeking. And the recent trend of tipping readers—paying people to read my work—strikes me as particularly backwards. If tipping is involved, it should come the other direction: purchase the book, leave a review, recommend it to someone who might enjoy it. Support the work if it earned your attention.

So if you’re a marketer reading this, don’t expect me to leap at your “fantastic offer.” I’m not uninterested out of arrogance; I’m uninterested because my goals are different from yours. I write to clear the mind, to preserve memory, to leave something behind that might outlast my better days. I write because the idea insists on existing.

And to the readers who have taken the time to buy my books, read them, or send a thoughtful note—thank you. You are the part of this process that still makes perfect sense.