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Do I Really Need to Op-Ed to Sell Books?
Writing essays to help promote your work is a growing expectation that merits more scrutiny.
In promoting the former, a book on the cultural pressures that shape young adulthood, she was thrust into the role of “spokesperson on all things millennial.” As she explained to me, “Because millennial has become such a headline-y buzzword, it felt like everything could be spun through [that] angle.” Editors wanted her to pen essays with a generation-wars slant. She hadn’t anticipated this pressure to be an “Author with a capital A,” performing total confidence in anything vaguely related to her book — a reported look at how milestones such as college and internships have become so prized that they’ve turned young adulthood into a “competitive sport.” “If I really wanted to get into some of the top-tier general interest publications, a topical, opinionated piece on that subject probably would have been the way to go.” But she ultimately decided that being a commentator would’ve felt disingenuous and — more importantly — was irrelevant to the book.
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