I was listening to NPR on my way to work in the morning, and a bookstore owner was interviewed. A bookstore owner said something I cannot stop thinking about. She said many books get maybe thirty seconds of attention. Thirty seconds. Someone scans the cover, title, maybe the back, and decides whether it deserves shelf space.
She compared bookstores to real estate.
Limited space.
Then came the part that stayed with me. If books do not sell, many are returned. Some eventually get destroyed. Shredded.
I do not know why that hurt me.
Maybe because I started thinking about what existed before the book. Years of writing after work. Rewriting chapters. Self-doubt. Someone is spending money they did not really have. Someone believed their story mattered enough to put into the world.
Then a machine.
Gone.
The painful reality is that not all books begin equally. A familiar publisher matters. A famous name matters. A sticker that says New York Times Bestseller matters. Readers trust what other people have already approved.
And then there are small publishers that most people have never heard of.
Unknown writers.
First books.
Immigrant stories.
People carrying decades of life experience but no audience.
I kept thinking: what are the chances for someone publishing through a small imprint like Arti-Facts? Not as self-pity. Just statistics.
More than 4 million books are published each year.
Four million!
That means many books are not competing against bad books. They are competing against attention.
Maybe that is the hardest thing to accept.
We grow up believing hard work gets noticed.
I am not sure that is always true.
Sometimes good work disappears quietly.
Sometimes stories survive because of timing, money, connections, or visibility.
And maybe the most painful thought:
How many people live this same reality?
Not books.
People.
Workers.
Mothers.
Immigrants.
Quiet people whose stories never become important because nobody paused long enough to listen.
Still, people write.
I suppose writing is an act of hope.
A stubborn way of saying:
I was here. Even if only a few people noticed.