THE ART OF BEING PUBLICLY PRIVATE

I don't know if anti-industry is the kind of label you can choose for yourself, or it must be bestowed upon you. Even if it's the latter, I'll embody the word and claim it on my own anyway.

Anti-industry is the social rejection of mainstream book marketing and sales practices. I've spent over a year without social media. No Instagram, no Tik Tok, no Twitter. No regular hopping online to ask anyone to buy my book. My publishing house chooses not to use saturated bookstores as our primary form of distribution. Last week, to the great surprise of any industry peers who heard it, I didn't participate in a famed week-long literary festival, spending most of that time at home, and hosting just a small book reading at a local store instead. I am very quick to turn down offers that I don't think are the right opportunity for my personality. It's not that I want to be deliberately disagreeable. But as I'm aging, I'm allowing myself to be more of who I am - which is a person whose nervous system needs copious peace, privacy, time away from the modern theatrics of book sales.

But sometimes these discomforting appearances are just part of what's needed to propagate my books, at least until my literary career reaches a stage where personal presence isn't necessary anymore. I still have a duty to show up for my work. So I've adopted a publicly private model of living.

Here are the rules that direct my publicly private life:

Principle 1: I Will Publicly Advocate For My Art

There are over 160,000,000 published books in the world, that readers can choose from. This is a competitive industry. I have a professional responsibility to my books, to talk about them so they don't get missed in a crowded space. However, I aim the spotlight at the books, the craft of writing, and the ideas I want to convey in my contemporary fiction. If I ever appear on social media (as I sometimes do on literary pages or occasional YouTube content) and at public engagements (like launches and selected speaking events) it will only ever be because I feel it offers meaningful promotion of my work. I aim to be influential in the literary industry because of my work, not an influencer sharing what I ate for breakfast, my gym routine, candid selfies. These are perfectly interesting pieces of content to share for individuals whose brands are built around this, but my reputational architecture requires my personal life not be up for public consumption.

Principle 2: I Never Share Private Moments In Real Time

I do have a personal Facebook account, which has always been a zero pressure space of my personal community. Here I post the occasional story (an aesthetic image from a good day, or a smart outfit) without too much context of where I was, at what time, for how long, specifics of what I did there. My feed remains reserved for limited posting of highlight moments from my author or blogging adventures. I share about experiences only after they have safely passed. As a girl in the world, I am very conscious of this time buffer protecting my personal security. Not sharing things as they are happening also allows me to fully enjoy the moment while I am living it, and ensures I am experiencing my life rather than staging it for an audience.

Principle 3: I Never Process My Emotions In Public 

Back when I had Tik Tok, I was rather fascinated by people who hopped on a video while actively crying, ranting, straight out of the shower, or in the right middle of eating something. I have always felt like my raw emotions deserved personal space. I don't process impulsive emotions like grief, frustration, or even ecstasy on a camera, where the public forum can partake in them like a saucy snack. Even my vulnerabilities are only for a trusted inner circle who have earned the right to know them. If I do talk about personal circumstances, I prefer to share any reflections only after I have distilled my reactionary emotions into a proper insight that can be meaningfully used by others. 

Principle 4: I Preserve Personal Spaces 

There are certain spaces in my home that I don't share. If I ever post anything - ephemeral Facebook stories or otherwise - it is always in the same generic spaces; a grey couch, an outfit check in front of a bare cupboard, using the blank kitchen countertop as a flatlay. I don't show my bedroom, I don't show my shower - I especially don't show myself in the shower! - and I don't show any building architecture. My personal relationships, too, remain offline. Unless pre-agreed, I don't post my friends in candid moments, romantic partners, members of my family that choose not to have their own personal social media (like my dad and brother), or name my clients who haven't expressly given permission for it, many of whom are public figures who want to maintain their own brand. I'll be honest, it's led to some assumption that I don't have intimate relationships. But, those opinions are a small price to pay to ensure there is a sphere of my life that never turns into content, and always remains inherently mine.

Principle 5: I Prioritize Substance Over Frequency

How the world has turned. Whereas personal privacy used to be the norm, with publicity only meant for celebrities, now it is the modern expectation that everyone has digital, very visible lives for everyone to see. In fact, you're an oddity if you're totally offline. Like I say, I am aware there does need to at least be something online about my books - lack of any information out there about me as an author is not privacy, that's readership irrelevancy. So the heart of anything that goes out about me will always be related to my books, my publishing milestones, or my author aesthetic; not what I'm doing or thinking every few hours of the day. I save my energy for writing and show up publicly only when I have something intentional and valuable to contribute to the literary landscape.

Forgive me, I'm still learning to write without didacticism. What works for me is not always what works for everyone. But as a publisher whose clientele averages age 45 -65 - certainly not a comfortable age to jump on Tik Tok to show off their book with some ASMR tapping - I'm often asked whether online presence is entirely necessary to make their books successful. I say to them that it's not. But authors cannot completely disappear from the internet either, or their books are going to be written and released into a void. It's about intentionality of online presence. And for this I recommend the publicly private model of living. I also have a valuable article on how authors can succeed without social media on my Medium blog. 

Written by Keli H, author and publisher. This piece is from her personal editorial archive on style, authorship, art, and inspired living. More articles at keli-h.com