When Measuring Messes with your Mindset

You’ve perhaps heard the saying: You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

This notion, when applied to artists, can truly wreak havoc on an individual’s self-esteem, self-concept, and affect their entire approach to their artistic practice—not always for the better.

Within the same week, I attended a seminar heavily promoting the use of data as a guide for managing one’s author experience—especially when it comes to promotion, marketing, brand-building, and finding readers.

I also read a thoughtful article in the MIT Technology Review explaining “value capture” as defined by philosopher C. Thi Nguyen in his book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game:

“Value capture happens…when you adopt external sources of measurement and then let them rule you without adapting them to suit your life….In value capture, you’re essentially outsourcing your values.”

The seminar assumed that authors were undermining their chances of success of they didn’t set out to capture, measure, and manage every available metric related to book sales, readership, and however you define “engagement.”

The article highlights the dangerous fallacy intrinsic to this approach:

“You’re letting an external metric or ranking set what’s important for you,” Nguyen writes. He offers this example, among others:

“Value capture happens when a restaurant stops caring about making good food and starts caring about maximizing its Yelp ratings.”

Now apply this to an author: She becomes so obsessed with, say, her Amazon rankings, Goodreads citations, newsletter open rates, follows and likes, etc., that she loses site of the value of her work—to herself, to others, and perhaps for posterity.

Or she writes only what she concludes readers want—based on feedback data.

Meanwhile, this author’s obsession with data as a defining assessment of her “performance” convinces her that she is only valuable as an artist—and her book is only worthy—in relation to the data.

What happens to genuine inspiration, to risk-taking creativity, and even to serendipity in this scenario? I fear they fall by the wayside or at least become devalued.

I find this equation to be upside down and inside out. I get that data can be used to help an author decide where to invest limited resources for book promotion and marketing, to test ad performance, and so forth.

But the moment you start reducing all book-related value to those values, you lose perspective on what making art is all about in the first place—and why we do it.

I’ve recently embraced a more laissez-faire approach to my own books. Meaning, I don’t believe I have much, if any, control over whether my books “sell,” who finds them, who buys them, etc. I love engaging with readers—in real life, especially—but I’m not spending time wielding data to find them, let alone prod them.

Perhaps because I’m writing literary, genre-crossing fiction rather than clearly definable genre fiction that practically comes with a built-in audience pool, I’ve concluded that numeric, measurement-driven tactics are not for me.

My publisher doesn’t believe in them, either. They tell me that winning awards for one’s book does not power sales; the data don’t support that.

But there are other reasons to submit for awards: They offer a form of validation that’s hard to come by, offer a happy talking point, and I confess I love the little gold stickers you get to slap on your book when you win.

I don’t care if all that isn’t supported by data.

There’s something to be said for feeling good, for taking pride in your work, for taking a pass on the stuff you don’t want to do, and for letting the chips fall where they may…a distinctly unscientific approach that I wholeheartedly embrace.

My new novel TENT CITY, is getting some amazing reviews —and now you can download the companion BOOK CLUB KIT, a rich resource for discussing the book!

“Amy L. Bernstein’s powerful novel reflects modern times with a twist, offering powerful insights into groups that used to work together and now find themselves seemingly at odds, but connected in unusual ways.

“The food for thought generated by this social and psychological examination will prove especially compelling for readers seeking literary reflections of present and future dilemmas surrounding haves and have-nots, simmering frustrations on all sides, and the raise of poverty that both births Tent City and portends its ultimate collapse, as well.

--D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review