Barriers to getting rich, part 2
rabidsamfan -- in the context of a book on better communication with kids, commented:
"But it would be nice to see something like that in those little cheap paperback pamphlets on the grocery store impulse racks by the cash registers, wouldn't it?"

Yes. Many times over. And that is precisely the problem.

A very long time ago, when I wrote Native Tongue, my goal was to get out to as many people as possible just the core basics of linguistics and language science, without their having to wade through the impenetrable thickets of Academic Regalian that represented linguistics literature at the time. (This was before the superstardom of Tannen and Pinker and George Lakoff.) I thought it was important for people to know what linguistics is and what linguists do and why that matters; I still do. I didn't think that the way to get that information out was to write a book called Why You'll Be Better Off If I Can Dispel Your Ignorance About Linguistics And Language Science, or a book called Introduction To The Core Basics Of Linguistics And Language Science. I did the best I could to get to the widest possible audience; for me, that turned out to mean people who read science fiction, and some of the people who read feminist fiction, and college profs desperate for something that students in a linguistics "survey" course might be willing to read voluntarily.

However, I was well aware at the time that the largest group of readers in the U.S. was the readers of romance novels, which make up roughly half of all paperback books that are actually read. If I'd had sufficient skill to put the information into a romance novel I would have done that instead; I just wasn't capable of writing in that genre.

When I wrote the first Gentle Art book, the situation was much the same. The language environment all around me was so toxic that it was literally making people sick, literally injuring them and doing them harm, and they didn't seem to have any resources at all for dealing with hostile language that didn't just make matters worse. I wrote The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense as a self-help book that could be read easily and quickly -- instead of writing Introduction To Rhetoric For The Repair Of Toxic Language Environments -- because I wanted to reach ordinary people in a crisis. It didn't seem to me that academics and the intellectual elite needed any information on verbal self-defense; if they felt a need for it, they knew where to look. They didn't need any help, and I wasn't writing for them. Again, if I'd been able to figure out some way to put the information into a romance novel or a thriller -- or into TV Guide -- I'd have done that instead.

Sometimes I do this stuff, and it seems to me to work at least to a modest extent. (Having Barnes & Noble marketing for me was a big help, obviously, and increased the odds that it would work.) And then there are the times it doesn't work, as when I tried to do an end run around Barnes & Noble's refusal to bring out a mass market edition of the GAVSD by putting the core information into a sort-of novel that would also be a quick and easy read, and published Peacetalk 101. That didn't work, primarily because I made so many marketing mistakes. I was, and am, sorry about that.

Now I find myself in a very similar situation with this equally small body of basic information on how to feed pregnant women and babies up to the age of two in such a way that the infant brains aren't damaged. That's not a big chunk of information either. But it needs to be packaged in a way that doesn't insult people. It needs to be a quick and easy and entertaining read that doesn't make anybody feel guilty or shamed. If I had learned, by now, how to write a romance novel, that would be exactly where it ought to go, since women still do most of the feeding of pregnant women and babies.

I don't know how to write a romance novel. Drat and blast. I've read a dozen books (and many many articles) on how to do it, and heaven knows the Internet is running over with resources on how to do it, but I just plain can't get the hang of it, no matter how hard I try. The results are always hilarious. Drat and blast.

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[Afternote on my way out the door: I need to write a series of romance novels, actually, in my copious spare time. Or somebody does. One that teaches that basic chunk of early-life nutritional information you've been kind enough to discuss with me. One that does the same thing for the most basic financial information -- like how to get started with D.R.I.P. stocks, and how to start a small business, and the magic of compound interest. One that teaches self-defense against the 100 worst money-wasting things the media keeps telling people they have to do. That kind of thing.]