My No-Show Book Talk Was the Best Thing to Happen to Me as a Writer
Karen DeBonis explains how choosing to be publicly vulnerable when no one showed up to her book talk brought unexpected support and success.
[This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]
My book talk in the library should have started 15 minutes earlier. The room’s only occupants were my husband—my loyal book marketing grunt—and me. I was annoyed with the library (and myself, to be honest) for failing to promote the event more widely. Yet I was amused to be in the company of Stephen King and Margaret Wood, both of whom admit to no-show book events.
“Are you sure?” Michael asked. “You really want a picture of you in this empty room?”
Yes, I was sure.
But would I post the photo? It could backfire. People might assume I was an author not worth hearing whose book was not worth reading. I felt social media’s L-shaped fingers plastered on my forehead.
Writers are all too familiar with the sting of rejection and invisibility. The crickets after sending a newsletter. The meh Kirkus reviews. The Submittable pages dotted with “declined” and “in progress.” My queries to 85 agents before moving to Plan B—small presses, one of whom said yes. We send our words out into the world, knowing our carefully crafted sentences, our brilliant metaphors, our darlings may be unappreciated or ignored.
To be a writer is to be vulnerable. Full stop.
For memoirists, vulnerability gets personal. Admitting to faults and weaknesses is scary. During the 25 years from starting to finishing my memoir, I asked myself “Are you sure?” too many times to count. My admission—that I wasn’t the fierce advocate my son had needed while he deteriorated from an undiagnosed brain tumor—was heart-poundingly terrifying.
I chose to face my terror, to tell my story so that other women—other mothers—might learn from my mistakes. With a trembling soul, I chose to be vulnerable, and I make that choice again and again in essays, my newsletter, social media posts, and at every book event.
The wood floor gleamed in the old library. My pull-up banner and table display provided a colorful backdrop. Chin in hand, I posed in a chair, looking back at the empty room. My smirk suggested “It happens to the best of us.”
I posted the photo to X the next morning. A couple of hours later, I checked back to find dozens of supportive comments. I got to work liking and replying to them, committed to acknowledging every response, to seeing every commenter as an individual. It’s the same reason I look the grocery store bagger in the eye when I say, “Thank you.” I want a person in my orbit to know I see them, that they matter.
After about an hour, my heart raced as I tried to keep up with the comments rolling in. By late that afternoon, I was up to half a million views, but what really blew me away were the common themes:
“Your honesty and transparency will be inspirational and reassuring to a lot of authors, Karen, including me. Bravo I say.” —@zoefolbigg
“You are wonderful and brave and look at all the people who are supporting you because you weren’t afraid to be real and authentic.” —@lucybellega
“Thank you so much for sharing and helping so many of us see that we are not alone.” —@JimTheWhat
“It’s really cool you showed that. That inspires me so much.” —@Dontstopbelief
Henry Winkler, “The Fonz” in the popular 1970s sitcom “Happy Days,” currently on his own sold-out book tour, chimed in with, “I am so sorry. Been there … only the best to you.” If the Fonz had so much as blinked at me when I was a teen, I’d have swooned. At 65, I came close.
Then, a new theme trended: “I love your resilience. I ordered your book because of it.” —@JulieCar94.
My Amazon rankings skyrocketed in individual categories. Top 200, top 100, top 10.
I sat back from my laptop, eyes squinting in confusion. What is happening? It’s just a silly photo. I cried with gratitude and squirmed in embarrassment at the flattery. On emotional overload, my heart vroom-vroomed like Fonzie’s Harley.
The experience validated my belief in writing my book—that, like charging a phone or plugging in a laptop, vulnerability powers human connection.
There was no us or them in my X world that day. No questions about political party affiliation. No identification as liberal or conservative, blue or red, black or white or brown. We were a community of individuals bonding over our human experience, vulnerability bridging our divides.
Over a million viewers came together over my simple photo. Not a single troll among them. Not even a negative comment. The closest I came was a guy wanting me to buy him a camera. I believe my no-show book talk will forever be one of the most uplifting things to happen to me as a writer.
Before you rush out to spill your guts in public, however, take a pause.
Writing a vulnerable story does not have to equate to a tell-all. (Although it can, especially if you’re famous and readers lust for the dirt.) What are you most afraid to admit? Therein lies your deepest vulnerability. I guarantee you are not alone in your fear, and if you decide to share it, you’ll see I’m right. What is your purpose in sharing? What outcome do you hope for? How will you feel if you achieve that outcome? If you don’t? These are the questions to ask yourself.
There are other important considerations when deciding how much of yourself to expose:
Six considerations for writing about your vulnerability
1. Set boundaries.
I don’t write about my sex life. Not that you’d find it interesting anyway, but I’d like my 41-year marriage to my loyal book marketing grunt to continue and that’s our deal.
2. You can’t take it back.
You already know this, but it bears repeating: Information that exists in the digital world never goes away. Don’t share anything you don’t want to live forever.
3. Be brave, not rash.
Everyone will know what you decide to share, from your brother-in-law to your neighbor to your clients, to the entire state of Texas. Think it through carefully.
4. Consider your audience.
Writers, especially memoirists, get vulnerability. So do most readers of memoirs. Others may not. Consider your target audience when deciding where to share. I suspected the large and supportive X writing community would understand. I was right.
5. Get a second opinion.
Ask a trusted someone what they think about your sharing, but ultimately, trust your gut. If I had listened to my husband, I’d never have gone viral.
6. Prepare for rejection.
Yuck. There’s that word again. Odds are that someone won’t like what you’ve disclosed, so steel yourself for the inevitable. Instead of feeling wounded by all the rejection, think of it as a muscle you’re developing to help you be strong.
Sharing our weaknesses is one of the most courageous things we can do. As writers, we know that words have the power to wound or to heal, and vulnerability can be our superpower.
Being open about our foibles allows us to walk together, blurring or even erasing the us-vs.-them line in the sand. I encourage you to take a chance.
Retired from a satisfying career in health promotion, Karen DeBonis (KarenDeBonis.com) writes about motherhood, people-pleasing, and personal growth, inspired by the experience of raising her son, Matthew. Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived is her 2023 debut memoir about the collision of medical gaslighting and a mother’s people-pleasing, shattering her expectations of motherhood and threatening the survival of her young son. Karen’s work has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Today, and numerous other mainstream and literary journals. Living in an old house in upstate New York with her husband of 40 years, Karen relishes her hard-won empty nest.
