A Hearth of Reciprocity

I want to give you a copy of my latest novel. Will you receive it in reciprocity?

Note: This has become a longer newsletter than I anticipated. All you need to know is that I am writing to ask you something. You can read this all or scroll down to the section titled “Why I am writing all of this.”

An Introduction To the Question … and Then An Ask

I will be honest, a dangerous force today, honesty.

I yearn to sit and yarn with you, but I do not find the marketization of words interesting. I chafe under book marketing but lust to tell stories. I am torn, and often so.

A sense of depression never fails to occupy the time following the writing of a book. Five books published. Five depressions. The writing feels holy. That which follows, decisively unholy.

The writing process is magikal.

It is a dreamstate where ancestors come to visit and we sit together. We talk about things that are not okay to talk about. And we talk about things that vanish, like breath on the warming days, as the sun rises. Subtle things. And my kin surround me with their words as well. Birds dominate the visitors list, it is true. Squirrels and the family of deer that live below my little mound visit occasionally, and we talk about subtle things—like why woodsmoke purls up only to splash down in waving wisps, like why springs ushering from deep wells of water are silent but falling mountain streams babble endlessly in swirling bubbles. Where are they going? Where is anyone going?

Writing is welcoming, it is watching letters trace the colors of the morning in ways that surprise my fingers as they type. Peculiar strings of them come together to form what is right, what is needed. Writing is welcoming that which you never knew was possible. Once it is held, in words and on paper, writing is also that which seems common and that which has been present and plain all along…

My writing life is a wonderful life. It is clothed by the early morning feathers of fog that float above the stretching river valley that lives in her own and gentle way just below my window. And I float with it, the fog. It is Mother Earth’s woodsmoke from warm hearths hitherto unfound by anthropologists but not unfelt by Her peoples.

In our distant past, we humans told stories to calm the winter winds. They were riveting like westerly gales. They were alive like their peoples. The tale’s rhythms bounced upon flame and lapped like love against swollen and pregnant hearths. Cracklings of tallow popped and danced in splashing bits—the first sound effects of the first audiobooks.

These tales were meant, I am told in my dreams, to facilitate a two-way dreamwalking.

Back, the teller would usher a transportation, an awakening of memory—to talk with ancestors, to walk live living in lineage, to feel the eco-tone flowing through veins like spring mountain water (that is, loudly).

Forward, the magik of flaming words would also then transports listeners into the future—to step down new traces, to speak with their grandchildren’s children, to become the ageless wind whistling a wisdom never to be contained.

The publishing process is repulsive.

It is a hellscape (for me) where ancestors leave and my kin shake their heads. The morning drags on without birdsong and even now, as I write this, a mockingbird sits on the branch beyond my sill and says nothing. She does not dance. She is still, standing strangely on a thin branch of the thorny locust.

Like me, I suppose. I want to dance, I do! But my morning’s branch is thorny as well. I don’t like it.

I do not think publishing is a universally evil affair, to be sure. It is just evil to me, a capitalistic and algorithmic distraction when, to please you all, to tell worthy tales, or even to ready my heart to be worthy of telling tales, I must be silent and search for words and not followers. This deep search is antithetical to the work of publishing. I have heard many authors say this.

Many friends of mine, some NYT Bestselling authors, others Pulitzer winners, Booker finalists, etc., all tell me similarly. They write a book and then, once the manuscript enters the publishing process, they undergo a ritual where they erase the whole thing from their minds. They move on. They forget about it, because it is living to them and now it must die—the words, the soul of the book.

Okay, thank you for indulging me for the past few paragraphs. I am tired and these emotions, I am afraid, walk a bit strongly through me at the present. This is a bit of me complaining, to be sure. You can see it as such, go ahead. I surely see it as complaining.

But I am happy to complain. Why? That is an easy answer: because big and traditional publishing is a marketing game and until we bind together as humans, not numbers in deep pockets harvested by algorithmic mutations of Will and Power, we will fail—every time.

Storytellers will be held accountable for our times. But today, storytellers are held accountable TO an industry who once had a good and true purpose but who today serve algorithms, money, and metrics.

To be clear, last year I queried a book with a large publisher through an agent and did that whole thing. Bleh—the traditional approach. After 6 months, I was told that, while “my book was the most interesting and best written book [the senior editor] had seen this year,” and one that “could very well change the way we see [the subject],” I was not publishable because I did not have over 30,000 instagram followers. I replied, asking if we could start over but, before we do, let me go out and buy 30,000 instagram followers. I was asked to leave and lost my agent. I still wonder if that would have changed things…

Why do I say this? To make a book succeed, you need a marketing budget. I know this is a simple way of looking at it and I further know that this is how our world works. I get it. Things cost money to make and things cost money to buy. That is fine. A good number of folks go wrong here…do not mistake me. And so let me be clear: I am not saying that the operations of humankind must exist in some sort of anti-monetary guild where butterflies feed us in fluttering passes of kisses. I wish, that would be a world I would like. If I were God…

No, the question I am getting at is deeper and also more simple: if the future of our world depends upon storytellers and storytellers are subservient to money and markets, than what are we doing? Let the uber rich white old guys who own everything win and let’s stop all this bickering. Let’s do something else and watch the world burn, maybe climb the nearest mountain and sit and watch?

I know there are those among us who think art should be marketable. Those who claim ‘art must be marketable’ and ‘you drifting dreamers have it wrong.’

An interesting study can be done of the book, When the Moon Hatched. A modern, fast-paced fantasy-romance tale that is well published (Avon Publishing, an imprint of HarperCollins). Amazon ranks it as one of the top books of the year and it has nearly 200,000 reviews. This is a stunning number, truly. Using conservative numbers, about 1 in 50 actual readers will leave a review or rating on Amazon, or about 2%. Running quick math upon these truly over-generalized statistics, that would mean that about 10,000,000 people have purchased When the Moon Hatched this year alone, if we are to believe the 200,000 reviews.

But how can this be true? In comparison, the fantasy author Sarah J. Maas has sold nearly 5 million copies of all of her books this year from her three popular series—Throne of Glass, Crescent City and A Court of Thorns and Roses—according to Forbes. She is the TOP SELLING author of 2024. She took the cake. She ate it. And people LOVE her books!

What is even more thrilling is that her sales numbers topped the combined sales of the year’s 10 most popular new releases. Read that again—Maas’ books (23 books in total) sold more copies than the 10 most popular books in 2024 COMBINED and she only sold 5 million copies (not 10 million of one book like our math generated in the above paragraph).

But, according to BookTok and Bookstagram, When the Moon Hatched is argued to be one of the least favorited books of the year, some even ranked it the worst of the year (data taken from 30 of the most prolific book-influencers I can find have ranked it in the worst reads of the year).

So what happened? What is going on? How could a book that is not ranked in the top 10 and therefore surely have less than 1 million sales this year, have such review numbers?

While I distrust social media in general, this quick study does provide an interesting consideration for me this morning: are the books we read expressions of our will or the will of the powerful elite?

I do not doubt that When the Moon Hatched is loved by some or is worthy of love. Every book is a good book, I believe. For some audience, for some reason, it exists and that is a beautiful and right thing! Its author, Sarah Parker, is an accomplished author and comes across the digital world as a wonderful and kind person. She has told a tale and it is worthy for some people to read.

But how does the book have that many reviews?

Let me be the first to tell you, for it is very simple—reviews are purchased. They are bought to make it seem that the book is good. They are funded by those with deep pockets so that you, in turn, buy the book without thought to deepen their pockets even more. Give your money to Sarah Parker—support her, follow her, read her book! Dance with her and find joy in her book (if you are in to such a thing). Again, let me speak plainly—support authors, regardless of their genre or style or whatever. Authors will be held accountable for our times and they (we) need you!

But it must be considered who is running this world, who turns its seemingly cosmological tale—the gods or the rich?

You are told this book is loved by millions but the actual people around you do not even like it…

The medium may have once been the message, but today money-based marketing is the message. Whoever has the most capital has the most capitalization not of a market or industry or whatever—but your mind. Storytellers hold our future and money seems to hold storytellers.

So, are we dreamers or idiots? Do we have it wrong? What are we even doing if the tale we tell is meant only to sell and not to inspire? Let her sell! Let the money come , the reciprocity build, the harmony to swell as she succumbs to the beating leather laying within many, many friends.

But let us not forget the reason the muse visited in the first place—the hearth’s fire is not about anything but providing a warm place for story to dwell. It is a welcoming. For everyone. She needs wood, fuel, yes. Perhaps, today, that is the dollar. But she is worthless, just grey trails of drifting gauze, if you do not attend and allow her heat’s entrance.

Write books so they sell. But write books first so that more cousins and kin are welcomed to your hearth’s fire and so that, in time, the world may all dream the winter long over folkloric flame and lapping lore.

This is story’s lineage and her future. Much could be said about this strangely homely genetic that grows foreign inside of the marrow that melts under modernity, but I am not here to discuss it deeply. I have said too much already and the point of this piece is yet lacking. I am only here in this introduction to remind us of our roots. I am only here to step lightly.

The fog of my morning is dissipating and I have horses braying in the forests beyond my writing shed. I must soon attend to them and have some real fun.

Why I am writing all of this

My latest book, The Plain of Pillars, comes out on May 1st, 2025 … and I need your help. It is a Kincentric Mythology / Celtic Historical Fantasy novel and about 300 pages in length.

---

Here are some reviews from my friends:

"An extraordinary book, The Plain of Pillars enchanted me into silence. It is potent and activating, a stirring, a remembering of ancient bones and is without a doubt divine."
– CHELITA Kahutianui o-te-Rangi ZAINEY, indigenous Māori storyteller and healer, mokopuna of the Waitaha nation.

“Griffith’s outstanding book, The Plain of Pillars, offers us a grand, beautiful, enchanting story, an essential step in our exploration of who we could be if we really cared about transformation.”
– MANDA SCOTT, author of Any Human Power and host of the Accidental Gods podcast.

“Shivers across the body, palpitations of emotion, struck by thoughts of awe, captivated by words—this book is felt and is a poetic blueprint for reverence and morality. A great gift for a world in need.”
– DANE SCOTT, indigenous Māori storyteller, Taonga Pūoro musician, and filmmaker.

---

I don’t want to pay for reviews and neither can I. Not only is indie publishing cast aside in the methods of review purchasing, I have no money to do so.

What I want is to open a hearth of reciprocity—I will give you a story if you bring some wood (dried oak is best). If this is interesting to you, read the below:

How I propose the winter fire may burn—

1. If you want to read an EARLY RELEASE copy of The Plain of Pillars, REPLY and let me know.

2. I will then send you a digital copy of the book in return (you bring the wood remember) for an honest and true review of the book that you will post ON the day the book is released on Amazon or Goodreads. (this will help bring the book to others who will benefit from the story and expand our hearth’s flame to more and more people).

3. Then, when the paperback is printed, you will be given the ability to purchase TWO copies of the paperback AT COST (one to hold yourself, and one you will gift away to someone who needs a warm hearth).

4. Lastly, we will gift you a year’s membership here to Unshod at no cost. Our gift to you so that, when the book is released here, you 1) can read it again and again and 2) so that we can sit and yarn and tell tales together.

What if books were marketed by fostering more people at the hearth? That would be cool. I like cool things.

Again, if this pleases you and you want to join us, simply comment below or reply to this email! We can start there!

Yours,

Daniel Firth Griffith
danielfirthgriffith.com