Curry Zawa Kaoru's Creative Counseling - “I’m feeling disheartened by how my popularity online doesn’t translate into real-life sales.” Just because people don’t buy your books doesn’t mean they’re heartless.

Article by Curry Zawa Kaoru
People seem interested in my work online, so why don’t my books sell?
Unfortunately, it’s just a fact of life that no matter how talented a writer is, text-only books at doujinshi conventions will always sell less than manga. Expecting your books to outsell doujin manga is about as unrealistic as holding out hope that one day convenience stores in Japan will replace all tuna mayo onigiri with jacket potatoes. (As in, extremely unrealistic, no matter how delicious jacket potatoes are.)
Eye candy-laden manga and magazines have the power to potentially entice people to hand over their cold, hard cash with some salacious cover art of their oshi’s sumptuous behind, even if that poor sucker hadn’t previously planned to buy it. Novels, however, don't have that particular trick up their sleeve; you’d be hard-pressed to find someone buying a book for its titillating font. (What even is a sexy font? Verdana? Garamond?) Having an illustrated cover doesn’t seem to help either—I’ve heard from writers that, in some cases, people have returned their books the minute they realized there were no drawings inside.
Being the uncultured, judgmental, and visual creatures we are, it’s almost impossible to convince people of a novel’s literary merit with a mere glance. Simply put, art-based doujinshi will always outperform text-based doujinshi at conventions.
I think this is why light novels tend to have such ridiculously long names—in a way, they’re trying to make up for the lack of visual impact by cramming the entire synopsis into the title.
Therefore, I suggest you get creative if you want to sell more physical copies of your book at events. Instead of calling your book something obscure like Light Snowfall and printing the title in a minuscule gray font on the cover, why not name it something obvious (if a little crass) like, “A book where your favorite couple does some hot-and-heavy sword-fighting (wink wink) for 160/180 pages,” and print it in 72pt-size font?
It’s an undeniable fact that novels have a huge disadvantage compared to manga. I can understand being curious about how successful other doujinshi writer circles are, but if you keep letting the “sold out” tweets by manga circles affect you, you’re in for a miserable time, sweetheart.
There are plenty of writers who work with that disadvantage and manage to achieve the celebratory sold-out status by selling their stock online or at events regularly, back issues included. Instead of getting hung up on the individual results of other people at each event, why not make your goal simple and just do whatever you need to do for that glorious “sold out” finish line achievement?
It goes without saying there’s a huge gap between the online world and real life
That said, I think what’s truly bothering you isn’t the number of copies you sell but the emptiness you feel due to the difference in the number of responses you get online versus IRL. That has most likely resulted in you developing a mistrust towards your readers online.
If your poll only received one vote and you ended up selling zero copies at the event, I can understand why you might be tempted to go chomping for that person’s blood, since the discrepancy of 100% vs 0% is pretty steep. However, if not for the discrepancy between your poll results and the actual number of sales, I doubt the actual number of copies you sold would matter quite as much to you.
Allow me to say this, though: it’s practically a given that there’s going to be a gap between your online life and so-called real life.
Speaking from personal experience, even if I went viral on X, the number of people who actually end up buying my books is less than one-hundredth of the reposts I get.
Of course, there’s a possibility that I’m losing about half of my potential customers by posting Amaz*n links at the end of my threads (“Ugh, what a sellout, goodbye,” is sort of how I imagine such people’s line of thinking), but still, there are far fewer people who purchase my books compared to the overwhelming response I receive online.
What I’m trying to say is, stop thinking you’re the only one being betrayed by online readers. All of us writers are victims of lip service, so there’s no need to fret so much.
That’s how big of a gap there is between the online and offline; or, more specifically, free content versus paid content. Imagine a giant ledge with ten Gandalfs lined up in a row, ready to scream, “You shall not pass!” each time you try to cross the bridge. (Not that I’m comparing you to a Balrog.) Nowadays, even commercial content is released to the public for free, meaning the number of Gandalfs keeps increasing—i.e., the gulf keeping you from that gratifying “Sold out!” success just keeps widening—so it’s time you stop trying to gauge the number of sales based on how the internet treats you.
That said, I don’t think my words will stop you from being disappointed by the people who vote yes in your polls without buying your books, and you’re valid in feeling that way. The thing is, though, that people click “Yes” for the same reason they read free content online: not only are polls anonymous, but they don’t come with any consequences either, regardless of the answer you choose.
This isn’t to say that the majority of your readers are trolling you—perhaps they genuinely meant to buy your work when they voted. Unfortunately, while clicking “Yes” in a poll is easy enough and can be done naked from the comfort of your home, buying a book in person involves all sorts of complex logistics, like putting on a pair of pants and braving a packed train.
Even direct links to Amaz*n that people can access in their birthday suit only get one-hundredth the number of clicks. When you think about that, it’s hardly surprising if no one ends up making it to doujinshi conventions, period.
If you’re only focused on selling your books at events, you’ll have to factor in the percentage of people who are guaranteed to drop out of the race from the number of copies you plan on printing. If the thought of counting the number of “traitors” is too much, then you can even scrap the idea of polls altogether and decide things based purely on past sales.
It’s because you’re giving your readers so much say that you feel betrayed by them when they don’t follow through. If you’re the one responsible for deciding things, however, perhaps you won’t feel let down by them. Whether you ended up printing too many or too few copies, the fault would be all yours.
Consider this: the fact that you’ve found out that these polls aren’t a reliable source to base how many copies to print is the most important thing you have learned from them. Don’t get discouraged by all the werewolves in the village and instead take into account the fact that they’ve been there the whole time.
It’s not that the people who don’t buy your books are heartless, but rather...
I can understand feeling upset with readers who refuse to pay a dime despite insisting they’re a fan of your work. That said, you have to consider the fact that paid physical content requires far more sacrifice than free online content, and we all have limited supplies of time, money, and energy. It’s no wonder that people tend to tighten their purse strings when it comes to the former.
Your only choice is to accept that your books lacked the strength needed to loosen your readers’ death grip on their wallets and bridge the gulf between free and paid content, or, in other words, topple Gandalf off the ledge. (Sorry again that you’re the Balrog in this analogy.)
Instead of thinking about the readers who don’t buy your books as heartless people, try thinking of it this way: it’s the readers who overcame all the obstacles and made it to the convention to buy your books that are truly one-of-a-kind.
Don’t just focus on the readers who vote “Yes” in your polls without showing up to events or despair about not being good enough. It’s important to be grateful for the people who do keep their word and show up to buy your books. And if you manage to sell even a few copies, you deserve to give yourself a pat on the back.
Moreover, it’s not easy to gain fans who respond to the free content you post online.
There are thousands of stories that never get read despite being free, or even if they do, the response is so negligible that the author won’t even consider charging people money to read them.
Whereas many writers get stuck on the first hurdle or never leave the starting line at all, you have been fortunate enough to have enough readers respond to your stories that you’ve reached the elusive next hurdle of... trying to actually sell your work.
So, how do you overcome it, you ask? To be honest, I don’t know the answer either—I myself have been trying to jump over this hurdle for the past 15 years or so.
That’s how high the hurdle for paid content is. In that context, hopefully you can understand that it’s no surprise that you can’t overcome it easily. (In fact, I would be a little offended if you could.) Assuming your work is good, try advertising it frequently so more people know about it, or expand your options by selling your books online, not just in print format at conventions. It won’t be easy, but keep searching for ways to jump over that hurdle.
By thinking of different ways to market your work, you’ll come to appreciate the people who read the stories you put out for free and gush about them on social media, even if they don’t purchase your books. After all, not only are they supporting you with no strings attached, but they’re even giving you free advertising! In time, these readers will become just as valuable as the fans who do purchase your work.

This column was made into a book!
The popular column Curry Zawa Kaoru’s Creative Counseling has been made into a book titled Otaku no Tanoshii Seisaku Ron (The Delightful Art of Otaku Creation, Bungeishunju).
In addition to fan-favorite episodes such as “Coping with fanwork taking a little too many liberties”, “When you can’t get feedback in an underdeveloped genre”, “Is 40 too old for doujin events?” and “Understanding the troubles and contradictions of killing off your favorite characters”, the book also includes brand new topics and advice!
Hi Curry Zawa, avid reader of your column here. Today, I come to you with a problem of my own.
My problem is that despite being a somewhat popular text-only doujinshi writer online, that popularity doesn’t seem to translate into real-life sales.
The other day, I participated as a doujin circle in an IRL event for one of my favorite couplings. As I mentioned, I have a decent number of followers online, and my posts tend to do pretty well too. However, when it comes to physical copies of my work, I can never seem to sell as many as I hope to. Whenever the artists I follow on X mention that they sold out at an event, I can’t help feeling a little wistful.
While I don’t want to print more copies than I can sell, I don’t want to be overly pessimistic and print too few either, so I always do a poll each time I have an event. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even sell half of what I anticipated in the last one, despite abiding by the results of the poll.
While it’s on me to do the actual selling, I can’t help but wonder why people would bother voting if they have no intention of buying my stuff. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even accept my compliments from mutuals with grace anymore; all I can think is, “But I’m clearly not good enough that you’ll actually buy my book.”
Part of me wants to give up on writing altogether, but my love for my favorite coupling prevents me from quitting just yet. How should I deal with these feelings?