The Simmons Site

I assume 'Twilight' outsells 'Ulysses' at Amazon.

What do those numbers teach us?

 

The way my brain works, I think I'd rather not know them.

When I was blogging for Esquire, we got our hits in an email each night. I got more bummed about the bad numbers than I was buoyed by the good ones. The problem for me is that I then tried to write stories that would get hits—I saw what was popular and tried to write more of that same thing. That's why a blog that was supposed to be about me and my house became something else. The problem is, readers don't work that way. Some stories catch, and some stories don't. There's no predicting it, really.

The other thing about knowing for Grantland—and this will open me up for shots, but oh well—is that I don't really need to know just how unpopular I am next to Simmons or Klosterman, say. I'm going to explain this wrong, but in my head, I have a nice little business going. I'm making money, people say (mostly) nice things about my stuff, I'm pleased with a few of the stories I write and only rarely ashamed of the others. Seeing the Grantland numbers, I expect, would burst that bubble. It would be hard for me to think I'm doing all right with my career if I saw numbers that showed me exactly how unimportant I am.

I have a lot of empathy for Chris Bosh, if you know what I mean.

 

I'll take quality over quantity every time. Toyota sells more Camry's than BMW sells 750's, but there is no doubt which is the better car.

 

I would have considered you more of a Udonis Haslem.

 

So you're saying Simmons is worthless in the fourth quarter?

 

I guess I'm sort of surprised by your response.

I don't know you, and I totally get what you're saying, but I figured you'd want to know.

And, just to bring the songwriter comparison back, I think sometimes a songwriter knows he's written a hit, and sometimes they're totally surprised.

And, when they try to write their next hit song in the same vein as their last one, it's usually a failure.

I really do appreciate the insight to your creative process and your mindset. It's very rare and it's fascinating to me.

Thanks for being so open.

 

I bet there are a lot of songwriters who hate writing "top 40" type hits but they do it for the money.

The deeper meaning songs probably do not generate as much interest, but I bet the writer put more of the heart and soul into creating it.

 

I had pretty high expectations of the site going in and have mixed feelings about it to this point. It's not the New Yorker, but it's a nice collection of fun essays that are different and interesting. I usually enjoy 6-8 pieces a week. I'll take that.

What bothers me is that there does seem to be a lack of editing to the whole process. There are factual mistakes and grammar/spelling errors in most of the pieces and I agree with someone who said it earlier that a bunch of them meander a bit. Most of the articles would benefit from tighter editing. With Simmons' general aversion to editing to this point in his career, I fear the editing won't get tighter, but hopefully I'm wrong on that.

 

I get what he's saying. It's deflating to find out that a 60-inch feature you traveled across the country to do and spent a week writing got fewer clicks than a notebook that was thrown together in 45 minutes.

 

That basically sums up my feelings on the site.

 

And, I suppose at a daily newspaper, with a tight budget, it meant your next story requiring travel probably didn't get approved.

 

Udonis Haslem was a good one, Mizzou. I deserved that.

YF—I think that's why you have so many one-hit wonders. The first song, they just wrote it as a song, without outside interference or numbers dancing through their heads. It's just music. The second time around, they try to replicate that same success, which only makes it less likely that they will.

You just can't write for numbers. That's why I think it's better I don't know them.

I mean, sometimes it works out that a story you're proud of is a story that catches. Ebert was one of those for me. My game show stuff.

But sometimes I've worked really hard on pieces—one about my dad comes to mind, another one about accident investigators—and they do nothing. Pffft. Zero.

Would I have liked those stories to have an audience? Sure. I write to be read. But I would still write them, knowing that they didn't.

The real trick is books. There is no fucking point writing a book that doesn't sell. It's too much work. But it's also too much work to do if your heart's not in it. You have to love the subject you're writing about. With books more than anything else, I think, you need to find that sweet spot where art and commerce meet.

This will make me sound like an asshole, but if you haven't done that midnight wrestling, where you're trying to do good stuff but you also want to be a SUCCESS in quantifiable measures, it's hard to explain what it's like. I don't sleep very well, I know that.