George Saunders' new concern

I don’t think you could ever make a good story by thinking if it would sell. But there is some kind of intersection between trying to write as sincerely and truthfully and well as you can and then some idea that a good-hearted reader would connect. That much you can control, I think. But what you can’t control, I am noticing, is once the book is done and it either does really well or really poorly. You can’t predict that. There’s an element that you can’t predict or control. So I don’t think you can make much of it. It’s just luck.

 In The Morning News George Saunders discusses his audience problem and other things with  Robert Birnbaum.