Do you feel like you have failed to reach readers with your writing? Never give up.

Fight Club and Choke novelist Chuck Palahniuk answered reader questions on Reddit this week. When one reader wrote “It’s rare for a writer’s first book to be as successful as Fight Club was,” Palahniuk clarified and shared some inspiring insight into his career:

Please let me address a misperception. ‘Fight Club’ was a huge failure. Most of the hardcovers were going to be pulped. They were unsold when the movie opened… and then the movie was a flop. It has taken years ( decades ) for the story to build an audience. What’s amazing is that it still resonates for young readers; it’s never become dated. ( he shakes his head in disbelief )

One reader asked about the future of journalism:

I was in a similar boat, as part of the generation who watched “All the President’s Men” and decided to become journalists. ( stupid, stoopid, stoopid ) We glutted the field. Likewise, my friend and fellow writer, Chelsea Cain, was a journalism major ( and got her post-grad degree ). The good news is that journalism trains you to be observant and to communicate clearly ( if not spell accurately ). Those are the skills that will save you.

The novelist also talked about his unorthodox promotion strategy, sharing boxes of strange materials with his readers: