# The Failed Novelist [MERGED]



## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Two books unpublished and she decided to quit to " save her sanity."

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/what-im-really-thinking-the-failed-novelist?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

And an excellent response - "you haven't failed, you're a quitter."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/apr/05/do-two-unpublished-books-make-you-a-failed-author-no-youre-a-quitter


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I would argue that you're neither a failure nor a quitter; you're someone who has tried something that isn't for you and has moved on.  Not every career path is for everyone.  (LOL, either I typed quilter out of habit or autocorrect changed quitter to quilter; editing...)

Betsy


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I agree with Barnett.

That's not to say quitting is bad. If someone is unwilling or unable to do what it takes to succeed, she _should_ quit.

No shame in that.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

I think it's the sourness she shows to other authors that rankles Barnett. It's unnecessary and something we see way too often.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I would argue that you're neither a failure nor a quitter; you're someone who has tried something that isn't for you and has moved on.


Except that if you read her original piece, she hasn't moved on. She seems to be wallowing in self-pity:

_I'm scarred. I still read, but stick to the classics. I have next to no interest in contemporary fiction and avoid literary debuts by British female writers, which all seem so safe and samey. I've a higher tolerance for American writing, which seems willing to take more risks and subvert gender expectations. I don't go to writers' groups any more, either: the whole scene is a complete turn-off for me now. Four years on, I still can't look at the new fiction tables in Waterstones; they make me feel like an infertile woman at a baby shower. I feel pity and scorn for people with dreams. You're writing a novel yourself? Good for you. Now please shut up about it.
_
This is not someone who has tried one career path and has faced the fact that it just isn't for her and is looking forward. This is someone who can't let go of the past.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I would argue that you're neither a failure nor a quitter; you're someone who has tried something that isn't for you and has moved on. Not every career path is for everyone. (LOL, either I typed quilter out of habit or autocorrect changed quitter to quilter; editing...)
> 
> Betsy


This!


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

EC said:


> I think it's the sourness she shows to other authors that rankles Barnett. It's unnecessary and something we see way too often.


Anon's post reeked of emotionalism. A quote:



> _"Four years on, I still can't look at the new fiction tables in Waterstones; they make me feel like an infertile woman at a baby shower. I feel pity and scorn for people with dreams."_


I don't mind it. If she's trying to influence a rational audience, it's a form of self-sabotage.

If she's just emoting, and doing so has a cathartic effect, good for her and the Guardian (misery and misplaced blame are great fodder).


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## Greg Dragon (Jun 10, 2014)

EC said:


> I think it's the sourness she shows to other authors that rankles Barnett. It's unnecessary and something we see way too often.


YES!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Word Fan said:


> Except that if you read her original piece, she hasn't moved on. She seems to be wallowing in self-pity:
> 
> _I'm scarred. I still read, but stick to the classics. I have next to no interest in contemporary fiction and avoid literary debuts by British female writers, which all seem so safe and samey. I've a higher tolerance for American writing, which seems willing to take more risks and subvert gender expectations. I don't go to writers' groups any more, either: the whole scene is a complete turn-off for me now. Four years on, I still can't look at the new fiction tables in Waterstones; they make me feel like an infertile woman at a baby shower. I feel pity and scorn for people with dreams. You're writing a novel yourself? Good for you. Now please shut up about it.
> _
> This is not someone who has tried one career path and has faced the fact that it just isn't for her and is looking forward. This is someone who can't let go of the past.


She very well may feel like a failure--and, that may be in part because she's accepting other's judgments of her. But that's up to her to deal with. I see no need to put my own judgments on her. I've tried things, given up on them for a variety of reasons, some of which I have regrets about, but I don't consider myself either a failure or a quitter, even for those things I have regrets over--they just weren't the right options for me at the time. I could see myself blogging about it as a way to try to deal with it. *shrug*. I have my own things to deal with. . There are quilts waiting to be sewn....

Betsy


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

A typical example of a social media post masquerading as journalism in a newspaper that used to be part of the quality press. It makes me wonder how the Guardian can be massively in debt when they have little journalism that would be worth paying for.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

9 times out of 10 times what authors are really upset about when they fail is that their imagined path to riches isn't materializing. That this "thing" they thought would save them from their horrible, miserable existence...doesn't seem like it will. That the "thing" that would make them special...isn't going to. 

If they truly loved writing, failure would sting much less. They'd still, after all, be able to write. 

I guarantee if you dropped a couple million in her lap to never write again, she'd take that offer in a split second.

It's easy to think the reason you're upset is because of failure, but for most people, when you look closely, it's more the MONEY you were hoping to make that sends you into a child-like tantrum.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Every kid in Canada who plays hockey dreams of making it to the NHL. Very, very few ever do. Yet rinks are booked up year round and backyard ponds are overrun by adults who've never made it to the Big League. Why? What's wrong with these failed hockey players? Nothing. They started playing hockey because they loved the game, and they keep playing hockey because they still love the game. 

I've met people like the anonymous failed writer. In my experience, they don't write because, like hockey players, they enjoy doing it. They crave fame and, for whatever reason, they've come to believe that writing novels will get it for them. Naturally, when they don't get the fame they crave, they give up writing because they never loved doing it in the first place; they loved what they thought it could do for them. 

Given this piece of confessional drivel, I suspect her new bid for fame is newspaper writing.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> A typical example of a social media post masquerading as journalism in a newspaper that used to be part of the quality press. It makes me wonder how the Guardian can be massively in debt when they have little journalism that would be worth paying for.


No kidding.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

She's not a failure. I mean, four years in? She's probably just hit a snag. The writing bug will (hopefully) bite her again but this time going Indie might be a better option.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Seneca42 said:


> If they truly loved writing, failure would sting much less. They'd still, after all, be able to write.


I think that this is it, right there. Whatever writing was supposed to be, or become, for this person, it wasn't or didn't. When that didn't happen, the bitterness set in.

People who truly love writing write no matter what. How much, how often, what type... that is different for everyone, but the writing continues. The words force their way to the surface and insist upon being written.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I feel a great deal of empathy for her and for other literary fiction authors who are still trapped in the traditional publishing mill. It seems quite possible for such writers to spend years on a manuscript and produce something incredible, only to have it turned down for reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetic quality. There's no way to know if that was the case with this particular author, but I'm sure it happens. Furthermore, it must be very hard to put your heart into something you've always wanted to do and (in your own eyes) utterly failing at it. I hope Mari's right that she'll rediscover her desire to write.


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## Athena Grayson (Apr 4, 2011)

People like "having written" more than they like "writing."

Also @Betsy When quilters quit, they go on The Patch <g>


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Yet another butthurt snowflake who has to vent her over-exaggerated angst about her hurt feelz because the rest of the world didn't immediately snap up her masterpiece.

Yes, she's a quitter. There are best selling, world famous authors who spent years accumulating scores of rejection slips by publishers before some editor finally realized what she had in her hands and snapped it up. And there's always indie publishing. But instead of sticking with it or learning to do it herself, she gave up and chooses to be snarky to the people who haven't given up on their dream.

And if she didn't want to be judged, maybe spewing her attitude in a public setting wasn't the way to go.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

But maybe she was just venting? Isn't the piece anonymous?

Look, all I know is that I want to quit daily but don't. I vent about it to fellow authors and to my family. Writing is the easiest part of being an author (the funnest part, too). But when you throw publishing into the mix, shit gets real super fast. As a newbie struggling to keep my head above water, I've spent a lot of money on covers and other things publishing related that haven't helped me a bit. It's frustrating when you pour your heart and soul into a book, only to see that hard work flop. However, this is the reality of working in the creative arts where everything is so subjective...to a degree. One novel simply isn't going to get an author 'there' 90%+ of the time. Writing more books is the only real answer for any of us, and if you feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, then that can be a killer for creativity.

I have friends still trying to get into traditional publishing years and years after we started on the serious writing journey together. In fact, from the OG group, myself and one other guy are publishing Indie while the rest are languishing in rewrites and rejections. WHY?!?!?!! WHY? Seriously...why? Because validation. It's the most ridiculous reason to throw away the chance at a career writing fiction. So, I really hope she is able to reclaim that passion and desire for herself, because every author deserves an audience. It doesn't come easy though.


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## LadyStarlight (Nov 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> 9 times out of 10 times what authors are really upset about when they fail is that their imagined path to riches isn't materializing. That this "thing" they thought would save them from their horrible, miserable existence...doesn't seem like it will. That the "thing" that would make them special...isn't going to.
> 
> If they truly loved writing, failure would sting much less. They'd still, after all, be able to write.
> 
> ...


I so, so agree with this.


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## ♨ (Jan 9, 2012)

Mari Oliver said:


> But maybe she was just venting? Isn't the piece anonymous?


That's what I thought about it. She's telling how she feels. She's likely experiencing grief over the loss of a dream. And maybe she's still a bit in the anger stage of grief.

And I would be willing to bet that some of the people attacking her for the article have, from time to time, felt the exact same way. Maybe they didn't write their feelings down, but they felt the exact same thing.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Dan C. Rinnert said:


> That's what I thought about it. She's telling how she feels. She's likely experiencing grief over the loss of a dream. And maybe she's still a bit in the anger stage of grief.
> 
> And I would be willing to bet that some of the people attacking her for the article have, from time to time, felt the exact same way. Maybe they didn't write their feelings down, but they felt the exact same thing.


Yeah, I can certainly remember feeling that way in my twenties. It's pretty alien to who I am today, but I'm sure I could dig up some old journal entries that sound very similar. Fortunately some of us were born before the age of publishing all your angst for the world to see 24/7. The internet is a wonder that makes my life much richer, but I'm SO-O-O-O grateful for having been able to grow up and find myself in private!


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

I havent read all the replies (sorry, trying to get the kids to wash their darned hair at the same time) so apologies if anyone has said this already, but this whole article smacks of yet another person burned by the strictures of the trad publishing industry. If that industry works for you then great, but for women like this one she needs to realise she is one of hundreds of thousands who have had one too many rejections and lost all confidence and perspective.

Someone needs to tell her to dust off those rejected books and get her butt over to kboards, it could change everything for her.


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## MarilynVix (Jun 19, 2013)

Um, the first thing I noticed is that this article was published on April 1. I don't know in England if April Fool's Day is a huge day to watch out for practical jokes published on that day, but it seems that this whole article was taken as a serious gripe. Of course, comments have been closed off, so we can't even ask that question. But it wouldn't be the first time I've seen articles put out there to push the buttons of Indie authors or other writers to get people to click and read. And April Fool's Day is an essential time to look out for this. 

So, just saying. But the second article is a response. So, I guess it was a legitimate article. But these thoughts ran through my head as I was reading it. Is this an April Fool's joke?

Though I have to admit, this whole thread has helped me to stop agonizing about my 1 and 2 star reviews. It does take guts to self-publish and put it out there for any reviews.


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

From the article:



> * It was my masterpiece, but it bombed, too. *


This. This is her problem. She raised the bar not just too high but impossibly high. Nothing less than perfection would do. And when her perfection tanked... so did her world.

I learned this lesson a long time ago: never to take anything in life too seriously. That's the only way to save your sanity and your dignity. After all, Dostoevsky never thought of himself as DOSTOEVSKY: he simply needed the money to pay off his gambling debts


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2017)

Whenever a person goes into the arts, whatever form that takes, most will experience tons of criticism and rejection, and it can do a number on a person's self-confidence and feelings of worth. Either a person develops a thick skin and tons of patience or they have to walk away.

I don't think the writer should be criticized for how they feel. There are very few Mother Theresa's out there, and it's only human to feel some envy and jealousy. Most of us get over that. I'm sure this person felt better just letting those feelings out.

The writer sounds talented. Maybe they'll toughen up and get back to writing. Or maybe not. Either way, I wish them a happy and fullfilled life.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

TwistedTales said:


> Are they both famous?


Nah. It's just the drama llama rearing its head.


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## MKK (Jun 9, 2015)

Anarchist said:


> Nah. It's just the drama llama rearing its head.


That...was pretty darn funny.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Lady Runa said:


> From the article:
> 
> This. This is her problem. She raised the bar not just too high but impossibly high. Nothing less than perfection would do. And when her perfection tanked... so did her world.
> 
> I learned this lesson a long time ago: never to take anything in life too seriously. That's the only way to save your sanity and your dignity. After all, Dostoevsky never thought of himself as DOSTOEVSKY: he simply needed the money to pay off his gambling debts


Aha! so that's the secret to success. I'm off to buy a scratch off ticket and when I get back, there will be hundreds of sales on my dashboard.



TwistedTales said:


> Woah, I never knew a llama could look menacing.
> 
> Now I want one!


"So, what are you looking at, buddy." I think I'll dream about that look tonight.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> Nothing less than perfection would do.


Yeah. I don' think she can separate herself from her writing. And that's something we need to do, because some anonymous editor or agent rejecting your work isn't a rejection of you. Literary fiction is a tough market, and it doesn't look like she really did any research about it, just wrote the "masterpieces" and waited for a big ol' bucket of validation. It's never worked that way. Never.

I'm sorry that she's hurt, but everybody gets hurt at some time or another. It's how you respond that shows who you are.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

She's not talking to us, she talking to other people who feel like her.

Writing takes a great deal of energy, and when anybody leaves it, they're going to have energy left over. They're aren't wrong for having hopes, dreams, ambitions, and unrealistic goals, and they certainly aren't wrong for writing about it. Rather than criticize, I praise her for her courage. Realizing that something isn't for you and admitting it takes courage, even if you aren't finished the transition. I get her anger and frustration, because I've been there in other venues. There are times when I just want to break bottles against this whole affair.


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## doolittle03 (Feb 13, 2015)

I felt like this when I was pursuing trade publishing. I was working in a book store when my agent let me know my second book had been rejected. I had to hide in the bathroom to bawl my eyes out. My boss wanted to know why I hadn't processed the new shipment. I just couldn't. I told her my book was rejected and she said "I gotta stop hiring writers." 
I tiptoed into self-publishing in 2014 and thank God because I think I would've given up writing. If a thing is going to break your heart, you've got to pull the plug at some point. So much had been sacrificed to write those books--family time, income, my sanity--I doubt I would have gone on writing without SP. I would've made peace with failure and moved on. 
(The 3 rejected books still don't sell very well but I don't give a crap. I like them, I'm glad I wrote them and I'm glad people can buy them.)


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

This is not an April Fool, but a regular part of the Guardian. It is essentially a social media rant that should have stayed on social media. Those who take part are entered a Huffington Pact i.e., I doubt they are paid but they get a bigger audience for their rant and the Guardian gets clickbait. Most hope that this will gain them the notice of the Guardian and there is grounds for that hope as most of the paper's writers are little better than social media ranters. Unfortunately for the hopefuls the Guardian is near bankrupt and can't afford to take on new journalists.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> Yet another butthurt snowflake who has to vent her over-exaggerated angst about her hurt feelz because the rest of the world didn't immediately snap up her masterpiece.
> 
> Yes, she's a quitter. There are best selling, world famous authors who spent years accumulating scores of rejection slips by publishers before some editor finally realized what she had in her hands and snapped it up. And there's always indie publishing. But instead of sticking with it or learning to do it herself, she gave up and chooses to be snarky to the people who haven't given up on their dream.
> 
> And if she didn't want to be judged, maybe spewing her attitude in a public setting wasn't the way to go.


A butthurt snowflake? I agree with you, but thats a 4chan opening paragraph. Could just go for the trifecta and call her a SJW too.

Idk, I just hate those terms. It's like they're a catch-all for anyone who voices their displeasure. Everyone needs to toughen up, to purge their emotions, to realize that life is meaningless and that we don't matter, etc. Humans are insignificant creatures.

Just ranting. I agree with your point, just not the overused buzzwords. You could say that your reply "triggered" me


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

Hard to imagine 'expecting' success after writing two books. I didn't think I even had the right to 'expect' to make a living until I'd written at least ten books. Oh well, this isn't the business for everyone.


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## Guy Riessen (Mar 27, 2016)

"This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." 

Writer didn't make bank, so writer quit. Happens daily I'm sure, and anyway, room will eventually need to be made for that Hyperspace Bypass so it's all fairly pointless. 

Cheers to you, Douglas Adams RIP


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## Kal241 (Jan 11, 2017)

"If you judge a goldfish by its ability to climb a tree, it will life life forever thinking it is stupid" comes to mind. She's a goldfish that wanted to go to space, become a Jedi, fly an X-Wing, AND blow up the Death Star. Apparently, someone told her that Luke already did it. And then she found out there was a second Death Star built, but rather than take on the challenge, she decided to say "**** it" and settled for moisture farming on Tatooine.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

Guy Riessen said:


> "This planet has-or rather had-a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."
> 
> Writer didn't make bank, so writer quit. Happens daily I'm sure, and anyway, room will eventually need to be made for that Hyperspace Bypass so it's all fairly pointless.
> 
> Cheers to you, Douglas Adams RIP


Adams also said "You live and learn. At any rate, you live." I think that one kind of applies here, too. Good writers become _better _writers as we learn from our mistakes and even our failures.


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## RN_Wright (Jan 7, 2014)

I wouldn't be surprised if she's back writing next week.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

> I defiantly started a second novel. It was my masterpiece, but it bombed, too. Years of work and emotional investment wasted, I finally gave up, to save my sanity.





> Four years on, I still can't look at the new fiction tables in Waterstones; they make me feel like an infertile woman at a baby shower. I feel pity and scorn for people with dreams.


Defiantly? A masterpiece? Years of wasted emotional investment? _An infertile woman at a baby shower?_

Crikey, get over yourself. What's she going to do when something really traumatic happens? Spontaneously combust?


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> Woah, I never knew a llama could look menacing.
> 
> Now I want one!


Not only look menacing, they can be downright mean. AND they spit!

Maybe Anon should have a lama: "Hah! I spit on your rejection! And you try to go around me, I will kick you into next county! Patooie! Patooie"

Come to think of it, a lama could be handy for lots of things. Attitude, after all, is everything.


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## MarilynVix (Jun 19, 2013)

Mercia McMahon said:


> This is not an April Fool, but a regular part of the Guardian. It is essentially a social media rant that should have stayed on social media. Those who take part are entered a Huffington Pact i.e., I doubt they are paid but they get a bigger audience for their rant and the Guardian gets clickbait. Most hope that this will gain them the notice of the Guardian and there is grounds for that hope as most of the paper's writers are little better than social media ranters. Unfortunately for the hopefuls the Guardian is near bankrupt and can't afford to take on new journalists.


Wow, I get enough of those kind of rants on FB. I do feel for her. But most of the time, I see this kind of thing in a writer's group on FB. Having it in the Guardian is just weird, and shows what newspapers are having to do to stay afloat and competitive with the internet.


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## SteveHarrison (Feb 1, 2015)

It must be nice to have the choice whether or not to quit writing.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> Nah. It's just the drama llama rearing its head.


The thread was worth it just for that


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## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the author was naturally gifted and never had to deal with much rejection until her agent couldn't place her manuscript. If she won every creative writing prize at school and short story contests as an adult, of course it's going to sting when trad pub shuts the door in her face.

Dealing with failure is a skill we all have to learn. A lot of gifted children struggle with depression in their teens and early twenties when they lose their special-ness - because they built their identity around it, and without that, who are they?










So I have a lot of sympathy for her. But on the other hand, I could have done without the barbs aimed at other authors. It shows a level of bitterness that is maybe excessive.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Yeah, I don't have a lot of sympathy. Sounds like she tried twice, got bitter, and decided because her masterpiece didn't cut it the rest of us are fools to think we can succeed. I think back in the nineties I submitted probably 75-100 short stories and articles before I got published. It's a tough business. If she falls apart after 2 tries, she probably should quit. It takes a lot more tenacity than that.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Kate. said:


> Reading between the lines, it sounds like the author was naturally gifted and never had to deal with much rejection until her agent couldn't place her manuscript. If she won every creative writing prize at school and short story contests as an adult, of course it's going to sting when trad pub shuts the door in her face.
> 
> Dealing with failure is a skill we all have to learn. A lot of gifted children struggle with depression in their teens and early twenties when they lose their special-ness - because they built their identity around it, and without that, who are they?
> 
> ...


^This wins the thread, as far as I'm concerned- especially with the illustrations!


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

> But, over several months, my manuscript was rejected for reasons that bewildered me . . .once because I was a woman


What??



> I . . . avoid literary debuts by British female writers, which all seem so safe and samey.


Double _whaaat_


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2017)

Well, it is a popular aphorism (at least in self help) that you can't fail unless you quit. I guess that's where the idea of being a 'quitter' came from. But then, from the same field, comes the notion that 'there is no failure, there is only feedback'. So you can take your choice, that person either failed or got some useful feeback.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

my first thought when I read this article (when it popped up on The Passive Voice) was, someone tell this poor author she can publish the book herself. Then i thought perhaps she knows about self-publishing but thinks it's 'beneath' her or somesuch thing, and I thought that because other pieces from The Guardian have been loudly negative towards indies. Then I felt less sympathetic.


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## CMICHELLE (Apr 6, 2017)

I can understand her position. Not seeing progress is a Deby downer, and often times you feel like "what's the point." 

In the end though, she needs quit if she's already thinking about it. We have enough writers as it is, she might as well make it easier for the rest of us to get our stories published. 

JK ^


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> Nah. It's just the drama llama rearing its head.


Llama is going all Travis Bickle there... You talking to me?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

If you're not able to cope with professional rejection and/or you've tied ALL your self-worth into this one thing then maybe the business isn't for you. I also get a whiff of entitlement as she talked about her "destiny" and her utter confusion and devastation when her very first project was rejected ... never mind that even just snagging an agent on a debut project as an unknown already puts her above most. 


It may be uncharitable of me to judge based on an anonymous blog post but if you don't have the mental toughness to not fall apart when things don't go to some arbitrary plan you've concocted then you're in for a rough ride. A publisher will reject a manuscript as a strictly business decision... wait until you get eviscerated by a reviewer. Gotta have a thick skin and if you really, really want it dust yourself off and keep after it.


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## ♨ (Jan 9, 2012)

Is there a longer version of this article that I'm not seeing in my browser? Because the story I see is 279 words long and doesn't seem to contain the amount of drama other people seem to be reading into it.

Where are all these insults supposedly hurled at other writers? That she finds "literary debuts by British female writers" to be "safe and samey"? That's her opinion and surely she has a right to it. Also, she may be seeing those debuts on certain lists and the books might possibly be much alike because of the particular target audience.

Or is the insult that she doesn't want to hear about people writing a book, that she wants them to "please shut up about it'? Pick up just about any book marketing guide and the first thing it will tell you is that nobody cares about your stupid book.

Also, I think people may be reading too much into her referring to her second book as her "masterpiece." She didn't say it was *a* masterpiece; she clearly called it "my masterpiece." That's all. I think of _In Search of the Legendary Phineas Ray_ as my masterpiece (so far), but that doesn't mean that I think it's bestest book ever written or anything like that. And I certainly hope it's not the best book I will ever write. But, at this point, in my opinion, that's my masterpiece. (Well, unless I count a short story I published years ago . . .)

She wrote how she was feeling and, in response, there are basically people telling her she doesn't have a right to feel that way. You feel how you feel.


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## SC (Jan 6, 2017)

Mari Oliver said:


> So, I really hope she is able to reclaim that passion and desire for herself, because every author deserves an audience.


No, we don't. We really don't. Not a single one of us _deserves _the time and attention and money of other people just because we've written some words down. It's that entitled attitude which has probably contributed in large part to the Anonymous poster's bitterness.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Kate. said:


> Reading between the lines, it sounds like the author was naturally gifted and never had to deal with much rejection until her agent couldn't place her manuscript. If she won every creative writing prize at school and short story contests as an adult, of course it's going to sting when trad pub shuts the door in her face.


This is the same thought I had when first reading the piece. Welcome to the wonderful world of being an author. Heh.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I don't like the idea of kicking somebody who gives up. I rank "don't give up" as some of the worst advice ever. Giving up is the exact thing that lets you step back and reorganize. Keeping your face in the meat grinder because someone else says "don't give up" seems like a bad idea.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Dan C. Rinnert said:


> Is there a longer version of this article that I'm not seeing in my browser? Because the story I see is 279 words long and doesn't seem to contain the amount of drama other people seem to be reading into it.


Agree, Dan...it's just a short vent by someone who had a disappointment. Members vent here all the time. . Maybe I should invite her to join KBoards...  

Betsy


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Shawna Canon said:


> No, we don't. We really don't. Not a single one of us _deserves _the time and attention and money of other people just because we've written some words down. It's that entitled attitude which has probably contributed in large part to the Anonymous poster's bitterness.


Entitled? Um...I don't understand why that choice of word. If a writer is working hard to gain an audience, then I don't see the brutality in saying they don't deserve to be read. Of course it has to be worked for...like anything else in life.

EDIT: Well, to expand, from the few folks I've met trying to get traditionally published, it seems that they don't so much get feedback as just a straight out rejection. When I queried, I think one of the letters gave me a bit more information as to why the ms had been rejected. So, how are authors supposed to truly understand why they're getting rejected if they are not also seeking feedback outside of the system? Any writer serious about their craft will get feedback from writing partners, beta readers, editors, etc. If this author didn't do any of that, then she'd be somewhat in the dark as to why her manuscripts weren't working, right?

So, encouragement is good and that can come from positive and constructive feedback. And that's what I meant about every author deserving to be read. The chance to understand what you're doing right and what needs some extra attention. Everyone deserves encouragement in anything in life. If she hasn't been getting feedback, then she isn't also getting encouragement. Just a thought.


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## SC (Jan 6, 2017)

Mari Oliver said:


> Entitled? Um...I don't understand why that choice of word. If a writer is working hard to gain an audience, then I don't see the brutality in saying they don't deserve to be read. Of course it has to be worked for...like anything else in life.


Working hard for something also doesn't mean you deserve it. Not when the thing that is being worked for involves other people and their free will. That's the kind of thinking that would say that stalkers deserve the romantic attention of the person they're stalking because they work so hard for it and they put so much time into it and they want it so much. You don't "deserve" their attention/time/money. You can try to earn it, but it has to be freely given, regardless of what you may or may not do to "deserve" it.

As to the choice of my word "entitled", let's look at some definitions.

You used "deserve". That means (according to dictionary.com): to merit, be qualified for, or have a claim to (reward, assistance, punishment, etc.) because of actions, qualities, or situation:

Here's the definition of "entitle": "to give (a person or thing) a title, right, or claim to something; furnish with grounds for laying claim". "Entitle" is a verb, so when we talk about an entitled attitude, we mean that someone either has or feels like they have been given a claim to something. Which is the same as "deserve".

The only real difference in our word choice is that people tend to think of "deserving" as being a positive thing because it implies they actually do have a claim to something whereas saying someone "feels entitled" is only pointing out that they don't actually have a claim to that thing but only feel like they do (and so has a negative connotation, since most people instinctively know that feeling like you have a right to something that you don't is a bad thing).

So, when I say that her entitled feeling contributed to her bitterness, this is basically what I mean: She's put what she considers to be a great deal of time, effort, and mental/emotional work into writing a book. She, like you, feels that this effort entitles her (or causes her to deserve) the attention/recognition/time/money of others ("an audience" as you put it). She didn't get it. Therefore, in her mind, an injustice has been done against her because she was denied what she rightfully earned (again, in her mind, and this is the flaw in her thinking). Thus, she becomes angry about this injustice. The world refused to give her what she thought she'd earned, she is a wronged woman, and she had no real recourse for getting justice (because it's not like you can sue someone for not publishing your book), so all that negativity has just turned to bitterness inside her, and she's chosen to spew it forth for everyone to read.

And that's why thinking that you "deserve" an audience is a poisonous mindset for any author (or anyone, really) to have.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Shawna, your points are logical and while I agree with them, entitled is the last word I'd use to describe myself and I hope not to come across that way. But you're right, that line of thinking is definitely toxic.


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## SC (Jan 6, 2017)

Mari Oliver said:


> Shawna, your points are logical and while I agree with them, entitled is the last word I'd use to describe myself and I hope not to come across that way. But you're right, that line of thinking is definitely toxic.


No, I don't think you come across that way; I was basing my points entirely off of the writer of that Guardian article.

I think with things like this, it's better to talk about the attitude/mindset and the problems with such rather than to talk too specifically about an individual person. A person can, after all, change their attitude, so I was trying to point out the flaws with having an attitude of entitlement and using the Anon as an example of how it can lead to trouble moreso than pointing to the Anon and saying, "She's an awful person because she feels this way." I hope I put that all clearly enough.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Mari Oliver said:


> EDIT: Well, to expand, from the few folks I've met trying to get traditionally published, it seems that they don't so much get feedback as just a straight out rejection. When I queried, I think one of the letters gave me a bit more information as to why the ms had been rejected. So, how are authors supposed to truly understand why they're getting rejected if they are not also seeking feedback outside of the system? Any writer serious about their craft will get feedback from writing partners, beta readers, editors, etc. If this author didn't do any of that, then she'd be somewhat in the dark as to why her manuscripts weren't working, right?


The problem is, the reason a manuscript is rejected might have nothing to do with the quality of the writing. I used to work for a small press as a slush reader, so I got to see behind the scenes a little bit and gain a different perspective. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a publisher's decisions are all about business. Generally speaking, they make the choices that will make them the most money in the most efficient manner.

Sometimes, a manuscript might be rejected because we'd already accepted a story that was very similar to it and didn't have room for another one in the catalog. Sometimes a story was good, but the writer had a particular flaw in their writing that would have been too time-consuming to make editing it worth while. And sometimes a story would get rejected because the author came off as particularly entitled or above the rules in their cover letter, and the book was rejected because working with them would have been way more trouble than it was worth.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

There may be a specific British angle here. To get published it helps to go to a private school and attend a select group of universities especially the ones in Central London. Maybe she he had the silver spoon and the correct friends who became commissioning editors and still got rejected. Venting does her no harm as there is nothing in the article identify her, although it sounds like what you'd expect from a graduate of a Bloomsbury or neighbouring university. Only 7% of the UK population is privately educated, so most of us expect rejections or just ignore that route.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> my first thought when I read this article (when it popped up on The Passive Voice) was, someone tell this poor author she can publish the book herself. Then i thought perhaps she knows about self-publishing but thinks it's 'beneath' her or somesuch thing, and I thought that because other pieces from The Guardian have been loudly negative towards indies. Then I felt less sympathetic.


If she did it, she'd get a terrible cover and do zero marketing of herself, the book would be ranked 300,000 in a month, and she'd whine about how self-publishing is a terrible idea.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

Mari Oliver said:


> WHY?!?!?!! WHY? Seriously...why? Because validation. It's the most ridiculous reason to throw away the chance at a career writing fiction.


May I quote you on this? I have some Facebook friends who might benefit greatly from hearing it.


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## Scott Pixello (May 4, 2013)

How many bands put out two songs and give up because no-one 'discovers' their talent? Or artists who only paint two pictures? Yes, novels take more time and energy but no-one is entitled to commercial success just because they have some talent. Besides, what constitutes 'success' is fairly subjective, somewhere between zero & J.K. Rowling.
What's that old cliche? 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try and then give up?' This site is full of people who have tried and are trying- I can't imagine this post will elicit much sympathy. Final point- with her attitude, I'm not sure that a career as a writer is really a great idea anyway. The days of huge advances and overnight breakthroughs are largely a thing of the past. The key quality writers need these days (more than ever) beyond talent, is stickability or sheer stubbornness and not to take 'No' for an answer. 

I am not a household name but I believe in the quality of my books and that over time, that quality will be recognised by others.

As Rocky says, 'Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.'  THIS IS TRUE.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Ray Bradbury was a failed actor. Sometimes giving up one thing opens the door to something much better.


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## Bickernicks (Dec 18, 2015)

Did you guys read this in The Guardian? Author just can't (emotionally) hack it.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/what-im-really-thinking-the-failed-novelist

This guy wrote a follow-up: (no, you're a quitter)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/apr/05/do-two-unpublished-books-make-you-a-failed-author-no-youre-a-quitter

Then this guy says it's all about luck:

https://qz.com/955120/its-time-for-us-to-admit-that-whether-or-not-we-succeed-in-life-is-mostly-about-luck/


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,249432.0.html


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## NoLongerPosting (Apr 5, 2014)

Removed due to site owner's change of TOS.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

In general it never ceases to amaze me that the people who are doing well scoff at the idea how it's about luck and insist that anyone can do it, if they just worked harder/changed their covers/stopped whining etc etc.

And the people who haven't made it complain it's all about luck, about not having started in 2011, about being at the right place at the right time, about being lucky to have two cents to rub together to invest in their books etc etc.

I think they're both right, but I do love it when people who are insanely successful acknowledge that at least some of their good run came from a lucky break. I also love it how people who are not successful say "yeah, I know my covers suck, but I'll upgrade when I've got some money", in other words, that it's not all someone else's fault. Yes, there is stuff you can do, and yes, sometimes you get lucky.

But this is generally true: the harder you work and the more things you try, the more luck you'll have. This applies not just to writing.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I think the guy talking about the importance of luck is describing the world of trad pub really well--especially trad pubbed literary fiction. The Economist did a piece on the people who achieve fame for literary work at one point; they found it very revealing how many of the authors had editors at publishing houses as parents. Yeah, you get the occasional breakout, but it's rare.

For self-publishing there is luck too, but I think the effort to success ratio is much more balanced. I do know a lot of successful indies and they all work hard (or worked hard and are now working less and depending on their backlist.) There is still luck, I certainly have had it. I fell into what was once an underserved niche. But, I also promote a lot to balance how little I release.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

The way I see it is luck is always an element, but less so the better your product is.

Something like:
Success = Hard work + luck

A book with an awesome cover, great editing, good blurb, good marketing etc doesn't really need a lot of luck to succeed. Probably a bit, but not as much as one that's got an awful cover, no editing and a crappy blurb. The hard work (which you can control, crucially) put into a book reduces the need for it to be lucky.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

I agree with Patty Jansen. Both positions are true at the same time.

Some of any success is due to luck, which I think comes down to timing. You put your well-written book with a great cover and blurb up on Amazon on Day X and Reader Y just happens to be there scanning the new releases and sees your book, buys it, reads it and tells all her friends about it, and they buy it, and so on. If you waited several hours, if you waited a day, maybe Reader Y might have been busy reading another book and never seen your book. One would hope there are enough Reader Ys out there that someone will give your book a try, but from the looks of some of the books I see that are stuck in the millions in the Kindle store, I suspect not.

Probably most of any success is due to hard work, getting everything right, book, blurb, cover, keywords, promotion, and doing it again and again until you strike gold with a book that garners lots of sales, reviews and ranks. But you can never discount luck and timing. Stuff happens that you could never plan for. The best laid plans and all.

I've had some nice mid-list success since I stared in 2012, having earned a mid-five figure income in my first full year of publishing, and a six-figure income in my second and each subsequent year. How much of that is due to luck? Certainly a portion.

I started publishing in 2012, which many hail as the golden year for indie publishing. However, my first 3-book paranormal romance series, published in 2012, only earned a couple thousand dollars between June 1 and Dec 31, 2012. Not so great a success despite the year and despite pro covers. That series was written without regard to the market. I wrote it simply because it seemed like a good story to me. Whatever success it has had since then was due to a lot of hard work, getting the book visible using advertising and promotion.

My real success came in 2013 when I wrote a bestseller and then followed it up with several sequels, to monopolize on book 1's success. I deliberately wrote book 1 of the new series to market, picked a hot market, studied the tropes and tried to deliver, paid for a good cover and full pro edit. How much of my success in 2013 was due to smarts? How much to hard work? How much to luck? I did no publicity of the book except for one $25 ad on a book blog sidebar and posting about it on a few Goodreads groups. *shrug* Most of it was due to me writing a book with a big audience and getting visible due to Amazon algorithms. BUT something happened that got it those first reads and it took off. One would like to think it took off due to its own merits. I always accept that timing was part of it.

I wrote for 15 years before I ever published a book. I took two college writing courses, joined three different writing workshops -- in person and online, including Critters.org and Other Worlds Writing Workshop. I wrote erotic fan fiction for a dozen years. I wrote several books and shopped them to agents, had some bites but no sales. It wasn't until self publishing became possible and made sense that I tried that route in 2012 after reading Joe Konrath's blog.

Was it luck that I read about EL James' and Amanda Hocking's success in an article online and found Joe Konrath, David Gaughran, and others and took their advice? Yeah, it was luck. Then, any subsequent success was mostly due to hard work. But luck was definitely at work the day I found that article.

This is the article that changed my life:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/12/amanda-hocking-self-publishing

I'll pass $1,000,000 in career revenues sometime in June this year. It was darn lucky that I read that Guardian article that day and stopped sending out letters to agents to try to shop my books to traditional publishers, Googling Joe Konrath and deciding to try self publishing on Amazon. Every day, I think my lucky stars.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Luck always plays a role in success...  sometimes a big role, sometimes a relatively minor one.  Most successful artists (actors, singers, etc.) have absolutely no problem acknowledging that they've 'been lucky' in one way or another.  And then there's....  well, never mind.


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## EBWriter (Jan 26, 2017)

IMHO: She didn't fail, she just _didn't want it bad enough._ I've had several failed attempts at stories and novels, and guess what: It's all grist for the mill. Writing is practice and, as Dean Wesley Smith says, *no writing is wasted writing.* All of it is just like compost: it's all lumped together and ferments, but only if you keep piling it on--in this case, with more words!

You can't give up if you really want to achieve your goals, be they writing a novel, losing weight (these first two I discuss in Book 1 of my _SMART FOCUS_ series), buying a house, running a business...you name it. Often what's lacking in those that give up is a *"Plan of Action"* (with action being the key word). It helps to actually write down your goals along with strategies on how you plan on achieving them. Do this on _paper_, not some app or other digital means.

Paper may be old-fashioned, but it's like writing an actual contract with yourself. You're less likely to fail if you see the _progress you're making_ on that sheet of paper as you move toward your goals. Record every milestone, every success, every item you can cross off your list--whatever it takes to keep you *motivated to keep going*, no matter how small it is. *Every achievement counts!*

Sure, there are times I feel like the worst failure in the world--that's why I write about my "writing failures" Wattpad, lol--but, ultimately, there are *seasons* in life and you have to recognize that what you're going through is no more than a dry season. The rain will come again; you just have to be there waiting, with your bucket held high in the air, and continued motivation will fill it up. *It's the survivors that reach the finish line*, make no mistake about that.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I think of luck as all the factors that you cannot control. We're all already lucky because we live in a time where Amazon has blown open the self-pub market.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

She did well to find an agent, to be fair. Maybe the agent wasn't good enough to get her a deal? Either way, I understand how she feels, but her "woe is me" attitude is a little OTT. There are people getting blown up in Syria, or starving in Africa, or suffering a million other injustices in a million other places making less fuss.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

I've heard a few successful people say they don't believe in luck and I always roll my eyes. You can increase your chances, but a tiny bit of luck is needed. If it didn't then anyone could become a bestseller. You can follow all the steps outlined in how-to books, release 12 novels a year, and still fail. 

I hit gold out the gate, and luck had a lot to do with it. Hard work is important though. I do think that anyone can make a "decent" living by following the steps and writing to market. You may not get rich, but you can earn enough to pay a "few" bills


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2017)

Does timing have something to do with it? Sure. Having good timing can appear like luck. And maybe it is. You put out the right book at the right time and do well, you were lucky in that regard. But the right book is the key more than the right time. Writing 100 books only increases your odds if they are books people want to read. 
When you look at the indies who are doing well, they have more than just luck in common. They also write good books that readers enjoy. They use tested methods to stack the odds in their favor. They seek out the advice of other writers when they notice something that isn't working for them as well as it should, and are willing to admit their mistakes. They are constantly aware of the subtle changes in the market and become proactive rather than reactive. 
But the main thing I've noticed is that they take personal responsibility for their career. If a book flops, it's their fault. Not Amazon. And certainly not the readers. There is no sinister cabal out to get them. When they fail, they look to one source for their failure. And believe me we all fail. Even those of us making six figures trip up from time to time. It's scary as hell, too. You spend years building a career and gaining an audience. Yet you are constantly standing at the edge of a precipice. The thought of starting over is enough to make you want to cry. 
Reaching the top is one thing. Staying there is quite another.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

What we don't know enough about are the unsuccessful authors. How many have the same drive, quality, and self-responsibility as the successful authors, but haven't succeeded?


Researchers have engaged on this question in the music business. At some point, you have a pool of equally skilled and talented people larger than the audience can track, and once that happens, then herding affects start happening, and little differences in support can lead to breaking out or not. At some point, the results simply stop being about hard work and wanting it enough. This is why the music industry is always finding new acts, and if they don't find traction, their labels drop them. They maximize their chances of success through sheer volume, further overwhelming the audience and making the breakout effect even stronger.


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## BlinkFarm (Oct 25, 2015)

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." -- Seneca


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> What we don't know enough about are the unsuccessful authors. How many have the same drive, quality, and self-responsibility as the successful authors, but haven't succeeded?


This was me for many years. I wrote eight novels and 110 short stories before I finally self-published, and it was _then_ that publishers started noticing me a little more. I wish I'd written more during those years, but I was certainly pursuing it in a serious way.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2017)

Douglas Milewski said:


> What we don't know enough about are the unsuccessful authors. How many have the same drive, quality, and self-responsibility as the successful authors, but haven't succeeded?
> 
> Researchers have engaged on this question in the music business. At some point, you have a pool of equally skilled and talented people larger than the audience can track, and once that happens, then herding affects start happening, and little differences in support can lead to breaking out or not. At some point, the results simply stop being about hard work and wanting it enough. This is why the music industry is always finding new acts, and if they don't find traction, their labels drop them. They maximize their chances of success through sheer volume, further overwhelming the audience and making the breakout effect even stronger.


There also an IT factor that is almost impossible to pin down. Some writers simply have a talent for story telling that goes beyond the skills of writing. They intuitively know how to hook the reader.


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

D. Zollicoffer said:


> I've heard a few successful people say they don't believe in luck and I always roll my eyes.


Well, roll them again because luck had nothing to do with my success. Hard work, preparation, talent - that's what helped me rise. All the luck in the world won't sell a crappy book. And please don't talk about Twilight or 50 Shades as being poorly written, because while you may or may not agree with that, they had the one factor that outweighs craft, promotion, and marketing: storytelling. If you can tell a story that keeps readers reading, you're going to do well.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Kristen Painter said:


> Well, roll them again because luck had nothing to do with my success. Hard work, preparation, talent - that's what helped me rise. All the luck in the world won't sell a crappy book. And please don't talk about Twilight or 50 Shades as being poorly written, because while you may or may not agree with that, they had the one factor that outweighs craft, promotion, and marketing: storytelling. If you can tell a story that keeps readers reading, you're going to do well.


100% this. Go ahead and eye roll for me as well.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Jana DeLeon said:


> 100% this. Go ahead and eye roll for me as well.


And for me. It's weird how once I stopped listening to terrible advice (advice like "it's a marathon, not a sprint just keep doing what you are doing and eventually magically you'll succeed" btw) and started being smart and focused in what I was doing and how I was doing it, I found immediate success. Luck isn't nearly the factor people think it is for most of us, and I think often saying "oh so and so got lucky" can become a kind of emotional crutch people use to deny that they might have a hand in how their career is going. I think it's always better to look at what IS under your control and be honest with yourself about how well you are handling those things and what you can do better. There's a ton of things under our control. There are always things you can try to do differently.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Kristen Painter said:


> Well, roll them again because luck had nothing to do with my success. Hard work, preparation, talent - that's what helped me rise. All the luck in the world won't sell a crappy book. And please don't talk about Twilight or 50 Shades as being poorly written, because while you may or may not agree with that, they had the one factor that outweighs craft, promotion, and marketing: storytelling. If you can tell a story that keeps readers reading, you're going to do well.


Still so, your work would likely not have paid off without luck. There's plenty of excellent books (and excellent products in general) hardly anybody ever bothered to try.

Hard work by itself does not guarantee success, neither does luck by itself. The two need to come together. However, hard work does influence how many chances you get for luck to strike.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2017)

Annie B said:


> And for me. It's weird how once I stopped listening to terrible advice (advice like "it's a marathon, not a sprint just keep doing what you are doing and eventually magically you'll succeed" btw) and started being smart and focused in what I was doing and how I was doing it, I found immediate success. Luck isn't nearly the factor people think it is for most of us, and I think often saying "oh so and so got lucky" can become a kind of emotional crutch people use to deny that they might have a hand in how their career is going. I think it's always better to look at what IS under your control and be honest with yourself about how well you are handling those things and what you can do better. There's a ton of things under our control. There are always things you can try to do differently.


So what I think you are saying is don't listen to the advice of people who have no track record of success.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> Nah, there's always an element of luck to flying high. Hard work won't get you very far without smarts. Smarts plus hard work will get you a seat at the table. Luck is what launches you into orbit.


Disagree. The only luck involved is the hand you were dealt when you were born - whether you've actually got the smarts needed, and the character to knuckle down to the hard work. That and living in an age when it's possible to use them, ie Amazon and the internet.

I've seen people launch into orbit through luck. It happens. But unless they have the smarts to understand why, it doesn't last very long. I've also seen people (quite a few people, actually) who sat down and said: right, I'm going to do this properly and get it right and I'm going to make a success of this, and they do the hard work and they apply the smarts and they launch into orbit, and then repeat that with book after book. That's not luck, not in the slightest.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2017)

It looks like luck to some people, just as technology looks like magic to primitives. That may sound mean, but it's accurate. I know this because I experienced it firsthand. Before I was a writer, I watched others succeed while I failed miserably. I just couldn't understand what they were doing that I was not. In my arrogance, I wouldn't admit that I was the problem. The harsh reality was that the people around me doing better had an understanding I lacked. And no matter how hard I tried or how many hours I worked, I couldn't achieve what I was after. And yes, I thought I was unlucky. But I was wrong and couldn't see it.
This changed when I became a writer. It all made sense to me. I had a lot to learn, but I had a knack for making the right choices. New information was easy to understand and apply. I knew it wasn't luck because other writers were doing similar things and also succeeding. After a while, I began to see a common thread. Not identical. But similar enough to make the connection. I recognized opportunities and took advantage of them. I ignored the things beyond my control and focused on on the things I could influence. Sure, I made some mistakes. But I was prepared for them and was able to recover. I realized that being at the right place at the right time meant that I put myself there to begin with. 
Feeling fortunate is not the same as being lucky.


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

ThomasDiehl said:


> There's plenty of excellent books (and excellent products in general) hardly anybody ever bothered to try.


I hear this all the time but have yet to see an example, so share a few with me. If these books are really that excellent, I'd like to read one.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Good writers can be bad marketers. I would think that's self-apparent.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Good writers can be bad marketers. I would think that's self-apparent.


Not relevant to the discussion of luck. Not acquiring or having the skill to properly market your product as a PUBLISHER has zero to do with luck and everything to do with an inability to learn the business you have entered. People don't luck onto major bestseller lists. Never have. On the flip side, people who have a great marketing ploy can manage a bestseller list once but if that book doesn't resonate, the second book won't go anywhere.

Marketing sells your first book. The first book sells your second.

To declare that successful people got lucky is to insult their hard work and the talent they were born with. And I absolutely believe that storytelling is in the bones. You cannot learn to be a great storyteller although it is possible to be a decent writer.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Kristen Painter said:


> I hear this all the time but have yet to see an example, so share a few with me. If these books are really that excellent, I'd like to read one.


Have you never 'discovered' a writer you've never heard of before, someone who's not in the Top 100 of some category, or not the talk of the genre? To me that's the best part of looking for books--purposely choosing a book that's a little more 'obscure,' but which offers an interesting story. Sure, there are clunkers out there (maybe lots of them), but that does _not_ negate the fact that there are also undiscovered gems.

Regarding the 'luck' discussion, there's a quote that says "It's hard to detect good luck--it looks so much like something you've earned." So maybe people don't actually know when they've run into good luck. For example, getting a Bookbub ad.... people credit the ads with helping 'launch' a writing career. So getting a Bookbub is actually a stroke of luck. A glowing review can also be considered lucky, or being chosen to have a book mentioned in an influential blog. Even something a simple as finding the perfect premade cover (or cover image) can be a matter of luck; after all, you can't find the perfect image if someone hasn't posted it on an image site.

(Even the president is known to have said, "Everything in life is luck." And he would know.  )


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Kristen Painter said:


> I hear this all the time but have yet to see an example, so share a few with me. If these books are really that excellent, I'd like to read one.


Are you implying that all excellent books are successful, or are you genuinely asking to be supplied with unsuccessful yet excellent books?


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

If it truly was her passion, she would have found a way. Indie publishing is hard, it's not a cakewalk and no, I'm certainly not in the category of full time writer. But I'm a published author and I feel successful. I don't have hard feelings for authors that are selling more than me, we have a different success path. But have the same accomplishment, we wrote a book(s) and people are reading. That's AMAZING!


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Are you implying that all excellent books are successful, or are you genuinely asking to be supplied with unsuccessful yet excellent books?


I'm genuinely asking. My best reads have all come from word of mouth.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Not relevant to the discussion of luck. Not acquiring or having the skill to properly market your product as a PUBLISHER has zero to do with luck and everything to do with an inability to learn the business you have entered. People don't luck onto major bestseller lists. Never have. On the flip side, people who have a great marketing ploy can manage a bestseller list once but if that book doesn't resonate, the second book won't go anywhere.
> 
> Marketing sells your first book. The first book sells your second.
> 
> To declare that successful people got lucky is to insult their hard work and the talent they were born with. And I absolutely believe that storytelling is in the bones. You cannot learn to be a great storyteller although it is possible to be a decent writer.


So one can learn to be a great marketer, but one can't learn to be a great storyteller?


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Kristen Painter said:


> I'm genuinely asking. My best reads have all come from word of mouth.


Fair enough. It's sometimes hard to gauge tone on the Internet! One of my favourite sci-fi books of all time, Idyll by James Derry, was written by an (as yet) unsuccessful independent author.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> So one can learn to be a great marketer, but one can't learn to be a great storyteller?


That is my opinion, yes. And it's also the opinion of Stephen King, Nora Roberts and a lot of other huge names that believe storytelling is in the bones. I will agree to being lucky if you're born with that ability, but you still have to put in all the hard work to make it marketable.

Great marketing is not a requirement though. Few people are capable of putting together a marketing campaign like Meredith Wild, but most are capable of learning to be good at marketing. There's plenty of information/training available for that. And before you suggest that there's plenty of training for writing, that's technique. Technique and storytelling are two different things.


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

Jana DeLeon said:


> That is my opinion, yes. And it's also the opinion of Stephen King, Nora Roberts and a lot of other huge names that believe storytelling is in the bones. I will agree to being lucky if you're born with that ability, but you still have to put in all the hard work to make it marketable.
> 
> Great marketing is not a requirement though. Few people are capable of putting together a marketing campaign like Meredith Wild, but most are capable of learning to be good at marketing. There's plenty of information/training available for that. And before you suggest that there's plenty of training for writing, that's technique. Technique and storytelling are two different things.


I agree with all of this too. But writing is no different than any other pursuit. Not everyone who plays football will become a star quarterback, not everyone who strums a guitar will win a Grammy for their efforts, and so on. In nearly every profession there are people who have some innate ability that sets them apart. Writing is just one of those professions, and that ability is storytelling.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Think of all the things authors control:

- storytelling

- packaging

- pricing

- platform

- launch

- discoverability (lists, also-boughts, etc.)

- marketing

- advertising

- accumulation of reviews (ARC team)

It's true that authors _don't_ directly control some aspects of this business. For example, we don't control when Amazon emails its customers and recommends our books. But if we get the other things right, we can increase the likelihood that Amazon will give us a boost.

In that scenario, is luck involved? Sure. Is it a _necessity_ for publishing success? In my opinion, no.

I studied how to succeed in this business before I published my first book. I built a platform, researched my audience, and created products that audience wanted. I continue to create products for which a measurable demand already exists.

I'm not making Amanda money, but I'm doing a lot better than an office manager in California with fewer than 10 books.

Was luck involved? Maybe. I _can_ say that one of my books continues to be a huge disappointment (ranking is stuck between 80,000 and 100,000). But its failure is entirely my fault. It's the only time I went off script. I've since returned to my "system," and haven't had another failure.

I have one book that's sitting well under 3,000 (no promo, full price). It's several months old, and has managed to stick. I don't think that was lucky. I wrote to market, created an irresistible package, launched hard, and engineered the also-boughts. I also dominated my territory via AMS and created an autoresponder series that regularly promotes the book.

In other words, careful execution.

But awhile back, through no effort of my own, it received extra visibility, pushing it under 65 (no promo, full price) for awhile. Was that lucky? Yes. But was that short-term luck a corequisite of the book's longer-term success? No.

The fact is, as authors, we control the levers to our commercial success. If we fail, it's on us.

Do we sometimes get lucky? Yeah, sure. But we don't _depend_ on luck. Instead, we depend on our ability to leverage the factors we control, and build systems to that end.


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## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> The fact is, as authors, we control the levers to our commercial success. If we fail, it's on us.
> 
> Do we sometimes get lucky? Yeah, sure. But we don't _depend_ on luck. Instead, we depend on our ability to leverage the factors we control, and build systems to that end.


Exactly. A vast majority of the time when some author claims they are failing because they just can't get lucky, they are not pulling all those levers correctly. There are one or more key things they just are not doing at all or not doing well. They have a terrible cover or bad blurb or the writing is just not as good as they think it is. They are writing in a genre with a very small audience. They are not hitting any genre expectations. They are not writing with readers in mind. Maybe they are not building a mailing list at all, no social media presence, no blog, no platform at all, their website design is horrible. Or they are doing little to no marketing, advertising, and promotions.

Then studying a huge majority of the successful people, they are doing pretty much all of the important things really effectively. But then they get called lucky...


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I don't think that anybody gets lucky and makes money, skipping to the bank, but that's not the same as saying that no luck was involved. There's too much variation in the market for there to be no swing, no unexpectedness.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Douglas Milewski said:


> I don't think that anybody gets lucky and makes money, skipping to the bank, but that's not the same as saying that no luck was involved. There's too much variation in the market for there to be no swing, no unexpectedness.


There may be something to that.

For example, I suspect Michael Jordan would admit that a few of his game-winning 3-pointers happened because circumstances aligned perfectly right before the buzzer sounded.

But I'm equally certain those circumstances were at least partly engineered by Jordan, made possible by his skill, cunning, and foresight.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> There may be something to that.
> 
> For example, I suspect Michael Jordan would admit that a few of his game-winning 3-pointers happened because circumstances aligned perfectly right before the buzzer sounded.
> 
> But I'm equally certain those circumstances were at least partly engineered by Jordan, made possible by his skill, cunning, and foresight.


True story.

On Aliens 3, they were filming the basketball scene. For the last take of the day, the director yelled cut. For some reason, the camera operator forgot to stop his camera. Sigourney Weaver, the last to have the basketball, and somehow still well framed by the camera, tossed the basketball backward over her head, swishing it into the basket. That's how the perfect backward basketball toss made it into the film Aliens 3.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

Douglas Milewski said:


> True story.
> 
> On Aliens 3, they were filming the basketball scene. For the last take of the day, the director yelled cut. For some reason, the camera operator forgot to stop his camera. Sigourney Weaver, the last to have the basketball, and somehow still well framed by the camera, tossed the basketball backward over her head, swishing it into the basket. That's how the perfect backward basketball toss made it into the film Aliens 3.


That's the only luck that horrible freaking movie had. Blecch.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Rick Partlow said:


> That's the only luck that horrible freaking movie had. Blecch.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Kristen Painter said:


> I hear this all the time but have yet to see an example, so share a few with me. If these books are really that excellent, I'd like to read one.


I could recommend a few, but I'd need to know how good your German is to find out whether my recommendations would help you in any way ;-)

Though I could mention all those writers failing to make a living from their works that are now considered classics.
H.P. Lovecraft did not take off before August Derleth united his disparate stories into one mythos. Franz Kafka did so poorly, his Last Will asked for all his work to be destroyed, for it was worthless and made no money (thankfully, his heirs disagreed). Thoreau failed to gain an audience until 40 years after his death. E.A. Poe's poverty is almost proverbial - yet so are his tales.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> I could recommend a few, but I'd need to know how good your German is to find out whether my recommendations would help you in any way ;-)
> 
> Though I could mention all those writers failing to make a living from their works that are now considered classics.
> H.P. Lovecraft did not take off before August Derleth united his disparate stories into one mythos. Franz Kafka did so poorly, his Last Will asked for all his work to be destroyed, for it was worthless and made no money (thankfully, his heirs disagreed). Thoreau failed to gain an audience until 40 years after his death. E.A. Poe's poverty is almost proverbial - yet so are his tales.


You cannot compare literary works to commercial fiction. There's a reason it's called commercial fiction.


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## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Though I could mention all those writers failing to make a living from their works that are now considered classics.


There are other skills besides the quality of writing that someone needs to become a successful author.


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## Guy Riessen (Mar 27, 2016)

Anarchist said:


> Think of all the things authors control:
> 
> - storytelling
> 
> ...


Luck can determine the speed of success, not the success itself, due to all the controls that fall under the author's purview that you point out. And the biggest failures I see in the indie-scene, by far, are plotting/writing/storytelling followed by packaging.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2017)

There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
Robert A. Heinlein


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Fair enough. It's sometimes hard to gauge tone on the Internet! One of my favourite sci-fi books of all time, Idyll by James Derry, was written by an (as yet) unsuccessful independent author.


The cover was cool and the blurb of this sounded awesome. Then I read the sample (which gives you nearly 6 chapters, so a decent size sample) and noped out, sorry. It goes to show how one person's favorite doesn't even get the "it's only .99, I'll try it" treatment from another. Readership is tough to gain. I think a lot of peeps underestimate just how difficult it is to write a book that a lot of people want to read.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

This_Way_Down said:


> There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
> Robert A. Heinlein


"I'm a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the luckier I get." Jefferson, maybe.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Annie B said:


> The cover was cool and the blurb of this sounded awesome. Then I read the sample (which gives you nearly 6 chapters, so a decent size sample) and noped out, sorry. It goes to show how one person's favorite doesn't even get the "it's only .99, I'll try it" treatment from another. Readership is tough to gain. I think a lot of peeps underestimate just how difficult it is to write a book that a lot of people want to read.


Different strokes for different folks, I guess 

And yes, readership is difficult to gain and retain. My first book was warmly received, but it took me another 9 months to write and publish its sequel. By then, nobody cared! This time, I'm going to write a whole series, and then release one book a month.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> I don't think that anybody gets lucky and makes money, skipping to the bank, but that's not the same as saying that no luck was involved. There's too much variation in the market for there to be no swing, no unexpectedness.


Exactly. Nobody in their right mind would rely _only_ on luck-- we all have to do the work, or else the stroke of luck would be wasted. But there is still some element of luck in pretty much every success.

Even Michael Jordan, with all his skill, had to rely on some bit of luck (plays working out a certain way, teammates willing to pass him the ball at just the right moment, an opponent not jumping to block at the exact second he throws, etc.).


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

This_Way_Down said:


> There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
> Robert A. Heinlein


I agree with this. What most people call luck I would call positive results based on the randomness of stuff outside your control that gives you a leg up -- if you respond appropriately. I would call it good timing and being prepared for those random events when they come along.

I understand the refusal to acknowledge that luck plays a part in success. People often use the term "luck" to downplay successful people's success, often to make their own failure feel less biting. They think, "I deserve to be a success. I am not a success. That person has success and in my view, they are less (good, smart, skilled, talented -- fill in the blank) than I am. Therefore, that other person's success is undeserved and due to luck. Life is unfair, the system is rigged, and I no longer have to feel bad."

In the end, I believe I can only control my own behaviour. I have to deal with the external world that is not under my control including its randomness and respond to it. Sometimes, that randomness puts something good in my way and if I respond appropriately, I may increase my chances of success. Sometimes that randomness puts bad things in my way. Whether I succeed depends on how I respond.

Stuff happens outside of your control. You can only control how you respond to it. To that extent, your success is all up to your own hard work and response to the events that happen in your life.

In the end, when it comes to self publishing, you have to be a great storyteller (appropriate to your genre and category) to succeed in publishing. Not a great writer. A great storyteller. If you can tell a great story that pleases a large audience of readers, and if you can package it and get it in front of them, you can have huge success.

Without that ability to tell a story that entertains readers, all the other stuff will do nothing. Nor will the random events that might be considered lucky breaks. That badly told story packaged badly and languishing in invisibility, will go nowhere.


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## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Even Michael Jordan, with all his skill, had to rely on some bit of luck (plays working out a certain way, teammates willing to pass him the ball at just the right moment, an opponent not jumping to block at the exact second he throws, etc.).


I would argue that luck had very little to no influence on those types of situations. Jordan and his team's preparation and skills are what determined the outcome. Random events might have happened now and then in the games, but those are going to happen for both teams over time. Michael Jordan never won games or succeeded by relying on luck.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

KennySkylin said:


> *Michael Jordan never won games or succeeded by relying on luck.*


Agreed. Relying on luck is a fool's errand. But luck does occur and can tip the scales toward success.



sela said:


> What most people call luck I would call positive results based on the randomness of stuff outside your control that gives you a leg up....


Yep, that's pretty much the definition of luck.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Things happen for a reason. You just don't know the reason. I don't mean magically or by destiny; I mean there are lots of factors, and you don't even understand your own, let alone someone else's. 

I've had a lot of snide comments from authors over the years that I got lucky, hit the easy button, etc., because I didn't have any fiction training and had quick success. I thought I was super lucky also. But then I kept on being lucky, even writing other things, when the market changed, when the rules changed, etc. 

Here's what I've come to realize. My husband says that everything in my life prepared me for this job, including many unglamorous things. I think it was more of a pulling together of lots of factors, as well as a willingness to take risks. And then it was keeping on writing and taking more risks and making innumerable decisions and trying really hard to be honest about what doesn't work. Including reading all the reviews and learning from them and working so hard at getting better. 

But a whole lot of it has been work habits--a lifetime of being the A student and the good employee with her nose to the grindstone, the one who rewrote or retyped her notes for every single class.  Not listening when people said, "You need to treat this like a 9 to 5 job. You can't work seven days a week for months. Surely you don't need to write that many books to do well." 

You get opportunities. Maybe that is luck, but mostly it's just how you grab the opportunity and keep going. For example, it wasn't luck that New Zealand rugby romance caught on. I wrote it because I knew it would, from paying attention to all sorts of things I could detail. And I had a strong voice because I was a strong and self-taught copywriter and had honed my voice that way. But I wrote fiction because I had some really, truly bad luck, and then I published it because of some more crappy luck. A lot of success is being able to pull yourself up from those low points and find a new strength from them. I know that sounds like a Hallmark card, but it's pretty true. Strength trainers don't build muscle by lifting tiny little weights. They get stronger from microscopic muscle tears and rebuilding.


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## SC (Jan 6, 2017)

I don't believe in luck, at least not for big things or stuff like this. Luck is for gambling and small, meaningless things. Like when you're playing a video game and get a good boss drop. For anything that really matters, nah, I don't believe in luck.


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## EBWriter (Jan 26, 2017)

Rosalind J said:


> Things happen for a reason. You just don't know the reason. I don't mean magically or by destiny; I mean there are lots of factors, and you don't even understand your own, let alone someone else's.
> 
> I've had a lot of snide comments from authors over the years that I got lucky, hit the easy button, etc., because I didn't have any fiction training and had quick success. I thought I was super lucky also. But then I kept on being lucky, even writing other things, when the market changed, when the rules changed, etc.
> 
> ...


Totally This!


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Jana DeLeon said:


> You cannot compare literary works to commercial fiction. There's a reason it's called commercial fiction.


Neither Lovecraft nor Poe are literary fiction writers. You can't just remove people from consideration because they ended up being regarded as classic literature posthumously. Also, nobody said a thing about genre restrictions, so far this has been about quality v luck, which should be a valid discussion across all genres, even if relative to the genre's overall commercial success.
Good fiction is good fiction, no matter the genre.

The problem with giving current examples is, I have no idea how successful the people I'd mention are. Not to mention public perception is skewed toward those already successful. It is really hard to look for unsuccessful writers (I mean, how do you even find them?), yet only when analyzing their failure in contrast to the successful ones is it even possible to really tell what apparent factors of success really are such.
E.g. I propose that quality in writing of all levels can be found at all levels of success. Crud will be more common in the lower success tires, but it will not make up 100% anywhere.

There's one example I stumbled upon, but that was a novella in German that has been pulled by the author a year ago. And it was literary fiction.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

So does the same apply to trad publishing, with all its competitiveness? Is luck at all a factor in signing a contract?


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> So does the same apply to trad publishing, with all its competitiveness? Is luck at all a factor in signing a contract?


Even having a contract offered involves some measure of luck. Catch an editor or agent on a bad day and they'll shove your query into the trash; catch them on a good day and they'll say, "hmm, this sounds somewhat promising" and ask for a sample. We've all heard stories about how, back in the day, Famous Writer X got 20 (or 40, or 50) rejection letters before someone took a chance on him/her and offered a contract. That speaks to the author's determination, certainly, but also to the fact that they didn't give up, and they had the time and energy to keep going, and that eventually they ran into an editor on a 'good day.' Going even further back in the day, it meant that the writer even had the money to continue the process. (I once knew a writer who said she delayed sending a manuscript out to an editor because she used her last bit of handy cash to buy milk.)


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Neither Lovecraft nor Poe are literary fiction writers. You can't just remove people from consideration because they ended up being regarded as classic literature posthumously. Also, nobody said a thing about genre restrictions, so far this has been about quality v luck, which should be a valid discussion across all genres, even if relative to the genre's overall commercial success.


Yes, I can exclude them. Pick something current if you want to have a discussion about disregarded "quality" work that doesn't perform in the market. The market has changed since Lovecraft and Poe. Studying them tells you absolutely nothing. The discussion of luck is with regards to success which has been defined by most as making money. Commercial fiction makes money. And like it or not, certain genres of commercial fiction make more money than others because the readership pool is much bigger.

This is exactly the point of those of us refusing to admit luck. Picking a genre that has a large readership pool, then having the storytelling ability to write a book that not only meets the genre expectations of that readership but resonates with them emotionally is what makes a bestseller. But business acumen has to be deployed before you ever start writing. That's not luck. That's being a professional.


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> One of my favourite sci-fi books of all time, Idyll by James Derry, was written by an (as yet) unsuccessful independent author.


I read as far as halfway through Chapter Two and just couldn't get into it. And I read everything from Craig Johnson to Loretta Chase, so my tastes are pretty varied.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

If you ask most uber-successful people, whether they be sportspersons, actors, popstars, business magnates etc., if their success has in any way relied on luck, most will admit it has. The right talent scout spotted them; the perfect business opportunity came up; they met the ideal bandmate by chance. Certainly, a huge amount of hard work and talent is required. I know a trad-pubbed author who freely admits that he would never secure an agent these days, as it's virtually impossible without the right connections. And how does one acquire such connections? Self-publishing is a little different, of course, and indies have the ability to make their own luck. However, should I ever achieve the targets I have in mind, I'll happily concede that I've had good fortune.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Kristen Painter said:


> I read as far as halfway through Chapter Two and just couldn't get into it. And I read everything from Craig Johnson to Loretta Chase, so my tastes are pretty varied.


Fair enough. The world would be a very dull place if we all agreed on anything. Excellence in storytelling, something which I've seen referred to several times on here, is subjective. I dare say that I could read some of the recent indie books that have been successful, and not find them entertaining.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Rosalind J said:


> I've had a lot of snide comments from authors over the years that I got lucky, hit the easy button, etc., because I didn't have any fiction training and had quick success. I thought I was super lucky also. But then I kept on being lucky, even writing other things, when the market changed, when the rules changed, etc.


I get those comments from people with MFAs in creative writing, English majors, and others who "cherish" good literature. The fact that I tested out of my college English classes, edited a university-level textbook while still in college, and taught university writing classes without ever taking one notwithstanding. I have not "paid my dues" or spent enough time "studying my craft", nor have I suffered through the requisite 100+ rejection letters to prove my "commitment to my art."

Yes, I cringe when I go back and read my first book. They continue to get better because I do study my craft and I am smarter than the average MFA graduate. I also work harder, and I do something a lot of them don't do. I write.



This_Way_Down said:


> So what I think you are saying is don't listen to the advice of people who have no track record of success.


This is where my element of luck happened. I started paying attention to the right people.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Yes, I can exclude them. Pick something current if you want to have a discussion about disregarded "quality" work that doesn't perform in the market.


How? With old works I can call them quality and it is generally agreed upon they were quality authors. Wit current stuff, I have two problems: 1. I generally don't know how successful any given author is and 2. It boils down to works I personally like which does not neccessarily have anything to do with quality.



> The market has changed since Lovecraft and Poe.


Indeed. EspeciallyLovecraft was really LUCKY to live in a time when short fiction was a far more viable market.



> The discussion of luck is with regards to success which has been defined by most as making money. Commercial fiction makes money. And like it or not, certain genres of commercial fiction make more money than others because the readership pool is much bigger.


Yes, but that is exactly what I mean by a factor of luck. See, I can't stand romance for the life of me. I will never be able to write a good romance because that genre is far too far away from anything I enjoy reading or writing, from anything I could even conceive of plot-wise. I don't think I have a chance in the world of ever writing a good romance novel, no matter how much work I put in. Just like a blind man can't paint the Mona Lisa.
One of the forms luck comes in is the popularity of your favorite genre(s) in your lifetime.



> This is exactly the point of those of us refusing to admit luck. Picking a genre that has a large readership pool, then having the storytelling ability to write a book that not only meets the genre expectations of that readership but resonates with them emotionally is what makes a bestseller. But business acumen has to be deployed before you ever start writing. That's not luck. That's being a professional.


And yet, there is a limited number of seats in the bestseller lists. There's only 100 seats in the Top 100 so if there are 101 people competing for it and all are as good as the others, one will have bad luck. Her campaign seen by the wrong eyes despite the right targetting just because targetting is never 100% acurate. Or it's September 12th, 2001, and she just wrote a book about a terrorist attack on NYC a week before.
In fact, all of us here are lucky, because we happen to speak a language that has a viable ebook market at all.

I still hold this true: Luck is extremely important. However, hard work can and does increase your chances of getting lucky to the point you can actually bruteforce your way into luck. But in the end, every book sells because the right pairs of eyes happened to see it at the right moments in time. And that, to me, is the very definition of luck.
Because no matter how much work you put in, you will never be ubiquitous, you will still rely on the right people being at the right places at the right time. Work increases the chances of that happening, but it does not guarantee it.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2017)

ThomasDiehl said:


> How? With old works I can call them quality and it is generally agreed upon they were quality authors. Wit current stuff, I have two problems: 1. I generally don't know how successful any given author is and 2. It boils down to works I personally like which does not neccessarily have anything to do with quality.
> Indeed. EspeciallyLovecraft was really LUCKY to live in a time when short fiction was a far more viable market.
> Yes, but that is exactly what I mean by a factor of luck. See, I can't stand romance for the life of me. I will never be able to write a good romance because that genre is far too far away from anything I enjoy reading or writing, from anything I could even conceive of plot-wise. I don't think I have a chance in the world of ever writing a good romance novel, no matter how much work I put in. Just like a blind man can't paint the Mona Lisa.
> One of the forms luck comes in is the popularity of your favorite genre(s) in your lifetime.
> ...


You realize you are debating with a writer who has sold more books than almost everyone else here combined, right? 
There is a reason for the limited spots at the table. Very few people have the combination of skills required. Making a living as a novelist is the NFL or the MLB. Only a certain number of players are good enough. It sounds elitist because it's an elite group. It takes more than being a competent writer, or even a decent marketer. The array of skills and talents required are very specific. I suppose if you have them all, you're lucky. But if you do, and you use them properly, it's not luck when you succeed. 
Not every writer has the same goal. But if yours is to make a living as a novelist, and year after year you're still right where you started, there are harsh truths to face. It's probably that you simply don't have the necessary skill set. Most people learn to accept this. They don't stop writing. But they realize it's for their own enjoyment. Some become bitter and angry. That's usually when the topic of luck shows its head. 
I said this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. Feeling fortunate is not the same as being lucky.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Robert Heinlein was quoted earlier in this thread. Here's another one from him.

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

"This is known as 'bad luck.'"


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

I was raised to treat my successes as a matter of luck and my failures as a result of not trying hard enough- while making the opposite assumptions- that success is due to hard work and failure to bad luck- for others. This still seems to me the wisest way to proceed. You never know, if you're successful, when an illness or injury, a change in public tastes or a personal tragedy may turn all your success to ashes. If you're unsuccessful, working hard and trying everything you can think of maximizes your chances of sooner or later catching a break. As far as other people go, we can never know their exact circumstances and why they aren't succeeding at what they do. To assume their failure is due to not working or trying hard enough just seems ungenerous.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

This_Way_Down said:


> Making a living as a novelist is the NFL or the MLB. Only a certain number of players are good enough. It sounds elitist because it's an elite group. It takes more than being a competent writer, or even a decent marketer. The array of skills and talents required are very specific. I suppose if you have them all, you're lucky. But if you do, and you use them properly, it's not luck when you succeed.


I hear this said a lot, that only a very small number of people can make a living as a novelist. And yet I see people all the time giving up the day job and going full-time. About a third of my writers' group is earning full-time money, and another third is earning a good chunk of extra income. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'making a living'. My arbitrary definition is $5K a month, or $60K a year, sustained over 2-3 years, but yours might be different.

Anyone can have a lucky break here and there, or an unlucky one. But to earn a living, and do it consistently for several years, is not about luck, I'd say.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

This_Way_Down said:


> You realize you are debating with a writer who has sold more books than almost everyone else here combined, right?
> There is a reason for the limited spots at the table. Very few people have the combination of skills required. Making a living as a novelist is the NFL or the MLB. Only a certain number of players are good enough. It sounds elitist because it's an elite group. It takes more than being a competent writer, or even a decent marketer. The array of skills and talents required are very specific. I suppose if you have them all, you're lucky. But if you do, and you use them properly, it's not luck when you succeed.
> Not every writer has the same goal. But if yours is to make a living as a novelist, and year after year you're still right where you started, there are harsh truths to face. It's probably that you simply don't have the necessary skill set. Most people learn to accept this. They don't stop writing. But they realize it's for their own enjoyment. Some become bitter and angry. That's usually when the topic of luck shows its head.
> I said this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. Feeling fortunate is not the same as being lucky.


Nobody is disputing brkingsolver's credentials. Well, I'm certainly not, anyway. Personally, I think I'm lucky to have a reasonable amount of talent for writing. Unless a hundred reviews (a decidely prawny number compared to many, but one I'm proud of nonetheless) are lies, this skill is self-evident. Of course, there may be people who've read my books, hated them but not left reviews; I suppose I'll never know. Either way, I'm not much good at marketing, though I hope to rectify this and become successful. If I do become successful, will I no longer consider myself lucky to be a skilled writer? I don't think so, but I hope to find out!


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2017)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Nobody is disputing brkingsolver's credentials. Well, I'm certainly not, anyway. Personally, I think I'm lucky to have a reasonable amount of talent for writing. Unless a hundred reviews (a decidely prawny number compared to many, but one I'm proud of nonetheless) are lies, this skill is self-evident. Of course, there may be people who've read my books, hated them but not left reviews; I suppose I'll never know. Either way, I'm not much good at marketing, though I hope to rectify this and become successful. If I do become successful, will I no longer consider myself lucky to be a skilled writer? I don't think so, but I hope to find out!


I was referring to Jana DeLeon.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Rosalind J said:


> A lot of success is being able to pull yourself up from those low points and find a new strength from them.


Beautifully said.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2017)

PaulineMRoss said:


> I hear this said a lot, that only a very small number of people can make a living as a novelist. And yet I see people all the time giving up the day job and going full-time. About a third of my writers' group is earning full-time money, and another third is earning a good chunk of extra income. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'making a living'. My arbitrary definition is $5K a month, or $60K a year, sustained over 2-3 years, but yours might be different.
> 
> Anyone can have a lucky break here and there, or an unlucky one. But to earn a living, and do it consistently for several years, is not about luck, I'd say.


I'm in a group where all of us are making a living - most of us 6 figures and some 7. But still, from what I've been able to dig up, there are roughly 10k-15k novelists in the world making a living solely through their writing. This is a combination of both indie and traditional. There are other ways to make a living as a writer, of course. Being a novelist is just one. So if you want to include other areas, the number jumps up dramatically.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

This_Way_Down said:


> I was referring to Jana DeLeon.


Sorry.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Sarah Shaw said:


> I was raised to treat my successes as a matter of luck and my failures as a result of not trying hard enough- while making the opposite assumptions- that success is due to hard work and failure to bad luck- for others. This still seems to me the wisest way to proceed. You never know, if you're successful, when an illness or injury, a change in public tastes or a personal tragedy may turn all your success to ashes. If you're unsuccessful, working hard and trying everything you can think of maximizes your chances of sooner or later catching a break. As far as other people go, we can never know their exact circumstances and why they aren't succeeding at what they do. To assume their failure is due to not working or trying hard enough just seems ungenerous.


When we look at an unsuccessful writers, we ask, "What are they doing wrong?"

The thing about this question is that all pro writers ask it of themselves at every level. "What am I doing wrong? What new mistakes did I make this time? How could I do it better?" Nobody, but nobody puts out a perfect book perfectly. If the best can't do everything perfectly, nobody can. That doesn't mean that you don't strive for excellence, it just means that if you look for something wrong, you will find it, guaranteed.

For writers who don't sell, its just as important to say what they're doing right. I don't think that anyone can build on, "You didn't work hard enough," or "you didn't work as hard as I did." I've found too often that learning what works is often harder to discover than learning what you did wrong. Wrong is easy agree on, but what's right? Those are fighting words.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> One of the forms luck comes in is the popularity of your favorite genre(s) in your lifetime.


This is 100% untrue. This is exactly the part where being a professional comes into play. Romance is NOT the only game in town. I write mysteries and thrillers and trust me, I'm making an excellent living with it.

But what do I really want to write - horror. I love horror. I'm passionate about horror. You know why I don't write it? Because the market pool is too small for my targeting interests. So instead, I created a dark psychological thriller series. No paranormal elements, but I get to write some horrific things and it is selling well. MUCH better than horror would.

That's your answer. No one is entitled to a career doing exactly what they want. You are selling a product and need to determine the biggest market for your a product that fits your skill set. That's the publisher part. Because if you're indie, you're not just an author. That's only half the job.

Trust me on this. I was a CFO making other people wealthy long before I started writing books. I know how to assess markets. I know how to leverage product to make money. I know when something isn't worth my time and when something is. I write what sells. Not necessarily the first thing I wanted to write.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Nobody is disputing brkingsolver's credentials. Well, I'm certainly not, anyway.


LOL!!!!!   

I was raised to believe that people make their own luck. That may not be true 100% of the time, but as with all things there are exceptions. Various surveys and analyses show that the grand majority of published authors - published anywhere by any means - do not make enough from their writing to live on. Most don't make enough to eat regularly. This forum, and the media covering indie publishing, gloss over that. When I was growing up, I knew a number of "successful" authors. One friend's father published 45 middle-grade books but was never able to quit his day job. Another friend's father made a ton of money publishing spy thrillers that were turned into movies. Was one a better writer than the other? Luckier? Or did one write commercially-viable books?

I don't have any aspirations for a Pulitzer. I work on my craft and try to be a better writer, but I don't consider that as important as becoming a better story teller. I can teach someone the mechanics. I can't teach them how to dream and how to tell others about that dream in an engaging manner. I think that's something you have or not.

Picked up a JD Robb book off a BookBub ad this week. Took 2 work days to read it - on the bus, in a bar, way too late at night. Her success has nothing to do with luck.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Jana DeLeon said:


> No one is entitled to a career doing exactly what they want. You are selling a product and need to determine the biggest market for your a product that fits your skill set. That's the publisher part. Because if you're indie, you're not just an author. That's only half the job.
> 
> Trust me on this. I was a CFO making other people wealthy long before I started writing books. I know how to assess markets. I know how to leverage product to make money. I know when something isn't worth my time and when something is. I write what sells. Not necessarily the first thing I wanted to write.


That's a great summary of how to build a successful business.

I'd rather be a hair-band guitarist playing huge stadiums. Or a lecturer on anarchy (a la Hans Hoppe). But I want to make money, so I built businesses unrelated to those passions.

I happen to like my genre. But again, if I had my druthers...


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## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> I'd rather be a hair-band guitarist playing huge stadiums. Or a lecturer on anarchy (a la Hans Hoppe). But I want to make money, so I built businesses unrelated to those passions.


When I read this, I thought your dream was to be in Warrant or Poison. I never really considered Ozzy to be a hair-band. But then that magnificent mane of hair on Zakk Wylde can't be denied.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I kept wondering what could keep this thread on a poor (but typical) Guardian article going and now I know. Someone mentioned kboards very own four letter word. I believe in luck. I'm Irish. I'm supposed to. It doesn't guarantee success in life as even a cursory glance at Irish history will reveal.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

KennySkylin said:


> But then that magnificent mane of hair on Zakk Wylde can't be denied.


Right?!


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Trust me on this. I was a CFO making other people wealthy long before I started writing books. I know how to assess markets. I know how to leverage product to make money. I know when something isn't worth my time and when something is. I write what sells. Not necessarily the first thing I wanted to write.


Most writers aren't CFO, or even anything close. Do you think that these different starting conditions would result in a different set of business results, or would an otherwise excellent writer with little seed money and no idea of ROI do just as well as you?


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Most writers aren't CFO, or even anything close. Do you think that these different starting conditions would result in a different set of business results, or would an otherwise excellent writer with little seed money and no idea of ROI do just as well as you?


I didn't have seed money. I published my first three books with a $300 investment plus $1K for website etc. Earned that back in 10 days. But I had a great hooky concept and series title and professional covers that conveyed mood and reading experience, and the books had great appeal to a group of readers. (Not to all readers. The trick is, you have to write something that a reasonably large group of people really enjoy. Some people will hate it. That's OK. If you write so mainstream and sort of "good enough," though, that most people read it and think, "that was fine" and then forget it--that won't bring the pixie dust. There has to be something there. Some spark. Something special. Voice. Whatever you call it.)


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Rosalind J said:


> I didn't have seed money. I published my first three books with a $300 investment plus $1K for website etc. Earned that back in 10 days. But I had a great hooky concept and series title and professional covers that conveyed mood and reading experience, and the books had great appeal to a group of readers. (Not to all readers. The trick is, you have to write something that a reasonably large group of people really enjoy. Some people will hate it. That's OK. If you write so mainstream and sort of "good enough," though, that most people read it and think, "that was fine" and then forget it--that won't bring the pixie dust. There has to be something there. Some spark. Something special. Voice. Whatever you call it.)


You do rock.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Most writers aren't CFO, or even anything close. Do you think that these different starting conditions would result in a different set of business results, or would an otherwise excellent writer with little seed money and no idea of ROI do just as well as you?


They could do as well or even better if they are dedicated to learning the publishing business. That means studying the market every day and assessing your work. It means killing an idea you might love in favor of one that is more marketable. It means continuing to write a bestselling series you might be bored with rather than writing something new.

I only give my credentials to point out that too many indie authors view this as only writing. It's half writing. Maybe. The other half is publishing, which requires business acumen to handle well. You can acquire it. Anyone can. But they have to want to and invest the time in learning.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Jana DeLeon said:


> They could do as well or even better if they are dedicated to learning the publishing business. That means studying the market every day and assessing your work. It means killing an idea you might love in favor of one that is more marketable. It means continuing to write a bestselling series you might be bored with rather than writing something new.
> 
> I only give my credentials to point out that too many indie authors view this as only writing. It's half writing. Maybe. The other half is publishing, which requires business acumen to handle well. You can acquire it. Anyone can. But they have to want to and invest the time in learning.


I think that you understate your expertise, mostly because that's a common human trait. That means that that you see your skills as far easier to learn than they really are. As a person who is learning marketing, market analysis, customer relations, advertising, and contracts, I still feel like I'm at the bottom of the hill. I have great respect for you, and folks just like you, who really understand the business side and keep on top of it.


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## Salome Golding (Apr 17, 2017)

Jana DeLeon said:


> They could do as well or even better if they are dedicated to learning the publishing business. That means studying the market every day and assessing your work. It means killing an idea you might love in favor of one that is more marketable. It means continuing to write a bestselling series you might be bored with rather than writing something new.


See, as with everything else, there is a trade-off. It all comes down to what you are prepared to give up. Being a professional writer comes with sacrifices - to make maximum returns you may be called upon to sacrifice your own tastes and your own enjoyment. Will I be willing to do that? Probably not to the level necessary to achieve Jana Deleon level of success. But that is ok as long as I acknowledge and accept that writing what I want to write may not bring the highest level of success, because it is not in a top-selling genre / I'm not willing to write the most popular tropes in a particular genre.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I'm not overly fond of the idea of "luck"; it sounds sort of magical. But if you replace it with "things that have helped me that I didn't generate for myself," well, I've have a lot of those. I can't claim much success as a writer, but what small success I've had definitely rests in part on those things. My professional success in other areas does as well. That doesn't mean effort, decision-making, and other stuff that was in my control didn't matter; it must matter a lot, since I know some people who had less of a leg up than I do who've done better than I have. Still, it doesn't seem right to ignore the advantages I've had, compared to some.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

This_Way_Down said:


> You realize you are debating with a writer who has sold more books than almost everyone else here combined, right?


Idon't see how that's relevant.
I don't doubt she has put a lot of work into her books. I don't doubt she is very successful. I don't even doubt the amount of work played a role in her success.
What I do take umbridge with is the complete dismissal of luck as a fcator. What I see here is what Chuck Wendig calls Survivorship Bias - "I worked hard and that is why I succeeded were others didn't" seems to be a valid position to somebody successful, but it dismisses the hard work those less successful have done.

What I have come to realize is an American trait. For some reason, invoking the notion of luck one might as well call people names. This, to me, is absurd. Luck and bad luck are things simply because you do not control everything in the world. There are other things, other people moving around with their own goals and motivations, and it is out of our control when and how they meet. Thus, things happen without our influence and the best we can do is position ourselves in places most likely to benefit from those changes. When we and the rest of the world align, I call it luck.
You can put as much work into your barbecue party as you want, when the weather forecast fails you and it's pouring, that's just bad luck and even if you have some tents to shield you from the rain, it won't be as good a party with the bad weather beating down on your tents and moods.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

ThomasDiehl said:


> What I do take umbridge with is the complete dismissal of luck as a fcator. What I see here is what Chuck Wendig calls Survivorship Bias - "I worked hard and that is why I succeeded were others didn't" seems to be a valid position to somebody successful, but it dismisses the hard work those less successful have done.


Yeah, it's not cool to say that it's only because they worked harder than everyone else. There's definitely more to it.

Somebody upthread said that what's needed for success is hard work, smarts and luck, but I disagree. I'd say luck is a nice bonus, but it's not essential to get a lucky break. Or to put it another way, people can be successful without ever having a big lucky break. I know it's possible because I've seen people do it, and it's insulting to those who claim that they made it through hard work and being good at what they do, to say that they only made it through luck.

People can have lucky breaks, of course, but without the smarts to take advantage of it, that lucky success just fades away (and I've seen that happen, too).

Hard work is a pre-requisite for success, but it's not enough on its own. Understanding the market and learning the necessary skills (smarts) are also necessary but not sufficient. But together they ARE sufficient for long-term success. And a little luck doesn't hurt.

PS I work reasonably hard, but I don't have the marketing smarts, which is why I'll never be uber-successful. 



> You can put as much work into your barbecue party as you want, when the weather forecast fails you and it's pouring, that's just bad luck and even if you have some tents to shield you from the rain, it won't be as good a party with the bad weather beating down on your tents and moods.


I suppose the equivalent to the barbeque-day rain is Amazon changing the algos, but even then the smart people adjust quicker than anybody else. And some people are smart enough to see changes coming (the switch from KU1 to KU2, for instance; lots of people predicted that).


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Idon't see how that's relevant.
> I don't doubt she has put a lot of work into her books. I don't doubt she is very successful. I don't even doubt the amount of work played a role in her success.
> What I do take umbridge with is the complete dismissal of luck as a fcator. What I see here is what Chuck Wendig calls Survivorship Bias - "I worked hard and that is why I succeeded were others didn't" seems to be a valid position to somebody successful, but it dismisses the hard work those less successful have done.
> 
> ...


No, you still don't get me. I am not dismissing that others might work as hard and not be successful (although I have not seen evidence of that in the people I've known personally). What I am saying is that not everyone has the innate TALENT to be successful. Some of you are arguing over how many hours someone puts in when I'm saying the hours don't matter if the ability is not there or only marginal to begin with.

I am a classically trained violinist. I practiced my butt off to gain first chair first violin in symphony and chamber group while in high school. But my friend, who played the cello and was accepted to Juilliard, played at a level I could have never attained with practice. He was simply light years ahead of me by only existing. It was in his bones, DNA, makeup, brain wiring, whatever you want to call it. People have talents for different things and some people have more talent at those things than others. Consistent bestsellers are no different than professional musicians and athletes that are at the top of their game. It's a small group of people in a large population of people who tried to do it or are capable of doing it but not at that level.

Now, a competent writer can still make a great living. But they have to do all the same things the big bestsellers do to make the most of their work.

For those that dig in their heels and refuse to write to market (NOT write to trend), that is your choice, but what you then have to accept is that your success (and revenue) will likely be much less than someone who is specifically targeting their audience with what they write.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Salome Golding said:


> See, as with everything else, there is a trade-off. It all comes down to what you are prepared to give up. Being a professional writer comes with sacrifices - to make maximum returns you may be called upon to sacrifice your own tastes and your own enjoyment. Will I be willing to do that? Probably not to the level necessary to achieve Jana Deleon level of success. But that is ok as long as I acknowledge and accept that writing what I want to write may not bring the highest level of success, because it is not in a top-selling genre / I'm not willing to write the most popular tropes in a particular genre.


This is an entirely realistic and logical approach.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2017)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Idon't see how that's relevant.
> I don't doubt she has put a lot of work into her books. I don't doubt she is very successful. I don't even doubt the amount of work played a role in her success.
> What I do take umbridge with is the complete dismissal of luck as a fcator. What I see here is what Chuck Wendig calls Survivorship Bias - "I worked hard and that is why I succeeded were others didn't" seems to be a valid position to somebody successful, but it dismisses the hard work those less successful have done.
> 
> ...


It's why you check the weather forecast before the party. And if it's really important, you check the almanac. It may still rain, but you do what you can with the tools you have. Because you don't understand why something happens, or you can't wrap your head around causality, doesn't make things random. Beyond your control, yes. But that's just the way it is. 
Successful people in any profession offset the things beyond their control my maximizing the things they can impact. Where other people see good or bad luck, they see good or bad decisions. They see opportunities and make sure they are ready to take advantage of the situation. When it doesn't work out, they evaluate what went wrong. They don't chalk it up to bad luck. They alter their methods. They have the strength to be self-critical. 
You can't see everything coming. But you can be prepared for most eventualities. That way if it rains, it rains. 
Nine times out of ten, I can spend a few minutes and tell you why an author is not doing well. I promise you Jana can too. Not once have I ever thought it was bad luck. There is always a factor they are not seeing. Often they are unwilling to accept responsibility. But some do. Maybe that's why there are only a few spots at the table.


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## WyandVoidbringer (Jan 19, 2017)

Jana DeLeon said:


> For those that dig in their heels and refuse to write to market (NOT write to trend), that is your choice, but what you then have to accept is that your success (and revenue) will likely be much less than someone who is specifically targeting their audience with what they write.


But is this really true? You've mentioned your true passion is horror, but you don't write it due to the smaller market. But one of the most successful authors of all time is a horror writer.

I don't mean to knock writing to market at all, but it seems to me that many very successful authors created their own market with their writing.

As independent authors and publishers, we apply many business principles to the business of writing. I think one thing we tend to gloss over that's true in the business world is that many times consumers don't know what they want until you show it to them. The same can be true with writing. But, I'll admit, you need to be a darn good writer to be the 'next big thing.'


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Jana DeLeon said:


> For those that dig in their heels and refuse to write to market (NOT write to trend), that is your choice, but what you then have to accept is that your success (and revenue) will likely be much less than someone who is specifically targeting their audience with what they write.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That doesn't debunk what Jana said at all.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Idon't see how that's relevant.
> I don't doubt she has put a lot of work into her books. I don't doubt she is very successful. I don't even doubt the amount of work played a role in her success.
> What I do take umbridge with is the complete dismissal of luck as a fcator. What I see here is what Chuck Wendig calls Survivorship Bias - "I worked hard and that is why I succeeded were others didn't" seems to be a valid position to somebody successful, but it dismisses the hard work those less successful have done.
> 
> ...


Agree. (Except I don't think the backyard barbecue is the best example.)

It does seem that some people think that the concept of luck _negates_ or _diminishes_ or _wipes out_ the hard work they've put in, or whatever talent they have. That's silly-- the two ARE NOT mutually exclusive. But it's undeniable that there are times when something unforeseen, something outside of our control, something that can't be manipulated, happens and impacts our lives (careers) in some way. Whether the outcome is good or bad, that is what people call luck. A number of people have responded here that they "don't believe in luck," but in the next sentence acknowledge that circumstances beyond their control can have an effect on things. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.


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## WyandVoidbringer (Jan 19, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> That doesn't debunk what Jana said at all.


In business there are companies who perfect an existing product or industry and carve out their market share that way.

There are others who focus on innovation, creating a market with a product or idea where before there was none.

Both methods have their challenges and benefits, neither is superior to the other. I would argue that they need each other.

I don't see how writing is any different. On one hand, I can think of many great and successful authors who write to market, on the other I can think of many who wrote the story they had to tell, and discovered that readers loved it and rewarded them for it.


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

This_Way_Down said:


> Nine times out of ten, I can spend a few minutes and tell you why an author is not doing well. I promise you Jana can too. Not once have I ever thought it was bad luck. There is always a factor they are not seeing. Often they are unwilling to accept responsibility. But some do. Maybe that's why there are only a few spots at the table.


I completely agree. In many cases, it's very easy to tell why a book or series isn't selling, but most people don't want to hear that their covers need to be changed or the writing isn't up to par (or whatever the issue is). Those who can take advice from others who know what they're talking about often end up with good results.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

WyandVoidbringer said:


> In business there are companies who perfect an existing product or industry and carve out their market share that way.
> 
> There are others who focus on innovation, creating a market with a product or idea where before there was none.


The startup world is littered with the corpses of companies that tried to create markets. There are exceptions, but the exceptions define the rule.

The rule is that companies do a lot of market research to identify potential demand.



WyandVoidbringer said:


> One on hand, I can think of many great and successful authors who write to market, on the other I can think of many who wrote the story they had to tell, and discovered that readers loved it and rewarded them for it.


No one is saying the latter doesn't happen. When I read Jana's post, I inferred she was talking about having the _right expectations_ regarding commercial viability.

For example, I know a girl who wants to open a high-end cupcake shop in New York. She might create a market and experience remarkable success. Stranger things have happened. But to _expect as much_ would be unrealistic, and perhaps even delusional.


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## WyandVoidbringer (Jan 19, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> The startup world is littered with the corpses of companies that tried to create markets. There are exceptions, but the exceptions define the rule.
> 
> The rule is that companies do a lot of market research to identify potential demand.


If there are exceptions to a rule, then there is no rule. That's logic 101.

I'm not trying to stir the pot here, so I'll bow out of the discussion.

But if everyone always wrote to market, there would be no market to write to.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

WyandVoidbringer said:


> If there are exceptions to a rule, then there is no rule. That's logic 101.
> 
> I'm not trying to stir the pot here, so I'll bow out of the discussion.
> 
> But if everyone always wrote to market, there would be no market to write to.


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## WyandVoidbringer (Jan 19, 2017)

Anarchist said:


>


I get that a lot.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I think one of the most important things being forgotten in the luck vs. handwork debate are the intangibles. There's a reason they're so important and definite careers. Intangibles are what make Michael Jordan a better basketball player even though Lebron James is the better athlete. Intangibles can elevate people, and it's not luck. It's a variety of things coming together to create success ... including skill and hard work.
People want to pin everything on luck but I often get the feeling that's because they don't want to do the work and figure out why some things work when others don't. Many times there are explanations but you have to look deep and be honest -- even with yourself -- about why things succeed. More importantly, you need to look deep and ask the hard questions about why some things fail.
It's not always about craft or hard work. It's about things mixing together and working in the right way. It's not luck to me when you have to do eight different things to make one product fit the market and sell. That's skill, understanding, dedication, determination and the ability to keep going no matter what.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Let me ask you all this - if bestselling authors are only in their positions because somewhere along the line they got lucky, then why are any of you on a forum for writers seeking advice? Just sit back and wait. It will either happen or it won't.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2017)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Let me ask you all this - if bestselling authors are only in their positions because somewhere along the line they got lucky, then why are any of you on a forum for writers seeking advice? Just sit back and wait. It will either happen or it won't.


Jana wins the internet.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I guess what matters is: how are your beliefs helping and hurting you? If believing that success is due to luck makes you keep trying, maybe that's helpful. If that belief keeps you from an honest assessment of your work and weaknesses, or from listening to honest critical feedback (including reviews)--then your beliefs will hold you back. If you're not selling well and you think x writer whose work is positioned the same as yours but sells better is a hack and only doing better due to luck--instead, look and see what is working for x. Are her covers awesome while you made yours yourself? (Can't tell you how many people on here make their own covers and then talk about luck. A few people can successfully make their own covers. Most can't.) Is her writing grabbier? Read her reviews. What do readers love? What can you learn from her success? What's your takeaway? If it's "It's all luck," look harder. Because that belief is getting in your way.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

When I speak of luck, I'm referring more to the absence of bad luck. For example - and I'm not in any way mentioning this to garner sympathy, just to illustrate my point - a hereditary condition exists in my family. It has affected the males on the paternal side of my family tree, but it has not been debilitating or life-defining. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather have all lived fairly normal lives; the first male to be affected grievously is my son. He won't die early, but he will never live independently, and the disorder means his mother and I have very little free time or money. To be a successful author takes a lot of time and money. Now, if the disability had waited a generation before striking, our lives would be very different; we would certainly have a lot more time and money to assist in the pursuit of my writing dreams. Of course, if the curse had struck a generation earlier, or a generation earlier than that, I wouldn't be typing this.

BTW, I'm not making excuses. I've made plenty of mistakes without which I may have been far more successful, and I'm working hard to correct said mistakes. Plus, I'm sure there are plenty of other people in tougher situations who've achieved more.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Write to market sounds easy. Do the research sounds easy. Many of us aren't competent in that area. That's normal. Marketing and business development is not where we put our focus because we didn't know back then that we would need those skills. We didn't approach writing as a business because we didn't yet know that we needed to approach writing as a business.

We all begin where we begin from, for better or worse. There's no changing that. "Ought" and "supposed" and "should" and "need to" don't change that. We can't go back ten years and make different choices.


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## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

ThomasDiehl said:


> You can put as much work into your barbecue party as you want, when the weather forecast fails you and it's pouring, that's just bad luck and even if you have some tents to shield you from the rain, it won't be as good a party with the bad weather beating down on your tents and moods.


OK, but this example does not really equate being successful in something like self-publishing or anything where success is based on long term work, ability to take multiple shots on goal, improvement, and persistence.

Focusing on this one party failing is like putting out one unedited book a year with a cover that looks like it was made in MS paint in about 5 minutes with no marketing or promotion and hoping to retire off it.

Building a successful career as an author would be more like having a barbecue party every week or month or whatever, taking steps to mitigate bad weather ruining it beforehand, getting feedback from guests about what they like, improving your food and activities, letting everyone know about it effectively, hyping it up, and so on until you have the most undeniably enjoyable party that people can't resist and look forward to attending every time.

The bad luck situation you presented is only meaningful to something where you have only one shot at and there is no way to improve and succeed over a longer time frame. Reliance on luck diminishes with skill plus time.

Luck is only the deciding factor in things you can never ever influence; otherwise, it's really skill and knowledge over time that wins. It's also not about only focusing on simply working hard. You have to learn from and improve on what you have done before and not just keep doing the same "hard work" over and over even when it proves to not succeed.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think one of the most important things being forgotten in the luck vs. handwork debate are the intangibles. There's a reason they're so important and definite careers. Intangibles are what make Michael Jordan a better basketball player even though Lebron James is the better athlete. Intangibles can elevate people, and it's not luck. It's a variety of things coming together to create success ... including skill and hard work.
> People want to pin everything on luck but I often get the feeling that's because they don't want to do the work and figure out why some things work when others don't. Many times there are explanations but you have to look deep and be honest -- even with yourself -- about why things succeed. More importantly, you need to look deep and ask the hard questions about why some things fail.
> It's not always about craft or hard work. It's about things mixing together and working in the right way. It's not luck to me when you have to do eight different things to make one product fit the market and sell. That's skill, understanding, dedication, determination and the ability to keep going no matter what.


THIS + Jana and Rosalind's following comments.

Okay, I've only been at this for a blink of time and already I'm pivoting/fixing/figuring out how to get books to sell. It takes an honest assessment of what you're doing. A lot of authors relate to their work in an artistic and passionate way: you are not your work. They get so attached to their work that they can't see why readers aren't buying. If we want to succeed in this business, then we must be able to give readers what they want. It's about serving others, at least in my mind. When I buy a book, I'm looking for an emotional experience. I want to give readers the same...otherwise, why am I writing?

I know many writers who are so stubborn about "I will never give up writing for ME in order to make money", then they whine that they aren't selling. I sell hardly at all...but I'm fixing things that aren't working and improving what I do daily and it's working. Little by little, but it's working. And Jana is right. It isn't all about craft. It's about being business savvy, which is difficult for writers because, well, lol, we rather be alone writing! The thing is, welcoming this part of the gig can only help us grow as people and artists in general.

On writing to market: last year, I published my first book. It didn't sell. I published two more that didn't sell. I unpublished them and worked on craft + learned as much about the business before hitting publish again this January. A hard, honest look at what I was doing was necessary. It's not about me anymore, it's about my readers. If I want to achieve my dreams of writing for a living, if I want to provide my husband with some financial relief at some point, if I want to set a good example for my son about hard work, if I want to sell books until I die...then I must study the market, must continue honing my craft, must continue reading and learning, etc. This year, I'm doing a little better than I was in 2016. Why? Because I don't care anymore about what I want to write. I found a nice little sub-genre and am doing the best I can to write what readers love. And see, the thing is, many authors I know (most who aren't published yet) have this idea that readers will love their work just because they wrote something! No.

A friend's mother is a ravenous Y.A. fan. I don't read Y.A. but I pay attention to what she raves on about books. I want to know what it is that makes her so desperate to continue filling her Kindle. She also loves romance and I learn so much from conversations with her. Readers want an experience and if they can't relate to your story because it's too abstract and full of words they don't understand or whatever, then how can they attach themselves to character and story?

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. I truly believe that anyone who is successful at what they do is because they kept improving, learning, didn't quit. And most importantly, they wanted to serve others.


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## WyandVoidbringer (Jan 19, 2017)

Mari Oliver said:


> This year, I'm doing a little better than I was in 2016. Why? Because I don't care anymore about what I want to write.


This makes me sad.

Could it be that you're doing better because you learned to write better?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Rosalind J said:


> I guess what matters is: how are your beliefs helping and hurting you? If believing that success is due to luck makes you keep trying, maybe that's helpful. If that belief keeps you from an honest assessment of your work and weaknesses, or from listening to honest critical feedback (including reviews)--then your beliefs will hold you back. If you're not selling well and you think x writer whose work is positioned the same as yours but sells better is a hack and only doing better due to luck--instead, look and see what is working for x. Are her covers awesome while you made yours yourself? (Can't tell you how many people on here make their own covers and then talk about luck. A few people can successfully make their own covers. Most can't.) Is her writing grabbier? Read her reviews. What do readers love? What can you learn from her success? What's your takeaway? If it's "It's all luck," look harder. Because that belief is getting in your way.


This. All this.

In 2014 I'd been self-publishing for 4 years and writing full time trying to make a go of it for 5. I was a failure. I was super sick (bad luck, right?) and practically on bed rest unable to eat more than Gatorade for months. We were broke (husband laid off in 2011, took 3 years and a pivot in industries for him to find a job, I was basically unemployable at this point for multiple reasons including health, and my former poker career was dead thanks to Black Friday legislation and no money to move somewhere with live games or to stake me). I had over 40 products up (mostly short stories and novellas, a few novels) but nothing was selling very much, despite me putting money into professional covers etc and trying to prop those things up.

Lots of bad luck, right? Could have kept doing the things I'd been doing for four years and hoped it worked.

But... I didn't. I stopped doing everything I'd been doing for the last four years. I stopped pricing high and started looking at prices in my genre and what successful indies were doing. I stopped writing whatever I felt like and prioritizing volume over paying attention to the market. I focused and wrote a series designed to capture the market I wanted to hit. I spent the last bit of money we had (700 bucks on our last non-maxed credit card) for wow-factor covers and good editing on the first three books in a new series. In Aug of 2014 I released the first one at .99, despite being broke and scared of doing that and not making money on the first book. But that's a strat I'd seen from other, far more successful indies. I released book 2 three weeks later at 2.99, a price which my former mentors had told me over and over was only for short stories and had warned me was the bargain bin. To save us financially, I needed to make 1k in Aug. I made 5k. In Sept, I made over 20k. On just those two books. I released book 3 and then book 4 within 6 weeks of each other and had made just shy of six figures in the last part of 2014 alone. I had done no marketing beyond including the first book in a bundle with other authors (most of whom had very little audience, but we managed to sell a decent number of those, though my first book did better on its own in the end) (Bookbub kept rejecting me and didn't take a book of mine until well into 2015). This was the same summer KU happened, and I wasn't in KU, so that was maybe poor decision making on my part (I probably could have made more money in KU, but I was determined to be wide, oops). I haven't made less than six figures in the years since, though. Because I keep doing what works and keep trying stuff. The biz is always changing, and it pays to look at what works today instead of lamenting over what doesn't work anymore or never worked in the first place.

If that's luck, then it's amazing how I got magically lucky right when I stopped doing all the things that hadn't worked, and started doing things that I saw working well for others.

You can't change the circumstances of your birth. There's plenty of other things that happen (health issues etc) that you don't have much control over either. But when it comes to a writing career, there are tons of things we have control over. That should give people hope, not fill you with fear. As Rosalind said... if calling something luck lets you get through the scary things and do what you need to do, then... do it I guess. If it is holding you back from making hard decisions about your career or keeping you from changing up what isn't working, then saying "just luck" isn't useful.

If you want different results than the ones you are getting... do things differently. If you won't do things differently, then perhaps you need to learn to accept what you have.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

WyandVoidbringer said:


> This makes me sad.
> 
> Could it be that you're doing better because you learned to write better?


Oh, of course! I totally don't disregard that one bit, even though I've been writing seriously for 7 years and have been writing stories since I was a kid. BUT...the difference is that I've learned how to structure my stories properly and include tropes etc that readers love and trust. So yes to what you said.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Annie B said:


> If you want different results than the ones you are getting... do things differently. If you won't do things differently, then perhaps you need to learn to accept what you have.


This should be stickied at the top of this forum.


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## SC (Jan 6, 2017)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> As for the definition of luck - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions - we'll have to agree to disagree, I suppose.


Ha, yeah, I guess so. Because first I'd say, "Let's discuss what we mean by 'chance'," and then I'd argue that there's an awful lot that doesn't fall into either "chance" or "one's own actions".

I suspect we just have different ways of looking at the world, and that's okay.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

A few observations:

1. There's a difference between necessary and sufficient conditions for success. I don't dispute the necessary conditions laid out by Jana and others, and I admire their determination. Yet there are too many variables to imagine that these are sufficient for success. If they were, the traditional publishers, with their armies of marketers, editors, designers, and their massive budgets (etc.), would have long ago achieved a perfect track record.

On top of that, there are successes that have completely ignored most of the necessary conditions. Take Andy Weir. I liked his book, and I loved his personal story even more. By his own admission, he became a bestselling author despite his best effort not to be one. He not only did everything wrong, he wasn't even trying to do anything right. He only put his book for sale on Amazon because he couldn't make it free for his fans.

As for people claiming to be able to identify why a book fails or succeeds with any reliability, well, pardon me for being sceptical. Finding a reason that a book failed is easy because the variables are so numerous. But no one knows all of them, their relative weight, or how they interact. For example, one can play Captain Hindsight and claim that Weir's unorthodox road to success really did follow the orthodox pattern. But yours is a just-so story concocted after the fact to explain away luck and preserve your belief that it doesn't exist. No doubt such a story could also be concocted to explain away why _Cuckoo's Calling _wasn't a bestseller until its author was "accidently" revealed.

2. The luck versus talent, skill, and hard work dichotomy cuts both ways. Sure, people can attribute their all their failures to bad luck. But people can also mistake their good luck for the inevitable consequence of talent, skill, and hard work. Nothing is inevitable in the free market or any other complex system.

3. Survivorship bias is a real thing. Dozens of scientists can spend their lives working independently on the same discovery, but only one of them will be first to publish. When the first scientist to submit the paper becomes the second to publish because the editor of the journal decided to delay publishing his paper for a month, that scientist was the victim of bad luck. No one can predict such events.

Nonetheless, it's very easy to play Captain Hindsight when you know what happened. You can imagine, for example, that the first scientist to publish chose the right journal to publish in, blah, blah, blah. But again, that's a just-so story tailored to explain away luck.

4. Believing there's no such thing as luck might be a good psychological strategy and believing the opposite might be a bad one. I don't know. But I do know this: If you think disbelieving in luck is a good strategy, I recommend that you avoid trying to make the case that there's no such thing as luck because reality will not cooperate.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Shawna Canon said:


> Ha, yeah, I guess so. Because first I'd say, "Let's discuss what we mean by 'chance'," and then I'd argue that there's an awful lot that doesn't fall into either "chance" or "one's own actions".
> 
> I suspect we just have different ways of looking at the world, and that's okay.


I was thinking that myself, to be fair. The definition is flawed.

On the other hand, were it not for my son's condition, I would probably never have started writing in the first place. If I were as ignorant as Alanis Morissette, I'd call it ironic.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I'll note I'm not saying there is no such thing as luck. What I mean when I talk about looking at the things under your control is that luck isn't nearly the factor the way that people often want to think it is. There's plenty of luck (good and bad) that happens to everyone. However, if you are not succeeding in your life the way you want to be, looking at the things you do have under your control is often more useful than trying to examine all the ways in which you aren't lucky and people who are doing what you want to do are.

Luck is a thing.

So are self-examination, critical thinking skills, craft, business acumen, and all the other things that are entirely under your control in this business.  Focusing on the things not under your control seems less than useful if you want to change your circumstances.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Here's the publishing process as I understand it: imperfect writers create imperfect books, publish them through imperfect systems, advertise through imperfect systems, to be bought by imperfect people for imperfect reasons, who read them with imperfect judgement. Yet, I'm to believe that there's no luck involved in writing and publishing.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Here's the publishing process as I understand it: imperfect writers create imperfect books, publish them through imperfect systems, advertise through imperfect systems, to be bought by imperfect people for imperfect reasons, who read them with imperfect judgement. Yet, I'm to believe that there's no luck involved in writing and publishing.


I don't think anyone has said "_there's no luck involved in writing and publishing_."

Rather, several folks have posted that luck isn't the deciding factor in publishing success. Success can be engineered.

Ultimately, the discussion is academic. The two camps are entrenched. The line has been drawn in the sand, and there will be no converts to either creed.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

P.J. Post said:


> Snooki is a bestseller.


That's not luck. It's a very, very smart marketing person who knew how and when to jump on a trend.

Okay, well it's BAD luck for anyone who read it, but that doesn't count here.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

P.J. Post said:


> Snooki is a bestseller.


She's not, in the end. The books underperformed despite platform and marketing. Turns out that more than just celebrity and marketing matter.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Annie B said:


> She's not, in the end. The books underperformed despite platform and marketing. Turns out that more than just celebrity and marketing matter.


And then there's the part where she wasn't the author.


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## Guest (Apr 22, 2017)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Here's the publishing process as I understand it: imperfect writers create imperfect books, publish them through imperfect systems, advertise through imperfect systems, to be bought by imperfect people for imperfect reasons, who read them with imperfect judgement. Yet, I'm to believe that there's no luck involved in writing and publishing.


Yes. That is precisely what you are supposed to believe. Or you can sacrifice a goat to the book gods and hope they grant you sales. That and luck are the same things. 
Thinking luck factors in is a way to soften the blow when a writer fails time and again to gain traction. When you have several best selling authors mapping out the path to success, and explaining the reasons for failure, and those who haven't sold enough books to buy a candy bar with the royalties saying the opposite, well...it's not a quantum physics equation. 
I get it that some things look and feel like luck. But that's only because you can't see all the variables. And the experience you gain through success is unique. Once you have it, things look quite different. You notice things you didn't before. You see patterns and pitfalls you didn't realize were there. Some writers can see them beforehand and use the insight as an initial springboard. But most people simply cannot learn from the experience of others; even when they are open to the idea. This is a natural human failing.


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## Ethel_Abbott (May 9, 2016)

This_Way_Down said:


> This is a natural human failing.


Another human failing is attribution bias. Not to mention spectacularly bad pattern recognition. The results of these failings run both ways, of course. People who fail at something tend to blame extrinsic factors ("bad luck") while people who succeed tend to credit intrinsic factors ("smarts" and "hard work"). Either narrative could be correct in any individual case, of course. Arguing either extreme 100% of the time is bound to be be wrong.

Of course sustained success requires hard work. How irksome it must be for those who've achieved it to have that work dismissed as pure luck! And, in publishing, where success typically comes only with perseverance and practice, one could feel justified in dismissing those who either refuse to put in the work or quit too soon when instant reward is not forthcoming.

On the other hand, some in this thread seem to be arguing that I could be Michael Jordan if I just worked hard enough at it. That he never had a lucky shot? (I bet he wouldn't agree with this, btw.) This seems like a ludicrous proposition to me, that people have the equal potential for success in any given domain. Or that you can't be both good AND lucky. Michael Jordan was born with a once-in-generation talent for basketball, which he then worked very hard to develop. Of course luck plays some part. What if he'd been born in 1600 with those same talents? They would have been utterly wasted. Likewise, some people are no doubt better authors than others, and even more relevant for this discussion, their specific talents may align extremely well for indie success. They write fast and love genre-friendly stories. For writers who lack these attributes, yes, having that built-in leg up no doubt looks like "luck." Yes, they could work on developing their own skills in these areas, but in the same way that I am never going to be Michael Jordan, these authors may never develop far enough to make a comfortable living from their books, let alone sell millions. In a related vein, authors entering the indie market today face a different environment than those who broke ground five years ago. So when you began your indie career is itself partly a kind of luck. (No guarantee, of course. You still need hard work and talent to deliver. But some in this thread seem to be arguing that no one who works hard and tries to follow the path of success ever fails.)

Then there are other bits where luck as traditionally considered plays a more obvious role. I won a novel writing contest that typically features about 500 applicants. Even if you go by the 80-20 rule and imagine that 80% of these stories were crap, that still leaves a 1 in 100 chance. I won, so yay, go me! But maybe in a different year, or with a different set of judges, one of those other 99 books would have won instead. All I can do is seize the opportunity I was given and run with it. (This is where the hard work comes in.) But even as I enjoy the cascade of good fortune that comes from my win (literary agents line up, I get a big-five publicist, etc.), I can see how easily it could have gone the other way. So, while I can certainly acknowledge the work I've put in over the years and hope it's paid off, I'd be crazy to look at these other 99 authors and sneer that they just aren't as good, didn't work as hard, etc.


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## Guest (Apr 22, 2017)

Lorri Moulton said:


> First of all, I am really sad about the way this thread has gone in the past few days.
> 
> Second, looking at this from an economic standpoint, it's not really correct to compare authors today with authors a few years ago. As more authors enter Amazon and Kindle, the competition increases and new authors are not given the same opportunity as authors, who have already established a following.
> 
> ...


I don't want to come off as heartless. I am sorry for your troubles. Truly.
However, your premise that it is harder now than it was a few years ago when this all kicked off is inaccurate. I've seen scores of new stars rise. And I've seen writers I saw at the top years ago fade away. 
I was around during the first indie explosion and it was then I gained notoriety. In those days, our resources were almost nonexistent. We didn't have access to the editors, cover artist, and marketing available today. There were no predecessors to guide us. Basically, we were making it up as we went along. We kept the things that worked and cast aside things that didn't. And if you think the traditional world bashes us now...holy crap, did they ever beat the tar out of us then.
Today, an up and coming writer has access to the best services available anywhere. An indie can produce a book of equal quality to anything the Big 5 puts out. Sure there are more writers out there. But the bar is so much higher, about the same number can reach it as when this began. And even the traditional world is starting to give us the respect we are due.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

This_Way_Down said:


> Thinking luck factors in is a way to soften the blow when a writer fails time and again to gain traction.


Maybe sometimes, but not always. I believe in luck, my own good luck. It's part of the explanation for why I'm successful by my standards - four figures a month every month since June 2010. And I'm retired, write part-time, only do one book a year, and don't promote. IMO luck has a lot to do with it. I got to start in 2010 when interesting, well-edited indie books stood out a lot more than they do today, and I ended up with a following from word of mouth. On the worked-hard side I'm the one who writes and edits the stories, and IMO it's hard work.

I haven't read every post in this thread, so maybe someone has already mentioned him, but Konrath, who is full-time, does promote, and is very successful also believes luck is a contributing factor, and again, he's talking about his own good luck.

I don't think anyone who believes luck is a significant factor also believes that it will "make" a writer who puts in no effort. Whether luck can keep someone from being successful depends on what you call luck. It seems to me in extreme cases it can. An illness one can recover from would be one thing, for instance, maybe just cause a setback. However, in my time on KBoards there have been members who died or suffered strokes. You can't claim those people are using bad luck as an excuse. Well, you can, but you'd be wrong.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I just can't believe the comments about illnesses that have been left on this thread. I am very sad that this forum would condone such behavior.


This forum doesn't condone it, and, in fact, the comments have been removed.

Let's continue the discussion.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I know that's not your entire quote, but that was my point.
> 
> As for my troubles, I said that so people would NOT think this was about me. Life happens. I'm glad we survived it. I just can't believe the comments about illnesses that have been left on this thread. I am very sad that this forum would condone such behavior.


That's why I pointed out my example. I found success after KU was a thing, less than 3 years ago, without using KU/Select. My rise is pretty new and was into much the same situation that someone looking to change up things and break out will face today. Is it tough? Sure. It was tough last year and in 2015 and in 2014 etc. But are there tons of resources that weren't around in 2010 and 2011 and 2012? Yes. Do those help? Absolutely. Is making use of the best resources you can and figuring out what advice will get you the results you want luck? Nope. That's all I'm saying. It's not easy, but there are so many resources and ways to get help and good advice now that despite writing being as tough as ever to do well and find readership in... it's not all up to luck unless you leave it all up to luck. Focus on the things that you can control, and you might be surprised how much better your results are. I was.

The narrative that it is so much tougher now than X years ago... it's always been tough. It's tough in different ways from year to year, but it isn't going to get easier. So you can sit on your bum and wish for the good old days, or you can get with the times, figure out what is working NOW, and do it. I know which of those I find more fun and rewarding, personally


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2017)

ellenoc said:


> Maybe sometimes, but not always. I believe in luck, my own good luck. It's part of the explanation for why I'm successful by my standards - four figures a month every month since June 2010. And I'm retired, write part-time, only do one book a year, and don't promote. IMO luck has a lot to do with it. I got to start in 2010 when interesting, well-edited indie books stood out a lot more than they do today, and I ended up with a following from word of mouth. On the worked-hard side I'm the one who writes and edits the stories, and IMO it's hard work.
> 
> I haven't read every post in this thread, so maybe someone has already mentioned him, but Konrath, who is full-time, does promote, and is very successful also believes luck is a contributing factor, and again, he's talking about his own good luck.
> 
> I don't think anyone who believes luck is a significant factor also believes that it will "make" a writer who puts in no effort. Whether luck can keep someone from being successful depends on what you call luck. It seems to me in extreme cases it can. An illness one can recover from would be one thing, for instance, maybe just cause a setback. However, in my time on KBoards there have been members who died or suffered strokes. You can't claim those people are using bad luck as an excuse. Well, you can, but you'd be wrong.


There are factors we can neither anticipate or control. But my personal experience is that the inability to see a good thing or a bad thing heading down the pipeline has everything to do with a lack of perspective. If I step into the road and get hit by a car, the car was already coming. I didn't see it. Had I, I would have avoided the danger. 
If I release a book at a certain time and it sells better than the one I released at a different time, and I repeat this and it works twice, I've gained perspective. If I listened to a experienced author, I learned from another's experience. Either way, I increased my ability to avoid mistakes and take advantage of opportunities. 
We can't see everything coming. But as we learn, and success increases, it starts to look like luck from the outside. But in truth it is nothing more magical or perplexing than applying what we've learned.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Just had to delete a post. Folks, either the thread's discussion can move past Shawna's comment*, or it can't. Comments like the one she made are not acceptable, but neither are attacks on her.



*which has since been deleted.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Lorri Moulton said:


> Second, looking at this from an economic standpoint, it's not really correct to compare authors today with authors a few years ago. As more authors enter Amazon and Kindle, the competition increases and new authors are not given the same opportunity as authors, who have already established a following.
> 
> I'm not talking about luck this time. I'm talking about market demand and an ever increasing supply. Can hard working authors still be successful? Absolutely. Will they have to work harder to get noticed with the ever increasing number of books available on Kindle and Amazon? Probably so.
> 
> Not trying to imply that everyone, who talks about all their hard work has been around four, five or six years. Just saying, let's compare oranges to oranges, if we're going to talk market share.


I'm 18 months in, and am generating what most people would consider a solid full-time income in Southern California (as opposed to Mississippi or Tennessee) from fewer than 10 books.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

This_Way_Down said:


> I get it that some things look and feel like luck. But that's only because you can't see all the variables.


Actually, I think that some people don't acknowledge luck because they can't see all the variables. By definition, luck is unexpected and unforeseeable, so people can't factor "unknown" or "by chance" instances into an equation.

And, as has been repeated time and again on this thread, NOBODY thinks luck is the _only_ factor in success, especially in continued success. Luck can give someone a break, but it's up to them to make the most of it (via hard work & talent) for continued success. I don't think it's that difficult a concept to grasp.

I recently heard a story about an actor (years ago) who was going to read for the lead in a new TV show. There was something he did at the reading, something perfectly run-of-the-mill, but the producers were struck by this action and decided to cast the actor for the role. That bit of LUCK (i.e., the fact that his action made an impression on the Powers That Be) got the actor the role. Of course, it wasn't luck that made the show a long-running hit-- that was talent and effort. But luck got the actor in the door, so that he was _able_ to demonstrate his skills and hard work, which helped sustain the show's success. Not to mention his own career.


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## Sam B (Mar 28, 2017)

Jena H said:


> Actually, I think that some people don't acknowledge luck because they can't see all the variables. By definition, luck is unexpected and unforeseeable, so people can't factor "unknown" or "by chance" instances into an equation.
> 
> And, as has been repeated time and again on this thread, NOBODY thinks luck is the _only_ factor in success, especially in continued success. Luck can give someone a break, but it's up to them to make the most of it (via hard work & talent) for continued success. I don't think it's that difficult a concept to grasp.
> 
> I recently heard a story about an actor (years ago) who was going to read for the lead in a new TV show. There was something he did at the reading, something perfectly run-of-the-mill, but the producers were struck by this action and decided to cast the actor for the role. That bit of LUCK (i.e., the fact that his action made an impression on the Powers That Be) got the actor the role. Of course, it wasn't luck that made the show a long-running hit-- that was talent and effort. But luck got the actor in the door, so that he was _able_ to demonstrate his skills and hard work, which helped sustain the show's success. Not to mention his own career.


This sums up what I keep thinking, reading this.

Of course success isn't all about luck. Most successful people work very hard to get where they are, and make smart choices along the way. But that doesn't mean that luck isn't a factor, too. A person can do all the hard work and still fail. A person can do a middling job and still have great success.

The thing is, if you don't do the work, you'll almost certainly fail. If you do, it doesn't mean you'll definitely succeed.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Pity she couldn't take comfort in the fact that she had succeded where thousands in the slush pile behind her had failed, with her just getting an agent.

Just completing an outline for a new story to me is a success. All she failed to to do was to get a publishing contract, which was obviously her only motivatation as there is no mention of self-publishing.

It takes a tremendous amount of self-discipline and motivation to complete a story without any certainty of financial success or critical aclaim. I can understand that not everyone is prepared to devote their time for no reward if they have other more pressing things to do when their dream doesn't come to fruition after years of hard work. I do think though that when that happens, you should just walk away, lesson learned. Or in the case of indie authors, write a book about it and self-publish it as one last throw of the dice. Or maybe not a last throw......


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

It's not that easy to write a book that resonates with lots and lots (or lots and lots and lots) of people. It may be hard to pinpoint exactly why that book resonated, but that doesn't make it resonate any less.

A good friend who reads tons of sci-fi (which I don't), talked to me at length when he was reading The Martian. It sounded so intriguing, I got it on Kindle and Audible for hubby--who also doesn't read sci-fi, but is an engineer, and it sounded like a book he'd really like. I read a bit of it myself, then I listened on Audible, then I read it. Then I went to the movie. Then I took hubby to the movie.

And neither of us normally read sci-fi. I can tell you that that book interested me on a human scale--engaging my emotions--and on a problem-solving, what-an-interesting-dilemma scale. It made me laugh. I got super tense at the end. The guy wrote an amazingly, incredibly hooky book that was accessible to all kinds of readers.

That's not luck. That's skill. 

It may be luck to have your first book sell. It's not luck to keep on writing and selling books, series after series, year after year. And as I said way, way upthread--just because you can't tease apart all the strands of why an author does well and keeps doing well--that doesn't mean it's luck or random chance. It's all sorts of factors, but they end up in a book that engages a lot of readers to the point that they talk about an author or a book.

I could tell you why my NZ series continues to be my most popular. I know why. Everything I've written has sold, but those books are actually loved by some readers, read and re-read, for reasons that have something to do with me and something more to do with the quality of the country that motivated me to try writing fiction in the first place. I didn't write that first book by accident. It was a choice. I knew it would be engaging. I started writing my first fiction and quit my job a week later, and I never, ever take those kinds of risks. But it wasn't magic. It was marketing in its most basic sense--the thing I often say. The most important marketing happens before you publish your book. And the first, most elemental part of that is the concept.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I only write because of tragic life events, the clinical depression that followed, and the eventual recovery and all it entailed. Certainly we are all the product of our genes and our circumstances and our choices. That doesn't make an individual author's writing success random. Certainly I'm grateful for many of my circumstances and sorry about a few others. I'm glad, for one thing, that I found out at age 52 that I could write a book, and that as it turned out, I'd waited to do that until there was this thing called self-publishing. I'm glad I'm intelligent, well educated, married, reasonably well off, and born in the western world. But that's a pretty macro view of luck that isn't all that helpful to anybody except perhaps to bring humility. 

Control the things you can. Work to your strengths. Improve on your weaknesses. Recognize that few people get rich writing fiction if that is calming or makes you reevaluate your goals. And if it were me and my goals included making money, I'd go for advice on that to people who are doing it. 

And I think you missed my whole point. Writing an engaging, hooky book is skill, but not just in writing ability. The skill is also in knowing what kind of stories people like to read and then telling them. The most important marketing happens before you publish your book. It is the marriage between your idea and the engaging way you spell it out. Your characters and your life view, your voice. Maybe it's pretty writing and maybe it isn't, when you put the reader right there. But that isn't even the most important thing. You put her where she's interested to be.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> Ultimately, the discussion is academic. The two camps are entrenched. The line has been drawn in the sand, and there will be no converts to either creed.


Yes, this. And the fact there are about five different definitions of luck floating around here.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

P.J. Post said:


> EL James. Pure luck. Her's was one of timing. She didn't launch a phenomenon on purpose, this wasn't the result of careful planning or insightful business acuity, she was writing dirty Twilight fan fiction for kicks. If she'd done it a few years earlier, it probably would not have worked, a few years later and NA romance would have already been established and it wouldn't have been so shocking. Beyond that, it was still pure luck, luck-luck-luckity-luck-luck. No one could have predicted this phenomenon - no one could have accounted for this variable. We know this because no one did.


50 Shades is interesting in the hard work debate, too.
I'd argue had more work been put into research about the bdsm scene and its standards instead of completely misrepresenting it to the joy of the uneducated, the book would have suffered for it.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Rosalind J said:


> I only write because of tragic life events, the clinical depression that followed, and the eventual recovery and all it entailed. Certainly we are all the product of our genes and our circumstances and our choices. That doesn't make an individual author's writing success random. Certainly I'm grateful for many of my circumstances and sorry about a few others. I'm glad, for one thing, that I found out at age 52 that I could write a book, and that as it turned out, I'd waited to do that until there was this thing called self-publishing. I'm glad I'm intelligent, well educated, married, reasonably well off, and born in the western world. But that's a pretty macro view of luck that isn't all that helpful to anybody except perhaps to bring humility.
> 
> Control the things you can. Work to your strengths. Improve on your weaknesses. Recognize that few people get rich writing fiction if that is calming or makes you reevaluate your goals. And if it were me and my goals included making money, I'd go for advice on that to people who are doing it.
> 
> And I think you missed my whole point. Writing an engaging, hooky book is skill, but not just in writing ability. The skill is also in knowing what kind of stories people like to read and then telling them. The most important marketing happens before you publish your book. It is the marriage between your idea and the engaging way you spell it out. Your characters and your life view, your voice. Maybe it's pretty writing and maybe it isn't, when you put the reader right there. But that isn't even the most important thing. You put her where she's interested to be.


What Rosalind said. Saying "luck" isn't that useful in the end. You don't control luck. You do control a lot of other aspects of this business. Hugh hit it with that novelette, sure, but... he also recognized that finally, after a bunch of failed stuff he'd published, he had something and he dropped everything to write more of it. That wasn't luck, that was him making a smart decision that another author might not have made (because they wanted to write something else or they didn't feel that into it or whatever reason).

If your career isn't going the way you want, look at the things you do control and change them up. Listen to those who are doing what you want to do successfully. Throwing up your hands and saying "so and so just got lucky" never helped anyone. Ever. Help yourself. Make a change if you want something different than what you have.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

I think several ladders are resting on different walls here and those at the top of them don't realize it.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

thesmallprint said:


> I think several ladders are resting on different walls here and those at the top of them don't realize it.


I think "those at the top" realize exactly where they are and how they got there, and dismissing their success as luck is disrespectful and rude. Not to mention that it comes across as whiny and self-pitying: "I could be just as successful as that writer if I had their luck!"


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

Trying to follow this conversation and agree with ThomasDiehl.

So far there's been little consensus on what luck means exactly. With different definitions that everyone's using, it's no wonder the conversation has gone circular.

I was following you, TwistedTales, right up to this point:



TwistedTales said:


> Even with all of the above you will need a smattering of luck. You need to meet the right people at the right time with the right thingamy.


In which the luck is bolstered by doing all of the above things.



TwistedTales said:


> Anyone who wants their gravy train to continue will want to believe they can control it, otherwise it just might end. News flash, you don't control the entire ecosystem so there is always an element of luck involved. You can set the stage and even increase your chance for success, but you can't guarantee it. If you could then we'd all be rich, now wouldn't we?


No, you can't control the entire ecosystem, but why would anyone want to? It's akin to herding cats, seems to me. I don't know of many successful writers who actually _believe_ they can control _anything_.

But the discerning writer, the thoughtful writer, the writer who is paying attention to the shifts in markets, the writer who tracks the trends and watches the ebb and flow of their genre certainly gives themselves a leg up if they can shift to stay with it.



TwistedTales said:


> When you fail (all businesses have a lifecycle), you'll kill yourself believing you just need to work harder, when it might be a change in environment that's causing the problem.


Isn't that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing, expecting a different result?

So would doing something new to make the shift to go with the market (or in this case, the change in the lifecycle) be considered luck? Or hard work?

Like what has threaded through the conversation, I think luck, or the chances of luck striking, increase with hard work and knowing the field (in this case, writing) that you're in.


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2017)

LadyG said:


> I think "those at the top" realize exactly where they are and how they got there, and dismissing their success as luck is disrespectful and rude. Not to mention that it comes across as whiny and self-pitying: "I could be just as successful as that writer if I had their luck!"


It does indeed. 
What compounds it is that many of those wishing for luck to fall on their heads are the same people who refuse to listen when experienced, successful writers try to point out what they are doing wrong. There are writers who only want to hear that what they did was correct; that it was just bad luck. It doesn't matter that writers who have sold millions of copies are telling them otherwise. Who wants their opinion anyway? 
Being a good writer takes a combination of skill and talent. Very few people have this. If there is such a thing as luck, it's being born with it. Though the skill end of it is learned, talent is not. Every writer I know who is doing well and making a living has it. The level of business acumen varies. As does the amount of drive. That is what separates the 5, 6, and 7 figure earners from one another. 
I am in no way suggesting that if a writer lacks the talent they should quit writing. And talent can be subjective. In fact, I know a very talented writer who after several failed novels realized that although she was a poor writer of genre fiction, she was excellent at non-fiction and biographies. She could not make a story come together, even though her writing skills were spot on. But she could make cold facts interesting and compelling. I can't do that. I can write a fun story that people enjoy reading. That's what I do and where my talent lies.


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2017)

I will add one thing a friend in another forum said: At what point does luck kick in? 10 sales? 100? 1000? 10000? When exactly does luck become a factor?


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

This_Way_Down said:


> I will add one thing a friend in another forum said: At what point does luck kick in? 10 sales? 100? 1000? 10000? When exactly does luck become a factor?


A very good question.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

LadyG said:


> I think "those at the top" realize exactly where they are and how they got there, and dismissing their success as luck is disrespectful and rude. Not to mention that it comes across as whiny and self-pitying: "I could be just as successful as that writer if I had their luck!"


What I meant was that they are at the top of the ladders debating this subject 'over the wall' and believing they are talking about the same thing. Trouble is that some are talking about different things, effectively arguing (without realizing it) that apples are pears - their ladders are not resting on the same wall even though they believe they are.


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## ############# (Nov 2, 2016)

TwistedTales said:


> I'm not sure we're disagreeing. Hard work makes a difference, but it alone doesn't guarantee success. Everything else has to be right and then you better be in the right place at the right time.


I thought so. If it's any consequence, I did agree with you.



TwistedTales said:


> Look, this is pretty silly argument so I'm going to bow out. Other than allowing people to express their polarized beliefs it's not proving anything other than people have different belief systems.


I agree here, too. I just thought you said some really relevant things and...ah hell. Maybe I'll go have coffee, instead.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> In my experience, hard work will get me a very high six digit income, but to make multi millions I've had to hit the right person/people at the right time with the right thingamy. Is that luck? Yes, because I could just as easily not have met that person or situation when I did. Events have conspired in just the right way to create serendipity.


To my mind, this paragraph epitomises why so many people on this thread are talking at cross purposes. You can't extrapolate from your own personal experience to generalities. You just can't. One individual can say: I became mega-successful because of good luck. Another can say: I made it by dint of hard word and having/acquiring the necessary skills. And they're both right, because that is their experience and no one can (or should) deny them the right to define success however they want.

I don't have a dog in this race because I'm a long way from being successful in the terms we're discussing here. Why is that? Is it just my bad luck? After all, I've worked hard, I've published regularly, I've done promo... so why aren't earning a six-figure income? The answer's simple, and luck has nothing to do with it. I don't write to market (can't and won't, because those are not the sort of books I enjoy). I write the sort of quirky, slightly off-kilter stories I like to read. The market for that's limited. And I'm a slow learner. It's taken me two years to realise that my fantasy covers were not aligned with what was in the books. I'm aware that my Regency covers are not aligned with the top sellers in the genre (but I like them and they are aligned with what's in the books, so I'm keeping them). I'm only just now trying to get to grips with FB ads. I'm conservative, not a risk-taker and I don't do networking. Not that any of these things are essential, but they all help, a little bit. Those of us who don't do them make success just that bit harder to achieve.

But even though I'm not anyone's idea of a successful author, I can see what other people do and how they do it. In the two and a half years I've been publishing, I've seen authors who engineered their own success, no luck involved, just hard work, determination and sometimes sheer bloody-mindedness. I've also seen authors who became successful by way of a lucky break, and sometimes they were smart enough to capitalise on that and sometimes they weren't.

Luck can happen (however you define luck). But I don't think anyone in this business sustains a successful career over several years by way of luck.

PS I see that Amanda's already won the thread.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

LadyG said:


> I think "those at the top" realize exactly where they are and how they got there, and dismissing their success as luck is disrespectful and rude. Not to mention that it comes across as whiny and self-pitying: "I could be just as successful as that writer if I had their luck!"


THANK YOU!


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.


Yeah, I already suggested that, but the "luck" crowd is ignoring the post altogether. Wonder why. Maybe because it's as absurd as it sounds.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.


Good idea. Except I don't recall anyone saying that success is "all luck," so I guess that won't work.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.


I think we all know which group would be more successful.

It's hard to argue that luck--or at least random variables of uncertain origin--plays some role. The famous actress, Lana Turner, was discovered in a drug store, though apparently not the one that afterward claimed the honor. http://www.playgroundtothestars.com/2013/06/schwabs-drug-store-where-lana-turner-was-not-discovered/ If that isn't random, I don't know what is. (Of course, if she hadn't been able to act, that break wouldn't have done her much good.) More recently, Taylor Lautner got his first movie role (Shark Boy in _Shark Boy and Lava Girl_) because the director's two young sons--who were also largely writing the script(!)--liked him. (One of the special features is his audition. Daddy Director says something like, "Don't you want to see others?" And one of the boys says, "No, we like him!") Had those two boys had slightly different tastes, things might have gone very differently. Not luck exactly, but certainly an outcome that couldn't have been predicted in advance. Keep in mind, too, that an eight-year-old was the deciding factor in the publication of the first Harry Potter book--which Bloomsbury picked up reluctantly, even though they "knew" it wouldn't be a big seller! http://www.biography.com/news/jk-rowling-harry-potter-facts Again, not exactly luck, but success resting on a very narrow foundation: the reaction of one eight-year-old. If the girl had been grumpy that day, perhaps JK Rowling would never have been published.

Stories like that get told a lot because there's something fun about them. They encourage us to think that anything is possible. However, they are wildly atypical, and even though the moment of first success might have involved luck, a lot of talent and hard work went into the process. JK Rowling had written a great book, which much increased the odds that a random eight-year-old might like it.

It's nice to dream about getting a lucky break but foolish to not lay the foundation. Yes, one can also find examples in which someone did everything right and still failed--but would they have been more successful by not putting the work in? Hardly!


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.


I like it. But sadly, that's not how it's done on the interwebz.

The traditional approach is to make an assertion, offer no evidence of said assertion, and dig in one's heels. At which point, the discussion persists as follows...


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2017)

If you want to be in the right place at the right time, you go there yourself. If I want to meet industry professionals, I go to conventions, BOA, etc. You have do your homework then place yourself into the situations. You have build networks - both online and face to face. It's not going to just happen out of the blue. I met my agent through a referral. I got the referral through networking.  
I looked at the authors in my genre and tried to learn from them. I befriended them. I asked what I can do to get better. I interacted with readers and joined book clubs. I listened to what they had to say and what made them want to read a book. 
You want an agent? Go places where agents congregate. Talk to them. Get to know them. Ask questions. Learn what you can do to make your career better. 
Proactive people are successful, not lucky. They put themselves in a position to move forward. They look for a way to get things done, not a way to make excuses. And they never rely on luck.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

This_Way_Down said:


> And they never rely on luck.


Excellent advice. Although nobody has suggested that people "rely on luck."


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jena H said:


> Good idea. Except I don't recall anyone saying that success is "all luck," so I guess that won't work.


I do wonder how different this thread would look if the "anti-luck" crowd were engaging with the argument the other side actually seems to be making, which is not that it's _all luck_ (an assertion I think 99.9% of us would slap the "obviously ridiculous" label on), but that _random events play a part_ in both success and failure.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> I do wonder how different this thread would look if the "anti-luck" crowd were engaging with the argument the other side actually seems to be making, which is not that it's _all luck_ (an assertion I think 99.9% of us would slap the "obviously ridiculous" label on), but that _random events play a part_ in both success and failure.


This

I'm astounded at the number of intelligent people here who are carrying on arguing so vehemently against an assertion that was never made. We are writers too; supposed experts in communication.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think the only way to settle this is to do an experiment. Everyone who believes it's all luck should sit back, do nothing, and wait for it to happen. Those who believe it's a combination of factors -- hard work, skill and determination being the big ones -- should keep utilizing those tactics. In a year we'll meet back here and compare notes.





LadyG said:


> I think "those at the top" realize exactly where they are and how they got there, and dismissing their success as luck is disrespectful and rude. Not to mention that it comes across as whiny and self-pitying: "I could be just as successful as that writer if I had their luck!"


See this is where this thread keeps flying so wildly off into the blue yonder. Totally different definitions of 'luck'. To the point where some people actually think any suggestion of it being a factor in life is an insult. For my part 'luck' just means things that are not wholly in our control and without which success would not be possible. Starting with being born in a healthy body with a human brain. That includes innate gifts and intelligence. None of this means, and I don't think anyone has said, that there are not _other_ things- things entirely or almost entirely within our control without which success would be _equally_ impossible.

Fortunately most complex things, writing among them, have a huge variety of factors that go into them, both within and outside our control, so that there are a great many paths to success. Still, there is not a path in for everybody. Some people may refuse to take actions that are within their control and fail, despite all kinds of lucky breaks. Others will do everything possible within their control but just be missing a very basic form of talent - perhaps one so common that most people can take it for granted and don't think of themselves as being in any way 'lucky' to have it.

Most of you coming down on the 'nothing to do with luck' side are probably thinking of concrete examples in your lives of people who not only refused to take actions within their control but then attributed their failure to 'bad luck'. And perhaps even attributed your _success_ to luck. Obviously this is ridiculous and you're right to call out that sort of behavior when you see it.

But most of us coming down on the 'luck is always a factor' side are likely thinking of equally concrete examples in our lives of people- often people very dear to us- who worked their hearts out and just couldn't catch a break. They may have blamed themselves and doubled down on the work, perhaps harming their health in the process. And we, too, may have heard these people being slighted and sneered at by people who believed that hard work would always be rewarded, and that the only reason for failure was not trying hard enough, not trying enough different things or not wanting it badly enough.

All of which to say, this is a very emotional argument. Consider, if you find yourself starting to feel angry or insulted, that what you hear is being filtered through your own experience. And may not be at all what the other side said.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I do wonder how different this thread would look if the "anti-luck" crowd were engaging with the argument the other side actually seems to be making, which is not that it's _all luck_ (an assertion I think 99.9% of us would slap the "obviously ridiculous" label on), but that _random events play a part_ in both success and failure.


Plenty of us have tried to point out that anybody's best bet is to work on the things that are under their control, since the rest of it is . . . well, not under their control.

The thing is that people ask on KBoards all the time, "Why isn't my book selling?", successful people tell them, and then we get told (a) don't give feedback, (b) you're mean, (c) it's all luck, (d) my cover is awesome and that's not the problem. My writing is awesome and that's not the problem.

The truth is that most books don't sell, because it's not easy to write a really engaging book that lots and lots of people want to read, and after that, you have to make good choices on presentation and promotion. But it's the "lots and lots want to read" part that's the hardest.

You probably won't know until you put the book out there whether you're capable of writing something lots and lots of people want to read. Everybody I know who's had it happen is surprised. The problem is that there's an element of pixie dust to it that isn't pixie dust at all--it's real. But it's hard to dissect, so it's hard to emulate. All anybody can do is take their very best shot at writing, then their very best shot at presentation and promotion, perhaps listening to and learning from those who are already selling well along the way. And then you put on your hard-nosed glasses (so to speak) and evaluate what you did well and not so well, adjust, and try again. And see.

I think the problem is that "anyone can be a bestselling author" is a fallacy. If there were some trick, surely it would've been learned by now. But you don't know whether you're one of the people who CAN be one until you give it your best shot, including recognizing and correcting your missteps as Annie B did.

And I realize I just put a target on my back as an entitled jerk, but that's the real issue as I see it. And now, Real Life calls pretty insistently, the Real Life that's been keeping me from working at all and will definitely bite me in the butt, so nobody else really needs to step in to help.  I've got this.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I'm going to weigh in a bit here about luck. I do think that luck plays a part in getting to the top. It does. How many times have we read about first time novelists putting up a book in a crowded genre - no audience, no promotions, no nothing - and seeing that book rocket up the charts? There HAS to be an element of luck in there, because how else is that book being seen? Perhaps it was picked up by a big-time book blogger, or a friend of said blogger who urged that blogger to review and promote it. Or...I don't know. But I've seen so many cases where somebody rockets out of the gate and says "I don't know what happened. The book just started selling a ton." They somehow, someway, got the new-author visibility issue resolved, and nobody quite knows how. 

That said...That said...You HAVE to have a decent book. Otherwise, even if your book is super-visible for whatever reason, and it rockets out of the gate, the only thing that will happen is that you will get initial readers who will come after you with pitchforks, as opposed to buying everything else you write. So, yeah, you have to work hard to get that amazing book out there. 

But nobody can deny that there are probably a zillion amazing books that never get visibility, so they sink to the bottom - because they're getting zero visibility. It's the getting the initial visibility that is the element of luck, IMHO. I remember one book in particular that was so good that a whole bunch of KBoarders were raving about it, and I think that it sold very few copies. No visibility, but that author was a great author, and she put out a series that rocketed out of the gate. You can't keep talent down!

To make it as a new author in a hot genre, unless you have friends in high places and/or a huge ad spend budget, you need luck to get to the top + an amazing resonating book. You need both things.

I personally feel fortunate with my new legal thriller series. I pretty much decided, before I wrote these books, that I wasn't going to sell much until I got about 4-5 books out and I started to promote. But I have a lovely friend who somehow, someway, figured out that I was writing legal thrillers, and he sent his mailing list of 10,000 a promo for my first book. That started the snowball where that book got on the HNR for legal thrillers, and I was in his also-bots, and my pre-order for Book Two did the same, and then upon release Book Two got on the HNR for legal thrillers, and the next pre-order is on there, too. I haven't sold a ton by most people's standards, but it has definitely lifted me out of my previous doldrums a bit. Between the two books, I've sold about 2,000 copies in just under two months, no ads whatsoever, most of them at $2.99 and not in KU. So, yeah, I got lucky that my lovely friend decided to do that for me. I wasn't expecting it, AND he wrote a blurb, which will help me hopefully get a BookBub in August or sometime soon. This is all due to luck, because he happened to notice that I was starting to write legal thrillers. If he didn't notice that, I probably wouldn't have sold 50 copies.

Oh, and I wanted to add that I also have adopted a punishing release schedule - basically, I plan on getting a 100,000 word legal thriller out every thirty days until Book 6. I need to always have a book or two on the HNR for legal thrillers. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, because it's a bit of a grind. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm capitalizing on my luck the best that I can with some good old-fashioned BICHOK. Luck + hard work is always the formula!


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> I do wonder how different this thread would look if the "anti-luck" crowd were engaging with the argument the other side actually seems to be making, which is not that it's _all luck_ (an assertion I think 99.9% of us would slap the "obviously ridiculous" label on), but that _random events play a part_ in both success and failure.


The only thing certain in life is death. Everything else is just a random number of events that we can change to varying margin based on our hard work and skills.
I tried arguing about luck in another thread that it wasn't a lessening of accomplishments but a factor based on skills, birth rites, and work. But I got lambasted. I'm glad a few others agree with me in this thread.


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## Anna Drake (Sep 22, 2014)

Lady Runa said:


> From the article:
> 
> This. This is her problem. She raised the bar not just too high but impossibly high. Nothing less than perfection would do. And when her perfection tanked... so did her world.
> 
> I learned this lesson a long time ago: never to take anything in life too seriously. That's the only way to save your sanity and your dignity. After all, Dostoevsky never thought of himself as DOSTOEVSKY: he simply needed the money to pay off his gambling debts


Fascinating about Dostoevsky. Right on target with the perfectionist part.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rosalind J said:


> The truth is that most books don't sell, because it's not easy to write a really engaging book that lots and lots of people want to read, and after that, you have to make good choices on presentation and promotion. But it's the "lots and lots want to read" part that's the hardest.
> 
> *snip*
> 
> ...


Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

It's hard to write a commercially successful book.

You won't know you've written that book until you put it out there and have done the absolute best you can in terms of craft and business.

Not anyone can be a bestseller. People selling you that line of bull are charlatans looking to make money off your hopes and dreams.

If you have the writing chops and can write a commercially successful book with a large market, you can become a bestseller, but everything rests on that first part of the equation -- writing that commercially successful book aka a book that appeals to a large market.

That doesn't mean "write a great book" in terms of writing style or grammar or literary quality. It means the writing chops to write a commercially successful book. If you have done that, you need a commercially successful cover and commercially successful blurb. And probably some money for promotion.

You won't know until you put it out there. You have to write the darn book, do the best you can, do it as professionally as you can, and then learn from your mistakes. If you are persistent, you can learn, you can develop your craft, and you can improve your chances of success.

Luck is the inexplicable stuff that happens that is outside your control that may give you a boost in some way. Like if a big celebrity reads your book and posts about it on Twitter and you sell a thousand copies that day as a result. You can't control for luck, happenstance, random events, and so you have to focus on what you can control.

There are strategies and tactics to use to get your commercially successful book presented in the most professional and commercially successful manner, but without that first part of the equation, not much will happen and the book will sink into oblivion.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Rosalind J said:


> Plenty of us have tried to point out that anybody's best bet is to work on the things that are under their control, since the rest of it is . . . well, not under their control.
> 
> The thing is that people ask on KBoards all the time, "Why isn't my book selling?", successful people tell them, and then we get told (a) don't give feedback, (b) you're mean, (c) it's all luck, (d) my cover is awesome and that's not the problem. My writing is awesome and that's not the problem.
> 
> ...


I agree with you, Rosalind. I didn't mean to suggest that everyone pushing back against "luck" was strawmaning. Just some. Sorry, should've been more responsible in my wording.

The point about it's being difficult to distinguish between random events and events that are the product of an incredibly complex combination of factors at interplay in ways we're not really able to understand ... that's very true. At some point, the line between "random" and "beyond our analytical power" is pretty fuzzy.

Those folks who show up wanting help and then push back against good suggestions -- I hope their resistance, however annoying to those who've spent valuable time giving advice, is read in a generous light. For some people, it's a really hard message to hear. I do suspect that, in many cases, the advice sinks in over time, even if it gets rejected at first. FWIW, I think the angry "You don't know what you're talking about! It's all luck!" reaction is rare. When it crops up, it's probably a good bet to read it as a defense mechanism coming from someone who feels very hurt. Hopefully they'll get past it. If not, well, at least others can benefit from advice publicly given.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Maybe the question is better framed as...

"*Is luck a corequisite of success?*"

And a follow-up question:

"*What does success look like to you?*"

A successful year to me would presumably be a dismal year to Amanda.

Since we're talking about commercial success, would it be helpful to define it on a macro level as (consistently) netting $5,000+ per month? At least the discussion regarding whether luck is necessary for success would have a revenue baseline.


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## Simply_Me (Mar 31, 2016)

I think that once in a while, we all need to listen to J.K. Rowling Speaking at Harvard about * The Benefits Of Failure*, so we can realize that we can take advantage of any situation, including failure. The part about failure starts at 8:11 if you don't feel like listening to the whole speech.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> I do wonder how different this thread would look if the "anti-luck" crowd were engaging with the argument the other side actually seems to be making, which is not that it's _all luck_ (an assertion I think 99.9% of us would slap the "obviously ridiculous" label on), but that _random events play a part_ in both success and failure.


TBF, some of us have... we're pointing out not that luck doesn't exist but that it is a fairly useless thing in terms of how you go about your life. What's the point in thinking too hard about luck (good or bad) when you have zero control over it? Why not put that effort into all the many things you do have control over. I think people try to use the luck argument as a crutch to forgive themselves for not changing their circumstances or branching out of their comfort zones or admitting maybe they don't have some important skill set they need to get what they want.

I realize I can only offer the data I have, which is what I did to "change my luck" as it were. Deliberate choices focusing on the things I had control over to get results that were different from the ones I had before, because my previous results weren't what I wanted.

Is luck a factor in life? Yes.
Is luck so much of a factor that you can't start where you are right now and change your life to be more the life you wish you had? Nope.
Is luck so much a factor in writing/publishing that you don't control anything and shouldn't try? Nope. We control so many aspects and there are so many things to try that I guess I just don't see the point of thinking too hard about luck. I don't control luck, but I do control a whole lot.

If you don't like where you are or what you have, do something about it. The author in the original post's article quit. That's not getting unlucky, that's quitting. Sometimes quitting is what someone needs to do for their own sanity etc, but it still isn't bad luck. It's just failure. There are a ton of things the author could have done instead of quitting, but didn't.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Luck favors the prepared. You want the luck all the successful people have? Work your ass off so you're ready if it strikes.


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## BlinkFarm (Oct 25, 2015)

One thing I know for sure, you will miss 100% of the shots you don't take.


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## wheart (May 26, 2016)

1) There are outcomes in our life that are determined by the actions/choices we make 
2) There are outcomes in our life that are determined by the actions/choices others make

Some examples of #2 are: 

You are standing at a crosswalk awaiting the walk light when a car swerves out of control and smashes into you from behind
You are adopted by a loving and caring family
You are adopted by an abusive family
A) Does our actions/choices/skills/talents/etc. have an affect on our lives? Absolutely
B) Could other people/events/circumstances/what-have-you have an affect on our lives? Absolutely

With B, in most cases/circumstances, we can implement A to try and obtain a new and better outcome should those 'outside forces' have been unfavorable.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> Maybe the question is better framed as...
> 
> "*Is luck a corequisite of success?*"
> 
> ...


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## nedh (Feb 21, 2017)

I equate having a best selling book or books to getting a hole-in-one in golf. Sure, there's the occasional person who's new to the game and gets lucky early on and makes a hole-in-one. But the more you practice, the more you work to improve your skills at the game, and the more you play, the "luckier" you'll get. Overall, you'll have a much better chance at getting one. So work hard and keep going.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Plenty of people have had a "lucky break" or even a "lucky streak," rode high for a month or a year, and then fell out. Plenty of people have had a lot of luck and got nowhere near the level of success of Jana, Rosalind, Annie or Amanda. I've seen everything go right for some authors and thought "oh my gosh, how lucky" and watched that one-hit wonder of a book fade into the background while they kept publishing new ones that sank as fast as they were released. 

Luck exists, but if you think it's the deciding factor in your life or career, bad or good, you're deluding yourself.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

sela said:


> - If it's to be as big as Amanda, then you have to write lots of commercially successful books in rapid succession. Then, you can afford to hire a pool guy. And a guy to hold the fan while you lie on your lawn chair and have a guy you hired to put sunscreen on your body.


This comment collides perfectly with the thread about where do you want to be in 5 years...


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

sela said:


> 1. It's impossible to always know how much of happenstance affects someone's success or lack of success. I don't think luck is necessary. I think hard work and preparation and skills and business sense are necessary for long term success. Luck is like the icing on top of the cake. It might be bad luck that you were in a car accident and lost the use of your hands. It might be good luck that your Uncle John happened to get a free copy of Dragon Dictate after winning a gift at Staples / Business Depot and offered it to you as a gift. You still have to work darn hard to write that book using Dragon and then everything else has to be in place. You can overcome bad luck and you can miss out on or take advantage of good luck.


I agree.

I follow a guy named Jon Morrow. He's an excellent writer/storyteller, and has created a 7-figure business on the strength of his writing and marketing acumen.

He has achieved this success despite being dealt  an unlucky hand.

I mention him as an example of someone who has overcome bad luck. Did _good_ luck play a role in his success? I dunno. I _can_ say that when it comes to marketing, branding, and positioning, he's scary smart.



sela said:


> 2. Success is in the eye of the beholder.
> 
> It really depends on your goals as a writer.
> 
> ...


I agree (again).

I think the idea of success in this thread has, until your post, been slippery. Folks in Camp Lucky are saying "luck" is a factor in success. Folks in Camp Skill & Grit are saying success is possible without luck.

The problem is, as you noted, the definition of success varies by person. That complicates the discussion.

My $5,000-per-month assumption was an attempt to nail it down for the majority of people in this thread. To wit, is it possible for an author to consistently net $5,000 per month without luck? (That's not a question for you. I think I know your stance.)



sela said:


> - If it's to be as big as Amanda, then you have to write lots of commercially successful books in rapid succession. Then, you can afford to hire a pool guy. And a guy to hold the fan while you lie on your lawn chair and have a guy you hired to put sunscreen on your body.


I'm in.

But I prefer a pool _lady_, fan _lady_, and sunscreen-smearing-over-my-body _lady_.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Annie B said:


> TBF, some of us have... we're pointing out not that luck doesn't exist but that it is a fairly useless thing in terms of how you go about your life. What's the point in thinking too hard about luck (good or bad) when you have zero control over it? Why not put that effort into all the many things you do have control over. I think people try to use the luck argument as a crutch to forgive themselves for not changing their circumstances or branching out of their comfort zones or admitting maybe they don't have some important skill set they need to get what they want.
> 
> I realize I can only offer the data I have, which is what I did to "change my luck" as it were. Deliberate choices focusing on the things I had control over to get results that were different from the ones I had before, because my previous results weren't what I wanted.
> 
> ...


Annie, I agree with you that worrying about luck is pointless when you're trying to make it. I mean, you can't force random events to go your way, so spending time wishing they would is wasted, and sitting around waiting for something lucky to happen would be silly.

That said, I think the more advantages someone has to begin with, the easier it can be for them to change their lives to be more the life they wish they had, as you put it.

For instance, if outstanding storytelling really is "in the bones," as Jana suggested -- an innate gift -- having been born with that talent would give someone a huge leg up in writing fiction. A writer born with such a talent has a better chance of using self-publishing to make the life they want, compared to those who lack the gift. Of course, just _having_ the gift isn't going to do anything for you. You have to put it to use effectively. That means hard work, savvy, and all the other within-your-control stuff people have mentioned. But all else being equal, writers with and without the innate gift are starting their efforts from very different places: the person with the gift has a huge advantage.

I don't know if storytelling is an innate gift, develops from early childhood exposure, or is purely a developed skill. But I'm certain there are dozens of advantages people have in different measure, and that some of them do put some writers far ahead of their competitors.

I *think* you'd say there's little point in sitting around bemoaning advantages you don't happen to have; the productive thing is to focus on what you can do to move forward. If that'd be your take on it, I totally agree.

At the same time, I think it's a significant kindness for people who have made it not to downplay advantages that may have given them a leg up, if there are any they know of. I don't think talking honestly about one's advantages has the effect either of making others sit back on their duffs and wait for lightning to strike or of causing despair. I think it can alleviate some of the shame people feel when they realize they seem to be having a much harder time doing X, Y, or Z than some other person they know.

I guess for me the most honest and productive message takes from both sides: from what we can tell, a set of traits that are largely within your control (hard work, willingness to accept criticism, flexibility, etc.) are major determiners of success, but every writer/publisher comes to the endeavor with a different set of preexisting advantages and disadvantages, and these do make the road harder for some people than for others.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> Annie, I agree with you that worrying about luck is pointless when you're trying to make it. I mean, you can't force random events to go your way, so spending time wishing they would is wasted, and sitting around waiting for something lucky to happen would be silly.
> 
> That said, I think the more advantages someone has to begin with, the easier it can be for them to change their lives to be more the life they wish they had, as you put it.
> 
> ...


I think talking about advantages that you may or may not have innately (like having a gift for storytelling) is about as helpful as talking about luck, though. I can't teach luck. Having a gift for story is a factor that is out of our control. I guess, for me, I don't see the point in worrying about things out of our control.

Of course, being able to recognize that you lack fundamental things necessary for succeeding can save a lot of people heartache. That's different from luck, though.

I wanted to be a Hollywood actress since I was like 4. All I did was theatre until I was 18. I devoured movies and movies about movies and books about movies and acting and wanted to go to a great college with a great theatre program etc.
But I got to college and my first year I realized that I was missing something. I was good enough to always get a role, but my whole acting "career" I'd never gotten big roles. Ever. I was always going to be "the lady in the audience" or "merchant #2" or "chorus girl 5"... Now there are entire Hollywood careers built by people who work their tails off being "that guy" and get tons of work even though they never get a break-out part or a staring role and are always the person who gets shot in scene seven while you are sitting there with IMDB on your phone looking them up because they look so familiar...

There's a great career to built out of not being at the top.

I didn't want that career. So I took a hard look at what I wanted from acting, what I really wanted for myself in life, and I realized that I wasn't good enough. I lacked the X-factor that makes people stars, that attracts director's attention and gets them the big roles. It took me years of disappointment to figure it out, but I realized that I was always going to have to work twice as hard for less than half the results as someone who had that x-factor.

Like the author in the OP, I quit. I wasn't willing to do what it would take to make a tiny career out of tiny parts. I'm at peace with that.

The scary thing is... it often takes a while in any career before you know if you can achieve what you want. If what you want is the view at the top of things, it's even tougher to know if you can get there or not until you've failed pretty badly in multiple ways. It's tough to evaluate properly and see why you are failing to achieve what you want.

So I guess that's why I am not invested in the luck thing. Everyone has luck factors in everything they do. But since there's no way to control our luck, I prefer to focus on what we can control. For me, that's useful since if something I am doing isn't working, it means instead of going "bad luck" I can fix it. Looking at someone who has the success I want, I don't say "oh, they just got lucky" instead I look at what they are doing that is different from what I'm doing or what they are doing that consistently works. Because while nobody can predict the level of success someone is going to have with a particular book or series or whatever... there are definite things that can be done in almost all cases to increase the success rate and produce better results than what came before. It takes a writer who is willing to take feedback, to change things up, and to think about their writing craft and their business in a clear, focused way. And that... is rare in my experience. The number of people who have written me in the last couple years asking for advice is many. The number who followed any of that advice is few. People often want magic, as far as I can tell, instead of being told they need to improve multiple things. So... yeah. I don't feel that luck is enough of a factor to matter, in the end, not for most authors who would be reading these posts anyway.


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

Annie B said:


> I think talking about advantages that you may or may not have innately (like having a gift for storytelling) is about as helpful as talking about luck, though. I can't teach luck. Having a gift for story is a factor that is out of our control. I guess, for me, I don't see the point in worrying about things out of our control.
> 
> Of course, being able to recognize that you lack fundamental things necessary for succeeding can save a lot of people heartache. That's different from luck, though.
> 
> ...


That's a good way of looking at things I personally think.
I just dislike when people deny luck even exist.
Since it's a variable that no one could completely control, then hard work and perseverance is all we can do. But in some ways, that could change our luck by making us more well prepared for the obstacles that jump in front of us.
Working hard despite the hands you are dealt is different from denying the fact those obstacles exist like some attempt to do.


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

Annie B said:


> I think talking about advantages that you may or may not have innately (like having a gift for storytelling) is about as helpful as talking about luck, though. I can't teach luck. Having a gift for story is a factor that is out of our control. I guess, for me, I don't see the point in worrying about things out of our control.
> 
> Of course, being able to recognize that you lack fundamental things necessary for succeeding can save a lot of people heartache. That's different from luck, though.
> 
> ...


I want to be just like you when I grow up.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Annie B said:


> I think talking about advantages that you may or may not have innately (like having a gift for storytelling) is about as helpful as talking about luck, though. I can't teach luck. Having a gift for story is a factor that is out of our control. I guess, for me, I don't see the point in worrying about things out of our control.
> 
> Of course, being able to recognize that you lack fundamental things necessary for succeeding can save a lot of people heartache. That's different from luck, though.
> 
> ...


That certainly rings true for me. Makes me wonder, actually, if the biggest _advantage _of all might be the ability/willingness to step back and make a tough, no-rose-colored-glasses examination of one's likelihood of success, based on one's track-record and resources. It sounds like you've done that majorly in your professional life not just once, but twice. Not everyone has the take-a-hard-look thing as part of their personality, I think. Maybe it takes a certain underlying level of confidence? And at least here in the U.S., we're pummeled with an "anyone can do/be whatever they want if they try hard enough" message that probably encourages people to keep pushing down the same path, viewing their accumulating experiences as part of a trajectory toward success until the non-existence of said trajectory becomes impossible to deny.

At the same time ... dunno. It feels right for me to point to advantages that may have helped me achieve the very small level of success I've had in self-publishing. For instance, I was basically paid to read books and write for twenty years (grad school, college professor). Yeah, different kinds of books and a different kind of writing, but it did immerse me in language-rich environment and expose me to lots of stories. Grad school helped me develop a very thick skin when it comes to critiques of my writing. I had parents who read to me every day and bought/borrowed every book I wanted to read. In fact, for a good, long period, they paid me a quarter for every book I read (this was the '70s ... no doubt today's kids would demand more). For some reason, writing mechanics are a breeze for me. No idea why. So while some writers feel a level of anxiety about sentence-level quality that makes it hard for them to compose, I don't. My spouse makes enough, and we have enough saved, that I'm going to take next year off teaching to write more and spend more time with the kids, even though my writing makes nowhere near enough to replace my teaching salary. Not many people are in the position to do that. These seem to me like powerful advantages many writers don't share. They're obviously not enough to create success on their own, or I'd be making way more money than I am. I need to yoke the advantages up to some good old-fashioned hard work and marketing savvy to create a chance of real success for myself. But if I were to do that and succeed, I don't think the addition of hard work and good marketing wouldn't erase the effect of my initial advantages.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Becca- I'd give yourself a little more credit than that, personally. You have advantages, yes, but a lot of what you describes are choices you made, work you put in, decisions etc. I'd say not much of what you described there is luck, in the end (though your parents sound cool, I wish mine had paid me to read haha).

I mean, people always tell me I'm lucky to have a husband who is kind and supportive of me and this crazy career. But... it ain't luck that we're married. If he wasn't supportive and kind... I wouldn't have married him. And if he didn't appreciate the level of crazy it takes to freelance and be in the arts for a living, he wouldn't have married me, either. That's not luck at all, but choices we made with the information we had. To others, it can look like luck (usually people who say that have terrible taste in partners or terrible decision making skills imo), but it isn't.

Anyway, I've said what I wanted to say I guess and am just repeating things. So I'll TLDR one last time. If you want something different than what you have... change what you are doing.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Once you get past a basic level of competence it's not about the writing anymore.  Personally I suspect that the "other" is mostly randomness, so if you want to call that luck, so be it.  A lot of it has to be random - here's what I mean. Author A has a great book and a great marketing plan and when they launch, it so happens that there is a 'gap' in the presentation of competing product at the level where their book is visible. Author B launches the next day, but at the same time, author C has a big hit launch and author B gets no visibility at all. That's luck. So you say, that's random. Say that there's a 10% chance that author A's launch is so good that it will push that author's career forward a little. Obviously, that will average out. But it also means that mathematically, a small fraction of authors will have that same favorable poker hand over and over. For it to happen three times in a row, that's a one in a thousand chance. Four times, one in ten thousand. But one in ten thousand is about the ratio of successful authors to non-successful authors. So that says it's all luck. There HAS to be some small fraction of authors who randomly hit ideal launch conditions over and over. Of course, it seems to them that they are brilliant, just like stock traders who have a run of successful trades believe in their own brilliance. They have to be at the level of competence to advance into that random opportunity gap, but these gaps have to happen and randomly, some authors have to have it happen to them several times. 

I don't think it's all luck, but I think it's a lot more random than a lot of authors are comfortable with. It is not a meritocracy, and it's on the way to becoming a war of money.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

555aaa said:


> Once you get past a basic level of competence it's not about the writing anymore.


True... it's about the story and all the hard to pin down craft choices that go into writing something that resonates with a lot of people. No two books are the same. Publishing is not a slot machine where everyone dumps in their book and gets a random result. Believing that has got to be pretty depressing though. Have you thought about maybe trying to do something differently if what you are doing isn't working instead?

I always think about Lindsay Buroker's experiment under a secret pen name when things like this come up. She took the skills and knowledge she had, applied it to a secret pen name and brand new genre, and was able to get repeatable results with her hidden name. Here's the first installment in her detailing it, if anyone hasn't seen this and is curious about it: http://lindsayburoker.com/amazon-kindle-sales/pen-name-launch-first-month-earnings-marketing/


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

555aaa said:


> Once you get past a basic level of competence it's not about the writing anymore. Personally I suspect that the "other" is mostly randomness, so if you want to call that luck, so be it. A lot of it has to be random - here's what I mean. Author A has a great book and a great marketing plan and when they launch, it so happens that there is a 'gap' in the presentation of competing product at the level where their book is visible.


This is where you lost me. I don't see other books in my genre as competing products. Books are not cars, where you only buy one every few years and it can be brand A or brand B or brand C. A lot of readers read a _lot_ of books. They'll read books by A and by B and by C, and some of them will read mine too. I don't see visibility as a matter of hitting a lucky gap; I see it as presenting a book with title, cover, blurb and look inside that say to a reader: this is your kind of book, and putting it somewhere where they'll see that promise. And a career is built on fulfilling that promise.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

PaulineMRoss said:


> This is where you lost me. I don't see other books in my genre as competing products. Books are not cars, where you only buy one every few years and it can be brand A or brand B or brand C. A lot of readers read a _lot_ of books. They'll read books by A and by B and by C, and some of them will read mine too. I don't see visibility as a matter of hitting a lucky gap; I see it as presenting a book with title, cover, blurb and look inside that say to a reader: this is your kind of book, and putting it somewhere where they'll see that promise. And a career is built on fulfilling that promise.


I agree. The books in my also boughts are free advertising. We read each other's books, exchange promotion strategies, and cheer each other on. Of course I'm envious of the success some of them have, but that just makes me try harder.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Yes, this. And the fact there are about five different definitions of luck floating around here.


Not just that, a lot of people compare apples and oranges throughout this thread. The failed author of the article was writing LITERARY FICTION and seeking success as a literary fiction author. She wants or wanted to create art and art which is accepted and successful within the "artsy crowd". You know, the prizes and contests thing which scorns even the upper crust (people like Gaiman, LeGuin, Chabon or Ishiguro) of genre fiction. Art with a capital A. This is not something anyone self-publishing has so far achieved while alive. I'm being sarcastic when I say that maybe one day someone might get lucky in this respect. As of now, not the case.

So that is a whole different ball game compared to what most of the people here write and are more or less successful at: anything from what formerly used to be penny dreadfuls to craftwise adequate lesser genre fiction, churned out at a level of productivity which satisfies the demands of the mass market and its readers.

Because the nature of the beasts we talk about here are so vastly different, I'm not astonished people are coming to very different conclusions. Indeed, apart from the basic initial idea, which needs to hit the zeitgeist (which is a lucky moment right there in most cases), nothing much about writing the modern versions of the penny dreadful is dependent on luck or talent. Hard work, regular work habits and the willingness to nip anything artistic in the bud before it disturbs the minds of those who seek mental fast food and fluff, and a good understanding of tropes and marketing, are indeed what this most needs to achieve a financial (sic!) success. We are not at all talking about good writing, or even writing which can compete with literary fiction on any level. We are talking pushing out books for the masses.

So yes, Jana is correct in stating that what she writes and literary fiction shouldn't be compared, because the factors are indeed quite different. Additionally, what constitutes success for a literary writer and what for her are quite different things. Which also is why the author in the article couldn't - even if she tried - achieve what she wanted to achieve by self-publishing. All the true literary giants who went that route usually got their acclaim posthumously.

The author of this article wouldn't ever be able to live down the literary shame attached to self-publishing, to not being able to even secure an agent. She lost the race to success already at that point. Yes, of course she could keep trying, and maybe she will. But in view of the fact that literary fiction the old and established way is so utterly competitive that being picked by an agent already is a major stroke of chance, even all things considered including writing ability the same among the competitors, she may have been wise to cease trying. Possibly she finds something more suited to her creativity, or at least less of a squandering of personal resources.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Annie B said:


> Publishing is not a slot machine where everyone dumps in their book and gets a random result. Believing that has got to be pretty depressing though.


This.

It becomes something akin to playing the lottery - with a lot more blood, sweat, and tears invested in each ticket.



Annie B said:


> I always think about Lindsay Buroker's experiment under a secret pen name when things like this come up.


Same here.

I watched her as she did that experiment, all the while thinking "_Sweet. Success can be engineered_."


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I'll pull out a couple historical examples to demonstrate how fickle the publishing business can be.

Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his Sherlock Holmes series. After a while, we wanted to move on and write some other stories, so he killed off Sherlock and nearly killed off his own career. Despite being stunningly famous and beloved, his other books just didn't sell as well, so he went back to Sherlock.

A. A. Milne wrote some children's stories featuring a boy named Christopher Robin and a bear named Pooh. These were all very nice, but these weren't very serious, so he stopped writing those childish stories and went onto other writing endeavors.

Finally, there's Sam Clemens, who write some of the most famous American books ever written, and yet consistently lost money in publishing. In the end, he had to go on worldwide speaking/storytelling/comedy tours to rebuild his fortune. 


Are there real lessons to be learned here? I think so. There's an element of zeitgeist. Once you've got all your elements together, you're in the zone and you know the solution. In that way, success breeds success. When you aren't in the zone, there's no clear path to the zone because your options are so varied. In my mind, it's no surprise that many writers find their success after multiple failures because they try multiple ways to find the right arrangement. And once they've found the arrangement, they run with it. I can give you dozens of SFF writers who've written many things, but are best known for one, maybe two series.

I think that some folks find that combo early, for some, they find it later, and for many, they don't find it at all.

Has anyone here had trouble starting a new series? Is a new series full of uncertainties, even if you are successful?


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> This.
> 
> It becomes something akin to playing the lottery - with a lot more blood, sweat, and tears invested in each ticket.
> 
> ...


I don't think that was the point. The point I took away, anyway, was that Lindsay has an engaging voice and talent for crafting a hooky story. Plus marketing chops. So despite "her name" not being on the book, it sold great anyway. Proof to me of the opposite: that there's a secret sauce to writing a bestseller. It can be partially deconstructed, but not completely, or there'd be lots more bestsellers than there are.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Nic said:


> Indeed, apart from the basic initial idea, which needs to hit the zeitgeist (which is a lucky moment right there in most cases), nothing much about writing the modern versions of the penny dreadful is dependent on luck or talent. Hard work, regular work habits and the willingness to nip anything artistic in the bud before it disturbs the minds of those who seek mental fast food and fluff, and a good understanding of tropes and marketing, are indeed what this most needs to achieve a financial (sic!) success. We are not at all talking about good writing, or even writing which can compete with literary fiction on any level. We are talking pushing out books for the masses.


*snip*

People who say this (and plenty of people say it, even to your face, when you write romance) . . . I always want to answer, "If it's that easy, why aren't you doing it?" Why isn't everybody a bestseller? This smacks of, "I could do it if I want to, but I don't want to [stoop so low]." Not convincing, sorry.

Oh well. Back to churning out penny dreadfuls for the unwashed masses. I like my books--my mental fast food and fluff--too. What does that make me? Hey, I DO need to take a shower!


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

It's important to distinguish between _beliefs and luck_, on the one hand, and _facts and chance_, on the other. Believing it's all a matter of luck might be a self-defeating attitude, while believing you make your own luck might reinforce your determination to succeed. After all, these two attitudes toward luck mirror the psychologists' concept of external locus of control ("I'm a puppet of fate") and internal locus of control ("I'm the master of my fate"). It goes without saying who the psychologists have found to be happier and more successful.

All the same, reality doesn't care what you believe. No one knows the sufficient conditions for success in anything close to the detail necessary to be replicable (the gold standard), including those who've succeeded (see _Cuckoo's Calling_). There are simply too many variables, and the variables themselves are too complex to be analyzed. Take an obvious variable, some variation of which finds its way onto every list how-to list: Write a good story. If anyone could analyze "good story" into precise enough specifications to be replicable, traditional publishers would have perfect track records and AI would have replaced writers around the same time they replaced chess masters.

The point is not that no one knows anything and that it's all a lottery after all. The point, rather, is that no one knows enough about the variables to predict and therefore to manufacture success over and over again. The division in knowledge regarding success in publishing isn't as precise as physics: If you do x, y will occur. It's like that of experts in other areas of human affairs, educated and uneducated opinion, better and worse advice. Anyone who claims to know anything like the physical laws of books is either deluded, trying to sell you something, or both.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

^^^What he said. So much better than I did! Hey, he might be a writer!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Rosalind J said:


> I don't think that was the point. The point I took away, anyway, was that Lindsay has an engaging voice and talent for crafting a hooky story. Plus marketing chops. So despite "her name" not being on the book, it sold great anyway. Proof to me of the opposite: that there's a secret sauce to writing a bestseller. It can be partially deconstructed, but not completely, or there'd be lots more bestsellers than there are.


I'd say the engaging voice and hooky story can account for the sell-through to book 2 after enough copies of book 1 had gone out into the wild. But to get book 1 started was all about marketing chops (which includes presentation - title, cover, blurb, look inside). You have to make that first sale of book 1 before the reader knows you can write.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Rosalind J said:


> *snip*
> 
> People who say this (and plenty of people say it, even to your face, when you write romance) . . . I always want to answer, "If it's that easy, why aren't you doing it?" Why isn't everybody a bestseller? This smacks of, "I could do it if I want to, but I don't want to [stoop so low]." Not convincing, sorry.
> 
> Oh well. Back to churning out penny dreadfuls for the unwashed masses. I like my books--my mental fast food and fluff--too. What does that make me? Hey, I DO need to take a shower!


I was wondering how long it would take before somebody noticed how snobbish that post was. He basically said that genre writers are crappy writers.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> I was wondering how long it would take before somebody noticed how snobbish that post was. He basically said that genre writers are crappy writers.


And people who read genre fiction are idiots.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Rosalind J said:


> *snip*
> 
> People who say this (and plenty of people say it, even to your face, when you write romance) . . . I always want to answer, "If it's that easy, why aren't you doing it?" Why isn't everybody a bestseller? This smacks of, "I could do it if I want to, but I don't want to [stoop so low]." Not convincing, sorry.


I wrote a romance, and I thought it was pretty good. So did my beta readers. So far, in three years, I've sold 44 copies on Amazon. That give me hope I can pay off the cover by the end of the decade. I do a lot better with with urban fantasy -- made more yesterday than life-to-date on the romance. So, I'll admit, I tried, and I can't do it.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Rosalind J said:


> People who say this (and plenty of people say it, even to your face, when you write romance) . . . I always want to answer, "If it's that easy, why aren't you doing it?" Why isn't everybody a bestseller? This smacks of, "I could do it if I want to, but I don't want to [stoop so low]." Not convincing, sorry.


People ARE doing it, this thread is full of people doing it. You are doing it, Jana is doing it, I do it, others do it. Some with more, some with less success. Of course it takes at least the basic capacity of stringing a couple of sentences together and telling some sort of coherent tale.

That's however not literary fiction. It isn't even within shouting distance of being art. As I said: apples and oranges.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> I was wondering how long it would take before somebody noticed how snobbish that post was. He basically said that genre writers are crappy writers.


It's not snobbish. It's realistic. Funny how being forthright about one's abilities immediately becomes unfashionable when one has to compare oneself to one's betters.

Or to paraphrase this: I can enjoy the fiddlers in the pub, and consume their music, but if anyone suggests that they are on the same level of artistry and ability with Jascha Heifetz or Yehudi Menuhin, then I question their musical sense and the soundness of their mind.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Rosalind J said:


> Oh well. Back to churning out penny dreadfuls for the unwashed masses.


Oh, Rosalind, you can always make me smile! I love you.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Nic said:


> People ARE doing it, this thread is full of people doing it. You are doing it, Jana is doing it, I do it, others do it. Some with more, some with less success. Of course it takes at least the basic capacity of stringing a couple of sentences together and telling some sort of coherent tale.
> 
> That's however not literary fiction. It isn't even within shouting distance of being art. As I said: apples and oranges.


<snort>

Nic, you really should come off anonymous one of these days, so we can see if you really are producing better material than the rest of us Writers Lite out here in KBoardsland.

<leans in for the big reveal>

You know, I've heard Rosalind needs to drink 16 cups of coffee before her ability to "string a couple of sentences together" turns on in the morning. Pre-coffee, it's all inarticulate grunts, with random prepositions popping out here and there. Thank goodness poor souls like her are able, with assistance, to achieve basic literacy.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Nic said:


> It's not snobbish. It's realistic. Funny how being forthright about one's abilities immediately becomes unfashionable when one has to compare oneself to one's betters.
> 
> Or to paraphrase this: I can enjoy the fiddlers in the pub, and consume their music, but if anyone suggests that they are on the same level of artistry and ability with Jascha Heifetz or Yehudi Menuhin, then I question their musical sense and the soundness of their mind.


You actually just told every bestseller on this thread that we have "betters?" Seriously?

I guess it hasn't occurred to you that we are choosing to write commercial fiction? I have an IQ that puts me in Mensa but I can't stand literary works. I find them depressing and an utter bore.

The thing is, while my "betters" bitch and whine about not being able to pay the electric bill, I will drive off in my new Lamborghini. That's a choice. See the difference?


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Nic said:


> It's not snobbish. It's realistic. Funny how being forthright about one's abilities immediately becomes unfashionable when one has to compare oneself to one's betters.


One's betters? Oh, that's rich. I'm sorry, but appointing someone as the grand arbiter of artistry is simply an exercise in economics. Those who stand to profit from the art declare what is and isn't art. Who is to say who is more qualified than the rest of us to declare one writer the producer of art and another writer a producer of not-art? Someone with an economic interest in promoting one over the other. Art is subjective.

Do I consider my writing art? No. Is my jewelry and metal sculpture art? Many critics seem to think so. And I reap the economic benefits of their opinions. But I bow to no one as being "my betters". What a load of ...


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## Kristen Painter (Apr 21, 2010)

You know what's art? That new Louboutin bag I just ordered.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Selective perception is a wondrous thing, isn't it? I included myself, twice, among those writing far below any attempt at artistry. While we are at it, would those who consider themselves producing art please point out those of their works they deem on par with literary heavyweights? Or just on par with the select few one can consider the top of genre fiction? I am talking word art, not commerce. I wouldn't even try to be so arrogant, but if the shoe fits.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Nic said:


> Selective perception is a wondrous thing, isn't it? I included myself, twice, among those writing far below any attempt at artistry. While we are at it, would those who consider themselves producing art please point out those of their works they deem on par with literary heavyweights? Or just on par with the select few one can consider the top of genre fiction? I am talking word art, not commerce. I wouldn't even try to be so arrogant, but if the shoe fits.


If you want to go around thinking people are better than you, then go right ahead. Leave the rest of us out of it.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

You know, Nic, I am not even close to arrogating my abilities even to that of most of the very successful people in this thread, much less the authors of the classics.  But I am also a reader and I never really enjoyed reading the "classics."  Maybe I'm a stupid member of the unwashed masses, but I write the stuff I like to read.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Rick Partlow said:


> You know, Nic, I am not even close to arrogating my abilities even to that of most of the very successful people in this thread, much less the authors of the classics. But I am also a reader and I never really enjoyed reading the "classics." Maybe I'm a stupid member of the unwashed masses, but I write the stuff I like to read.


That is quite all right. I as well include myself among the genre hacks who write what they like to read. But that's not the topic of this thread. The topic of this thread was a woman who declared herself a failure because she was unable to get literary fiction published. Which is a completely different thing from being halfway successful as a commercial genre author. Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction. You can't have it both ways, even if there are a few like Chabon or Ishiguro who straddle the line between both.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Nic said:


> Or to paraphrase this: I can enjoy the fiddlers in the pub, and consume their music, but if anyone suggests that they are on the same level of artistry and ability with Jascha Heifetz or Yehudi Menuhin, then I question their musical sense and the soundness of their mind.


You're not doing that, though. You're saying that classical music is better than jazz or rock or country, as if the category of music is what determines the inherent skill at which it is executed.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Jana DeLeon said:


> If you want to go around thinking people are better than you, then go right ahead. Leave the rest of us out of it.


I don't think people are better than I am. But I know that there are quite a few authors who write much better on a literary level than I do, even though I probably earn a lot more than they do.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

MonkishScribe said:


> You're not doing that, though. You're saying that classical music is better than jazz or rock or country, as if the category of music is what determines the inherent skill at which it is executed.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fndbaz9kGSE


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Nic said:


> I don't think people are better than I am. But I know that there are quite a few authors who write much better on a literary level than I do, even though I probably earn a lot more than they do.


So what? That doesn't make them higher quality. Literary is just a category like anything else, except instead of focusing on suspense or romantic feelings, or whatnot, the beauty of the language and depth of character are elevated at the expense of other elements. Often, if not usually, to the detriment of the typical reader's enjoyment, which is why it's a smaller category.

I would argue that the story is the real reason people read, and the most fundamental aspect of fiction, but that is my own personal bias. It doesn't mean that it's "better" in some sort of universal way, like you seem to be implying about literary fiction.


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## Salome Golding (Apr 17, 2017)

Rosalind J said:


> ...
> People who say this (and plenty of people say it, even to your face, when you write romance) . . . I always want to answer, "If it's that easy, why aren't you doing it?
> ...


Maybe because they don't want to

Hey, Romance is the genre that I write, and a genre that I have read since I was a girl.

But Literature was also one of my majors for my first degree. And from that experience I do realize that for some people, Literary Fiction is the only fiction worth reading or writing. Some of them would never DREAM of writing a romance novel, no matter how much money you told them they could make from it. I am not quick to assume that if they say that, they are doing so out of sour grapes feelings towards successful popular authors.

I can swing both ways - read Dickens & George Eliot today, and Marian Keyes & Susan Elizabeth Phillips tomorrow. But some of my classmates and professors really could not.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Nic said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fndbaz9kGSE


That's just your personal preference. I could link to a couple of heavy metal guitarists who exhibit just as much skill in their execution.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

MonkishScribe said:


> That's just your personal preference. I could link to a couple of heavy metal guitarists who exhibit just as much skill in their execution.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHkrvwXX4sg


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Nic said:


> Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction.


Oh, my. Either you have an incredible inferiority complex, or you're so full of yourself you can't see how absurd that statement is. An arbitrary definition of "literary", which is defined by a small number of people using the Justice Potter criteria (I can't define it, but I know it when I see it), takes on the standing of fact, when it's only opinion.

I'll stop there, before the mods hit me again.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Salome Golding said:


> ...
> I can swing both ways - read Dickens & George Eliot today, and Marian Keys & Susan Elizabeth Phillips tomorrow. But some of my classmates and professors really could not.


Yes, all of this. And it's this on the reader level, but there's also a completely different thing regarding what is a success and how to achieve it on the level of the author. This is where I see part of the discussion regarding the author in the article misses the point. She wouldn't self-publish. Even if her book sold well, it's not what is considered a true success in that field.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Nic said:


> She wouldn't self-publish. Even if her book sold well, it's not what is considered a true success in that field.


She would basically have to start over, no? If she chose to self-publish and write genre fiction, since the two aren't even in the same category (entirely different audiences and approaches). So if her dreams were to win awards and such, then yeah, quitting means she's starting from level 1. The blessing is her craft must be good to have gotten an agent's attention, since getting an agent is tough already and she's beat other writers to the punch on that one.

Look, I don't know this woman and I hate to assume things about people. However, I'll say that it seems (to me) that her threshold for trying was pretty low. It takes years to gain a career writing fiction, whether it's literary or genre. I hope she is able to reconsider her love of writing and figure something else out that makes her happy.

And regarding literary fiction, I'm with Jana. I find it depressing and boring, and that's even after reading some classics. Not sure if I'd consider Victor Hugo literary fiction but his books are amazing and I love them. Maybe he was genre fic back in his day?


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

Nic said:


> Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction.


If you say so.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Nic said:


> Selective perception is a wondrous thing, isn't it? I included myself, twice, among those writing far below any attempt at artistry. While we are at it, would those who consider themselves producing art please point out those of their works they deem on par with literary heavyweights? Or just on par with the select few one can consider the top of genre fiction? I am talking word art, not commerce. I wouldn't even try to be so arrogant, but if the shoe fits.


Actually, your portrayal of your own writing isn't stable, Nic. Here you're categorizing yourself right in among the hacks, creating an impregnable location from which to criticize hackery, since we're always allowed to criticize our own. But in the recent past, you've said:



Nic said:


> That depends on what you call a success.* I sell well enough, to a select readership looking for what I write. These readers are not the mass market,* but so far they have been loyal and always return for more.





Nic said:


> I write sci fi romance and erotica where the sci fi isn't just a setting, it's integral. *I'm not writing shifters in space, I see myself following in the wake of such authors as Asimov, Heinlein, Le Guin, Delaney, Farmer or Sturgeon.*





Nic said:


> Now, while this may be so, namely that writing to the masses gives a writer a bigger pond to fish readers in, that does not necessarily mean that a writer who writes without a regard for mass taste - or as quite a few do specifically for the more or the less demanding fringe readers - won't earn his bread. There are a lot of people alive and willing to read currently. It is possible that someone who WTM fails to secure a big share of mass market readers because he lacks in other areas, e.g. marketing, whereas the writer of poetry or shorts or niche genres can make a killing, because he can touch the entire base of those readers who are interested in what he writes, as small as that group may be.
> 
> *I for one write what I personally also would like to read. I know I don't have a mass taste, so I am not writing to the market, and never will be.*


[my emphases]

Seems like you're one of us when that's convenient to your argument, and different from and better than us when that's convenient.

To your larger point, I'm about as well steeped in literary material as a reader is likely to be. I mean, yeah, some people do focus on graphic novels or reality TV in their English doctoral programs, but I did high canonical stuff all the way. I'll admit I came to genre fiction with a how-hard-can-this-be? attitude. It took about a month to discover the answer was _very hard_. Is it easier than producing an enduring piece of literary art still being read in 2170? Yeah, sure, just about anything has to be easier than that. But easier =/= easy. Furthermore, the sins laid at the feet of genre fiction are pretty common in literary fiction as well. A lot of it is formulaic and derivative in its own ways. (If I had a dime for every time I encountered what I think of as "the _Separate Peace_ narrator" -- the guy who's done something *awful* and has to spend the novel working himself up to telling us about it and then somehow coming to terms with his own ghastliness. Good lord. Yawn.) Fact is, literary readers have their boxes to be checked off and blanks to be filled in, just like genre readers. They're different boxes and blanks, ones our culture tends to say are more admirable, but there's precious little way to prove that they're more admirable in any objective sense.

At any rate, the bottom line is that whatever you actually do write, gratuitously trashing genre fiction on a forum where almost everyone writes genre fiction is rude.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Fine literature is like a cat. It ignores genre writing until it decided that it knew it was fine literature all the time. It meant to do that. Many writers aren't worth studying until SURPRISE, they were fine artists all along. In truth, Shakespeare was just a hack like the rest of us trying to entertain an audience.

Reading genre literature may be easier for the reader, but writing it requires just as much acumen as fine literature.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

This might be the closest thing to an olive branch on offer today, Nic, so it might be worth grabbing... 

You seem to be mistaking categories invented by libraries and commercial publishers--literary fiction and genre fiction--for a quality continuum that rightly belongs to classics and non-classics. Genre and literary fiction don't differ in kind. Every classic belongs to some genre of fiction. A classic is called a classic because, on the most basic criterion, it has transcended the readership of the genre and, usually, the limitations of its time and place. In this sense, it can be called great book. You shouldn't put much stock in it being lumped into the "literary fiction" category because that's where classics get placed.  

This default categorization is the reason some people characterize their writing as "literary fiction"--they aspire to write a classic. No doubt, too, it's much harder to write a book that transcends its own time and lives on as part of the canon than it is even to write a bestseller (maybe this is what you're trying to say). But the writer's aspirations, on their own, don't somehow elevate the quality of his or her efforts, any more than does the classification marked on the back of the jacket. 

In simpler terms, labels don't make things better; better makes things better.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

brkingsolver said:


> An arbitrary definition of "literary", which is defined by a small number of people using the Justice Potter criteria ("I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"), takes on the standing of fact, when it's only opinion.


Well, _that's_ not true. There is in fact, a pretty good definition of "literary fiction" on Wikipedia:

*Literary fiction, in general, focuses on introspective, in-depth character studies of interesting, complex and developed characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. Usually, in literary fiction the focus is on the inner story of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit emotional involvement in the reader.*

But that's not what I'm here about. I'm here about this bullship:



Nic said:


> Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction.


Have you ever noticed that most---and though "most" merely means "more than half," in this case I would guess that it is WAY more than that---most of the comments like that, no matter where you see them, most of those comments come from men? And they most often direct those comments toward women?

And one more thing, Nic, old buddy, about this:



Nic said:


> I as well include myself among the genre hacks who write what they like to read.


You can call yourself a "hack" all you want, just don't include us in there with you. You can have that cesspool all to yourself (as you laugh all the way to the bank, no doubt).


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

WHDean said:


> This might be the closest thing to an olive branch on offer today, Nic, so it might be worth grabbing...
> 
> You seem to be mistaking categories invented by libraries and commercial publishers--literary fiction and genre fiction--for a quality continuum that rightly belongs to classics and non-classics. Genre and literary fiction don't differ in kind. Every classic belongs to some genre of fiction. A classic is called a classic because, on the most basic criterion, it has transcended the readership of the genre and, usually, the limitations of its time and place. In this sense, it can be called great book. You shouldn't put much stock in it being lumped into the "literary fiction" category because that's where classics get placed.
> 
> ...


Mmm. Smart.

ETA: Although ... I wonder if the length of time literary fiction has been separated out as a commercial entity has sort of genre-fied it, at least to some extent. There are certain tropes of literariness that, while not omnipresent, do crop up a lot. Maybe it's become a sort of mode, if not a genre.


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## Salome Golding (Apr 17, 2017)

Mari Oliver said:


> Not sure if I'd consider Victor Hugo literary fiction but his books are amazing and I love them. Maybe he was genre fic back in his day?


Probably. I think Dickens was too. He used to serialize his stories in the newspapers.

Some of what is "literature" now, was low brow-ish popular fiction when first published.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Word Fan said:


> Well, _that's_ not true. There is in fact, a pretty good definition of "literary fiction" on Wikipedia:
> 
> *Literary fiction, in general, focuses on introspective, in-depth character studies of interesting, complex and developed characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. Usually, in literary fiction the focus is on the inner story of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit emotional involvement in the reader.*


Yeah, I've seen that definition before, and I consider it self-serving drivel written by someone desperately attempting to define literary fiction. I think that the majority of the successful authors on this forum would agree with me that the best predictor of whether a book hits or not is how readers view the main character. The best story in the world is forgettable without a gripping and well-developed character to drive it. An action thriller with a cardboard protag is just a fictional news report. We don't read fiction for the plots, we read them to engage and identify with the characters.

When did those trashy romance authors Jane Austin and Thomas Hardy become literary? And that silly science fiction guy, Frank Herbert, published a book in 1964 that is still on the best seller lists. Is it a classic, or do we need to give it a few more decades? Are The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 and Brave New World trashy science fiction, or speculative literary fiction?

I love a debate between a bunch of indies about the categories devised for marketing reasons by the gatekeepers at the publishing companies. As though those categories really meant anything.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Salome Golding said:


> Maybe because they don't want to
> 
> Hey, Romance is the genre that I write, and a genre that I have read since I was a girl.
> 
> ...


If they don't want to write it, they should quit telling me and everybody else how easy it is. I don't care how special you are, how great a writer--try writing a romance and see how many hundreds of thousands of copies you sell.

Some of my work is pretty darn good. It touches some readers on a deep level, makes them think, makes them laugh and cry. My work has inspired some readers to change their lives in small and large ways. One reader quit smoking cold turkey after 40+ years after reading one of my books. I'm proud of that. At the very least, my books seem to entertain most people, and they push me to be my best writer and to express myself as well as I possibly can, and that's not a bad thing either.

Will anybody be reading it in 50 years? I very much doubt it. Will anybody be reading insert-prize-winner-here? I doubt that too. I know I'm still getting read and re-read five years down the track, and that's pretty cool. And hey--people are still reading Georgette Heyer a good 60 years later. Not bad for a romance novelist. Not bad for any novelist. Her books still resonate. Her books still work. They're funny and charming and witty. They sparkle. Quality doesn't have only one metric.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

If we're going to be anal, a writer should not say they write literary fiction. One might as well say, "I write excellent fiction," because, in its strictest sense, the term "literary fiction" means works of literary merit, a subjective judgment  which can only truly be ratified  by critical consensus. 

This, to my shame, is something I've personally claimed. However, in my defence, I was only doing so in an attempt to describe my work as succinctly as possible. Not because I'm conceited. Honest  

EDIT - Just noticed that WH Dean has said pretty much the same thing :doh:


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

The books that helped save my life in one of my darkest moments (in the psych ward after a nearly successful suicide attempt) was a fantasy trilogy.  At another horrible point in my life (after my brother died very unexpectedly), it was Invader Zim that basically got me through the first few months of grieving hell. I needed that stupid little alien and his crazy robot to have a reason to get up and face life without my brother.

You never know what is going to deeply touch a person's life and help them or illuminate their own love or suffering or grief and help make it bearable. Trying to predict or presume what that will be for people is the height of arrogance, and if you read widely at all, you'll know what happens to those who allow their own hubris to dictate how they treat others.

In more plainspeaking... why be a hater? Does that really bring you joy? Cause it doesn't bring anyone around you joy. Someone telling another that the thing they love is dumb and unworthy never saved anyone. It's just hurtful and diminishes joy.


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## BlinkFarm (Oct 25, 2015)

I like this excerpt from Robert Bidinotto's interview with Lee Child re: literary fiction.

Q: What about the issue of comparing thrillers and commercial fiction with so-called literary fiction?

A: It's an issue that doesn't come from our side. We're happy to let those guys do whatever it is they want to do. The issue always comes from their side, because they're jealous about our sales.

They get all stirred up about it, and quite rightly. I probably have more books shoplifted out of every title than they sell in their entire lives. They start to feel troubled over it, and they want a bit of our action; so they go slumming and try to write a thriller. And it's always an embarrassing failure.

Whereas any one of us-I know this for a fact, having talked to my writer friends, and we are not idiots-have read all the great books in the world, and we could write a literary novel easily. Michael Connelly, anybody like that, could invent a different name, write a literary book. Him or me, it would probably take three weeks to write that kind of book. It would sell three thousand copies like theirs do, and it would probably be well-respected.

We can do what they can do, but they can't do what we do; and that's where the friction comes from."

Full interview: http://www.bidinotto.com/2011/10/an-interview-with-lee-child-part-3-conclusion/

ETA link


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## Fel Beasley (Apr 1, 2014)

Word Fan said:


> Well, _that's_ not true. There is in fact, a pretty good definition of "literary fiction" on Wikipedia:
> 
> *Literary fiction, in general, focuses on introspective, in-depth character studies of interesting, complex and developed characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. Usually, in literary fiction the focus is on the inner story of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit emotional involvement in the reader.*


Hmmm. Change literary to Romance, and the definition still fits in my eyes. Romance is in-depth character studies of interesting, complex, and developed characters. This contrasts with other genres where plot is the central concern. Usually, in Romance the focus is on the inner story of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit emotional involvement in the reader.

TIL Literary fiction and Romance are basically the same thing according to wikipedia. Maybe Romance authors can get a little bit more respect.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Felicia Beasley said:


> TIL Literary fiction and Romance are basically the same thing according to wikipedia. Maybe Romance authors can get a little bit more respect.


C'mon, you can't compare romance to the classics written by such authors as Jane Austin!!! That's heresy!!!


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## Fel Beasley (Apr 1, 2014)

brkingsolver said:


> C'mon, you can't compare romance to the classics written by such authors as Jane Austin!!! That's heresy!!!


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

BlinkFarm said:


> I like this excerpt from Robert Bidinotto's interview with Lee Child re: literary fiction.
> 
> Q: What about the issue of comparing thrillers and commercial fiction with so-called literary fiction?
> 
> ...


To be honest, I don't think my fellow Englishman covers himself in glory with these remarks. He comes across as arrogant.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> ETA: Although ... I wonder if the length of time literary fiction has been separated out as a commercial entity has sort of genre-fied it, at least to some extent. There are certain tropes of literariness that, while not omnipresent, do crop up a lot. Maybe it's become a sort of mode, if not a genre.


There's more to the story, for sure. Literary fiction is a catchall term for fiction and it has different meanings in different contexts. I'd dispute the Wikipedia definition for a couple reasons. For one, the intent of the author is less important than the effect on the reader (it should be a judgement about the book). One person can aim at "deep" characters but achieve only cartoons and bathos; another can aim at entertainment and achieve something that transcends his time and audience (Shakespeare comes to mind). A dozen other objections could be raised.

Another angle is that literary fiction is a catchall term for books that people who like to argue about books use for the kind of books they can argue about. Consider a tale of three westerns. I enjoyed some of Craig Johnson's Longmire series, but there isn't much to argue over. It's a matter of taste. The_ Sisters Brothers_ was obviously had literary pretensions. It was meant to be literary fiction in the western genre. I liked that too, though that's probably faint praise for the authors. I'm fairly sure they'd prefer it if I'd argue about the book. Then there's Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_. Getting into the reasons is beside the point here, but there's much to fight about in there.

Finally, we have the stereotypical lit fic offering, covering all the right political touchstones. Anyone not suffering from self-inflicted mental decomposition can see this for what it is. I'd rather be forced to eat these books than to read them.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Another angle is that literary fiction is a catchall term for books that people who like to argue about books use for the kind of books they can argue about.


People argue plenty over Twilight and 50 Shades.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> If we're going to be anal, a writer should not say they write literary fiction. One might as well say, "I write excellent fiction," because, in its strictest sense, the term "literary fiction" means works of literary merit, a subjective judgment which can only truly be ratified by critical consensus.
> 
> This, to my shame, is something I've personally claimed. However, in my defence, I was only doing so in an attempt to describe my work as succinctly as possible. Not because I'm conceited. Honest
> 
> EDIT - Just noticed that WH Dean has said pretty much the same thing :doh:


Given your derivative answer, no Chateau Mouton-Rothschild for you at the next Literary Writers of the World Convention!


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> There's more to the story, for sure. Literary fiction is a catchall term for fiction and it has different meanings in different contexts. I'd dispute the Wikipedia definition for a couple reasons. For one, the intent of the author is less important than the effect on the reader (it should be a judgement about the book). One person can aim at "deep" characters but achieve only cartoons and bathos; another can aim at entertainment and achieve something that transcends his time and audience (Shakespeare comes to mind). A dozen other objections could be raised.
> 
> Another angle is that literary fiction is a catchall term for books that people who like to argue about books use for the kind of books they can argue about. Consider a tale of three westerns. I enjoyed some of Craig Johnson's Longmire series, but there isn't much to argue over. It's a matter of taste. The_ Sisters Brothers_ was obviously had literary pretensions. It was meant to be literary fiction in the western genre. I liked that too, though that's probably faint praise for the authors. I'm fairly sure they'd prefer it if I'd argue about the book. Then there's Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_. Getting into the reasons is beside the point here, but there's much to fight about in there.
> 
> Finally, we have the stereotypical lit fic offering, covering all the right political touchstones. Anyone not suffering from self-inflicted mental decomposition can see this for what it is. I'd rather be forced to eat these books than to read them.


My understanding of literary fiction is that the subtext is as important as, and often more important than, the overt narrative. Also, there is virtually always a significant degree of social commentary. Litfic writers are more concerned with making a point than entertaining.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> Given your derivative answer, no Chateau Mouton-Rothschild for you at the next Literary Writers of the World Convention!


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> My understanding of literary fiction is that the subtext is as important as, and often more important than, the overt narrative. Also, there is virtually always a significant degree of social commentary. Litfic writers are more concerned with making a point than entertaining.


The social commentators are killing literary fiction. And if you ask me, which I firmly believe you should, I'd say that's the cause of "aliteracy" among the literate. I don't read to be harangued so I quit read the books that do before it made me aliterate.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

The definition I like best for literary fiction said that it's like Seinfeld: a satisfying read about nothing.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> The social commentators are killing literary fiction. And if you ask me, which I firmly believe you should, I'd say that's the cause of "aliteracy" among the literate. I don't read to be harangued so I quit read the books that do before it made me aliterate.


And yet, it is easy enough to manage social commentary without haranguing. Some people just like to harangue, I suppose.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

MonkishScribe said:


> People argue plenty over Twilight and 50 Shades.


It depends what you mean by argue. People have three kinds of argument over whiskey. They argue over the best whiskey and what the standards should be because it's an interesting thing for connoisseurs; they argue their favourites because it's a fun social activity; and they complain that some whiskeys should never have been bottled and don't deserve the name. The third isn't really an argument at all. It's a complaint among people who share things in common.

All debates over 50 Shades and Twilight I've seen belong to the third kind. People don't argue over the content so much as they do over the books as social and literary phenomena.



Paul Hector Travis said:


> And yet, it is easy enough to manage social commentary without haranguing. Some people just like to harangue, I suppose.


I guess I should be clearer about what I mean by social commentary. Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and Conrad give you an education in psychology and the human condition while entertaining you. That could be called social commentary. If so, it's the good kind. The social commentary I mean is the kind you find in books praised for their social commentary. These books are formulaic, no matter how much people in prestigious places sing their praises. Instead of the hero's journey, we invariably get the proletarian's journey, with some suitable colour grafted on to give us the appearance that we're reading fiction and not pure social commentary. You can't go wrong by throwing in some character tailored to shock the bourgeoisie, normally a sympathetic pedophile does the trick.

Besides, everyone does social commentary nowadays. Your cousin Lee Child inserted a short lecture in the last Reacher book I read. Almost made me drop it there and then.


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

My borrowed take is genre fiction is an escape from reality while literary fiction illuminates reality.


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## Some Random Guy (Jan 16, 2016)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Litfic writers are more concerned with making a point than entertaining.


Heh.  Seeing as how I'm after pointless entertainment (reading and producing), I lucked out when I discovered literary fiction wasn't my cuppa.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Dpock said:


> My borrowed take is genre fiction is an escape from reality while literary fiction illuminates reality.


That would explain the difference in sales.


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2017)

Nic said:


> That is quite all right. I as well include myself among the genre hacks who write what they like to read. But that's not the topic of this thread. The topic of this thread was a woman who declared herself a failure because she was unable to get literary fiction published. Which is a completely different thing from being halfway successful as a commercial genre author. Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction. You can't have it both ways, even if there are a few like Chabon or Ishiguro who straddle the line between both.


I suppose it is less demanding to come up with plot twists than to take the reader on journey of self discovery. You know, how little Billy finds a bottle cap in some rural Mississippi corn field that brings back repressed memories of catching his father in bed with the neighbor's prized goat. Genre writers believe words should have a point; that being clever just for the sake of being clever is literary masturbation. The awards are for validation. But I suppose some people need it. Personally, I get validation from my readers. 
And before you go thinking romance is somehow beneath literary fiction, you might try writing some. It's not my genre, but I'm not so arrogant as to think writing quality romance is in any way easy.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Rosalind J said:


> I don't think that was the point. The point I took away, anyway, was that Lindsay has an engaging voice and talent for crafting a hooky story. Plus marketing chops. So despite "her name" not being on the book, it sold great anyway. Proof to me of the opposite: that there's a secret sauce to writing a bestseller. It can be partially deconstructed, but not completely, or there'd be lots more bestsellers than there are.


There can't be more bestsellers than there are because the number of slots is limited. The Top 100 won't suddenly become the Top 137.

Nic:
"Genre fiction is commercially more successful, because it is intellectually less demanding than literary fiction."

This combines wonderfully with the whole notion of "I don't want social commentary in my fiction". I mean, what do you even write about, then? What your characters do, how they act, how society reacts to that and what hurdles or opportunities they are given, all this is social commentary. It is not possible to write a piece of fiction without taking a social, and often also a political, stance.
The difference is not whether one does this, but how aware one is of doing it.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

WHDean said:


> It depends what you mean by argue. People have three kinds of argument over whiskey. They argue over the best whiskey and what the standards should be because it's an interesting thing for connoisseurs; they argue their favourites because it's a fun social activity; and they complain that some whiskeys should never have been bottled and don't deserve the name. The third isn't really an argument at all. It's a complaint among people who share things in common.


I am confused by this. I regularly argue about whiskey but not on any of the topics mentioned.
We do argue about three things though:

The different merits of Lowland, Highland, Speyside and Islay
How many years it should be aged
and whether ice or water should ever be added


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Evenstar said:


> I am confused by this. I regularly argue about whiskey but not on any of the topics mentioned.
> We do argue about three things though:
> 
> The different merits of Lowland, Highland, Speyside and Islay
> ...


My dear, those are arguments over whisky, while the previous poster was talking about whiskey, a completely different drink.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> I guess I should be clearer about what I mean by social commentary. Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and Conrad give you an education in psychology and the human condition while entertaining you. That could be called social commentary. If so, it's the good kind. The social commentary I mean is the kind you find in books praised for their social commentary. These books are formulaic, no matter how much people in prestigious places sing their praises. Instead of the hero's journey, we invariably get the proletarian's journey, with some suitable colour grafted on to give us the appearance that we're reading fiction and not pure social commentary. You can't go wrong by throwing in some character tailored to shock the bourgeoisie, normally a sympathetic pedophile does the trick.
> 
> Besides, everyone does social commentary nowadays. Your cousin Lee Child inserted a short lecture in the last Reacher book I read. Almost made me drop it there and then.


Sympathetic pedophile 
In the litfic books I've written, I've endeavoured to pass comment without becoming too preachy, and I've tried to ensure the plot is as strong as possible. Because, at the end of the day, if a reader wants to read purely for educational purposes, they will read non-fiction.

As for Child, I've read nothing by him. Thanks to that egotistical excerpt someone else posted, I won't be buying - or shoplifting - any of his books. I can't abide hubris, and his manner was that of a posturing pre-fight boxer rather than that of a learned man of letters.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

This_Way_Down said:


> And before you go thinking romance is somehow beneath literary fiction, you might try writing some. It's not my genre, but I'm not so arrogant as to think writing quality romance is in any way easy.


And not only will it be much harder to write well than you think, but if you approach it with disdain, you'd be clobbered by the writers who love it and respect it as a genre anyway.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

brkingsolver said:


> My dear, those are arguments over whisky, while the previous poster was talking about whiskey, a completely different drink.


That's a real thing? I thought it must just be a spelling error and didn't want to draw attention to it


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Evenstar said:


> That's a real thing? I thought it must just be a spelling error and didn't want to draw attention to it


The Scots make whisky, all other countries make whiskey. And as far as I've been able to research, the English made such terrible swill that they invaded Scotland and Ireland in search of decent libations.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

brkingsolver said:


> The Scots make whisky, all other countries make whiskey. And as far as I've been able to research, the English made such terrible swill that they invaded Scotland and Ireland in search of decent libations.


Absolutely true. I can think of no other decent reason to up north. I shudder at the idea of English whisky. I tried the Welsh version once and had to spit it out. I don't think it's why we invaded Ireland though, I think that as it is a small island off the coast of England we sort of decided it was surely ours. A bit like the Falklands.... Oh wait


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> Absolutely true. I can think of no other decent reason to up north. I shudder at the idea of English whisky. I tried the Welsh version once and had to spit it out. I don't think it's why we invaded Ireland though, I think that as it is a small island off the coast of England we sort of decided it was surely ours. A bit like the Falklands.... Oh wait


We English were invited to Ireland to help settle a dispute, but then decided not to leave.


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## VanessaC (Jan 14, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> I am confused by this. I regularly argue about whiskey but not on any of the topics mentioned.
> We do argue about three things though:
> 
> The different merits of Lowland, Highland, Speyside and Islay
> ...


Yeah, the ice or water thing is a real flash point. I was once in a pub in Edinburgh where one of my companions was so incensed by the suggestion he would want either in his drink he "threatened" to make sure the barmaid never worked in the city again. (In true nerdy style, the "threat" was some muttering under his breath, out of hearing of both the barmaid and the bartender). It's not my drink of choice, so I can't comment.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> We English were invited to Ireland to help settle a dispute, but then decided not to leave.


That is the English version...

In Russia, they maintain that the Russian Empire was built the same way. I think in the U.S. that was the justification for the Mexican-American War. Funny how you see the same tropes over and over again.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> That is the English version...
> 
> In Russia, they maintain that the Russian Empire was built the same way. I think in the U.S. that was the justification for the Mexican-American War. Funny how you see the same tropes over and over again.


It's actually true - as regards the first invasion in the Middle Ages. The second, under Elizabeth I, was rather less polite, as was the third.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

I came here to be a pro crastinator and enjoy some more lucky debate, but as someone both Irish and a historian I have to wade in wearing my full strength bog wellies (Wellington was Irish and despite the mythology never denied being so).

The English (or Normans) were already in Ireland much to the annoyance of Henry II who worried that they might develop a rival economy to England. After the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury the only English pope in history gave the English king a penance of taking over Ireland. The English invasion of Ireland provided the template for the British Empire: invade other countries and insure that their economies serve but do not rival England's economy. It was nearly another 400 years before the English monarchy claimed the Irish throne (Henry VIII). History helps.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

Yes, but we gave half of it back. We did that in India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland.

Of course, partition often leads to civil war, at least it did in India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland.

(Not my words - Yes Prime Minister)


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Evenstar said:


> I am confused by this. I regularly argue about whiskey but not on any of the topics mentioned.
> We do argue about three things though:
> 
> The different merits of Lowland, Highland, Speyside and Islay
> ...


No civilized person argues over whisky. We discuss, we reminisce, we speculate, we relate legends of distillers past, and we dream of whiskies to come while thumbing through our autographed copies of _Peat Smoke and Spirit_. But we do not argue over whisky.

Nor would a civilized person befoul whisky with ice. If you happen to live in a hot climate (though I see that you don't, so it's a moot point), put your malt in the fridge for a while. Come to that, how do you squeeze an ice cube through the top of a Glencairn? Don't tell me you're using "whiskey glasses" too! Have the Neanderthals returned to Bristol, with malted barley in their ravenous eyes and Solo cups in their hairy hands?


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> Sympathetic pedophile
> In the litfic books I've written, I've endeavoured to pass comment without becoming too preachy, and I've tried to ensure the plot is as strong as possible. Because, at the end of the day, if a reader wants to read purely for educational purposes, they will read non-fiction.
> 
> As for Child, I've read nothing by him. Thanks to that egotistical excerpt someone else posted, I won't be buying - or shoplifting - any of his books. I can't abide hubris, and his manner was that of a posturing pre-fight boxer rather than that of a learned man of letters.


If you write a parody of it all called _Literary Fiction: A Novel of Portentous Navel-Gazing Torment_ and pack it tight with every trope in the subgenre of social commentary lit fic (including the sympathetic pedophile), I promise you one sale. I do realize the paradox for you here. If you don't make clear in the blurb that it's a parody, no one will know, so people will leave glowing reviews without reading or probably even buying it. But if you do mention that it's a parody, people will buy it but won't leave reviews praising your new literary masterpiece.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

WHDean said:


> If you write a parody of it all called _Literary Fiction: A Novel of Portentous Navel-Gazing Torment_ and pack it tight with every trope in the subgenre of social commentary lit fic (including the sympathetic pedophile), I promise you one sale. I do realize the paradox for you here. If you don't make clear in the blurb that it's a parody, no one will know, so people will leave glowing reviews without reading or probably even buying it. But if you do mention that it's a parody, people will buy it but won't leave reviews praising your new literary masterpiece.


I have an outline ready to go for an epic fantasy book that leaves no cliche unexplored, no trope unturned.


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

WHDean said:


> No civilized person argues over whisky. We discuss, we reminisce, we speculate, we relate legends of distillers past, and we dream of whiskies to come while thumbing through our autographed copies of _Peat Smoke and Spirit_. But we do not argue over whisky.
> 
> Nor would a civilized person befoul whisky with ice. If you happen to live in a hot climate (though I see that you don't, so it's a moot point), put your malt in the fridge for a while. Come to that, how do you squeeze an ice cube through the top of a Glencairn? Don't tell me you're using "whiskey glasses" too! Have the Neanderthals returned to Bristol, with malted barley in their ravenous eyes and Solo cups in their hairy hands?


  I think I like the cut of your jib


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> I have an outline ready to go for an epic fantasy book that leaves no cliche unexplored, no trope unturned.


And fantasy fans would probably laugh too. But no reader of literary fiction's dominant subgenre, the novel as humourless lecture for awful people like you, would laugh because they cannot laugh at themselves and their concerns. That signals a lack of the kind of maturity that reading lit fic is supposed to engender in people--which, as I implied, is the reason this subgenre is not literary fiction at all. What looks like a subgenre is really the extent to which this ideological pathogen has taken over its host.

If I ever get around to it, I'm going to rewrite Joe Konrath's _Serial_ in McCarthy's prose, with some extra pathos from the social commentary genre thrown in. My penname will be Jormac McKonrathy. The working title is _Sanguine Antimeridian Road: A Novel of Incest, Pedophilia, Serial Killers, and Suicidal Gay Cowboys_.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Evenstar said:


> Yes, but we gave half of it back. We did that in India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland.
> 
> Of course, partition often leads to civil war, at least it did in India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland.
> 
> (Not my words - Yes Prime Minister)


England - keeping things interesting since the 11th Century.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> If you write a parody of it all called _Literary Fiction: A Novel of Portentous Navel-Gazing Torment_ and pack it tight with every trope in the subgenre of social commentary lit fic (including the sympathetic pedophile), I promise you one sale. I do realize the paradox for you here. If you don't make clear in the blurb that it's a parody, no one will know, so people will leave glowing reviews without reading or probably even buying it. But if you do mention that it's a parody, people will buy it but won't leave reviews praising your new literary masterpiece.


I'm acquainted with a traditionally published author of historical fiction. Though he read my first book and greatly enjoyed it, he said that it had zero chance of being taken on by an agent. But if I changed the hero to a llama herder in Peru who's lost his favourite llama, it would be an instant hit.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

God, this thread is getting so interesting!


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## Some Random Guy (Jan 16, 2016)

brkingsolver said:


> I have an outline ready to go for an epic fantasy book that leaves no cliche unexplored, no trope unturned.


And you'll call it Bored of the Rings?&#128526;


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## Patrick Urban (Oct 22, 2016)

On various and sundry in the thread:

On whiskey: Glenmorangie generally; Glenmorangie Companta specifically imo (hell no on the ice question)

On literary fiction: the classics vs contemporary is a valid distinction, the intersection between that and literary fiction is only occasional and incidental. As was stated in the thread, many of today's great classic works of literature were yesteryear's popular consumption entertainment. In regards to the literary fiction of recent decades, it's generally literary onanism. I feel no need to elaborate further as WHDean has done a splendid job of describing the field (hat tip to you).

On the slights to romance fiction as a genre: I do not read romance fiction, but I have sampled for the purpose of analysis. From that experience I'm of the position that those categorically maligning the level of craft and storytelling fundamentally misapprehend the genre and do themselves a disservice as a writer. There is a tremendous amount to be learned from the genre. (of course, as with all genres, there is a spectrum of drek to superlative)
I expect it isn't controversial to state that the two elements of storytelling most likely to ensure a reader's continued interest in your book(s) is 1) to create character(s) they find personally engaging and compelling and 2) take the reader on an emotional journey. These two elements are the foundation of the romance genre and the better romance authors are masterful in their execution. Regardless of what genre you write in, there is a good deal to both respect and learn from the genre and its luminaries.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Eric Thomson said:


> And you'll call it Bored of the Rings?&#128526;


Oh, no. It's always dangerous to reuse a title. People might get it confused. It's called "Mary Sue in Elfland".

As to whisky, I prefer Glenmorangie. For whiskey, I buy Redbreast, and generally prefer Irish products to Scottish.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Lit fic is a Ferrari and genre fic is a Honda Civic. 

The Ferrari is pretty and fine-tuned. You can tell it's been fussed over and while it's fun to ride in for a while, it inevitably breaks down about 2/3rds through the journey. 

The Civic isn't anywhere near as flashy, but it's capably-built, practical, dependable and always gets me where I need to go.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

As a regular reader of literary fiction I can assure you is neither always intellectual nor fussed over. It is often of a very poor standard of both writing and editing.

Literary fiction (at least in the British context) basically means novels that are of a similar style to those that publishers are submitting to the top literary prizes. Notions of it being character driven and not narrative driven bear little relation to my experience of reading books that would typically be classed literary fiction. At least the thread is coming back to the OP. My guess from the tone of the article is that the wannabe published author thought she was lucky: lucky to have parents wealthy enough to go to private school, lucky enough to go to a prestigious English department at probably a central London university, lucky enough to have a close friend who land a job at Macmillan and another who landed a job at Penguin Randomness, lucky enough to land an agent who was impressed by her list of luck and connections (and probably her posh accent). Then she failed to land a publishing contract and the angst poured out through the Guardian (one of the principle protectors of the marketing cartel that is the literary fiction scene). There was a definite tone in the article of a member of the entitled class who had discovered the harsh realities of life.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

What struck me about the author of the Guardian whine was that she was enamored with her dream of being a successful writer and the accolades and wealth she assumed would ensue. And what she wasn't interested in was the hard work necessary to be a successful writer. When she wasn't immediately published and put on a pedestal, she bailed out. She never considered indie publishing because that would't bring her the acclaim that she desired.


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> What struck me about the author of the Guardian whine was that she was enamored with her dream of being a successful writer and the accolades and wealth she assumed would ensue. And what she wasn't interested in was the hard work necessary to be a successful writer. When she wasn't immediately published and put on a pedestal, she bailed out. She never considered indie publishing because that would't bring her the acclaim that she desired.


Not that anyone who thinks like that deserves acclaim, in my opinion. But she is wrong. Indies get plenty of acclaim these days. The crowd that still thinks of indie as some literary redheaded stepchild is shrinking. Hell, we win awards now. I was even the keynote speaker at a annual library event. They paid me $2000.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

Mercia McMahon said:


> As a regular reader of literary fiction I can assure you is neither always intellectual nor fussed over. It is often of a very poor standard of both writing and editing.
> 
> Literary fiction (at least in the British context) basically means novels that are of a similar style to those that publishers are submitting to the top literary prizes. Notions of it being character driven and not narrative driven bear little relation to my experience of reading books that would typically be classed literary fiction. At least the thread is coming back to the OP. My guess from the tone of the article is that the wannabe published author thought she was lucky: lucky to have parents wealthy enough to go to private school, lucky enough to go to a prestigious English department at probably a central London university, lucky enough to have a close friend who land a job at Macmillan and another who landed a job at Penguin Randomness, lucky enough to land an agent who was impressed by her list of luck and connections (and probably her posh accent). Then she failed to land a publishing contract and the angst poured out through the Guardian (one of the principle protectors of the marketing cartel that is the literary fiction scene). There was a definite tone in the article of a member of the entitled class who had discovered the harsh realities of life.


You've hit several nails on their respective heads, here. Probably not used to being told "no."


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

As with would-be politicians, those who set out determined to be 'literary' writers are likely to suffer from high levels of delusion.

Those who feel they must write without giving any thought to genre, classification or the opinions of others are much more likely to produce a work of literature.

All in my opinion, of course.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

brkingsolver said:


> What struck me about the author of the Guardian whine was that she was enamored with her dream of being a successful writer and the accolades and wealth she assumed would ensue. And what she wasn't interested in was the hard work necessary to be a successful writer. When she wasn't immediately published and put on a pedestal, she bailed out. She never considered indie publishing because that would't bring her the acclaim that she desired.


It's very odd how she doesn't mention the struggle experienced by most writers looking for an agent. You'd think it would warrant a cursory sentence at least, something like, "after all those queries sent, and the joy of finally finding an agent, only to have my dreams crushed."


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dn8791 said:


> The Ferrari is pretty and fine-tuned. You can tell it's been fussed over and while it's fun to ride in for a while, it inevitably breaks down about 2/3rds through the journey.


Ummm....you're confusing Ferrari with Fiat (though Fiat *does* own Ferrari). Just sayin'. Unless you're talking about the air conditioning on a Ferrari--then I agree.


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## lincolnjcole (Mar 15, 2016)

brkingsolver said:


> What struck me about the author of the Guardian whine was that she was enamored with her dream of being a successful writer and the accolades and wealth she assumed would ensue. And what she wasn't interested in was the hard work necessary to be a successful writer. When she wasn't immediately published and put on a pedestal, she bailed out. She never considered indie publishing because that would't bring her the acclaim that she desired.


This is always the case. People dream about the final stages of the process and want to skip all of the entry level stuff.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

This_Way_Down said:


> Indies get plenty of acclaim these days. The crowd that still thinks of indie as some literary redheaded stepchild is shrinking. Hell, we win awards now. I was even the keynote speaker at a annual library event. They paid me $2000.


Get outta town! Wow! Where was that? I want to sign up. For $2,000 even _I_ could find something to say.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

brkingsolver said:


> When she wasn't immediately published and put on a pedestal, she bailed out.


I'm _so_ glad to finally see someone besides myself use the correct term. It's "bailed out," not merely "bailed."


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Word Fan said:


> I'm _so_ glad to finally see someone besides myself use the correct term. It's "bailed out," not merely "bailed."


Unless we're talking about a pale and a boat, but she didn't say anything about being nautical. Of course, some might consider a human as only a package, such as a bale of hay, and say that she baled out.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Ummm....you're confusing Ferrari with Fiat (though Fiat *does* own Ferrari). Just sayin'. Unless you're talking about the air conditioning on a Ferrari--then I agree.


I didn't even realize Ferraris had air conditioning. I'm always picturing Magnum P.I. driving around with the top down.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> As a regular reader of literary fiction I can assure you is neither always intellectual nor fussed over. It is often of a very poor standard of both writing and editing.


I can't speak to lit fic novels because I haven't read enough lately, but I find that short stories are almost always well written, at least from a technical standpoint. The problem with them is that they're utterly lacking in substance. And that because of the other poison affecting literary fiction, malaise. I see it especially in lit fic journals, which are filled with tales written by people suffering from malaise. No other single word describes the vapid introspective pieces where no one acts and nothing happens--and everyone seems to lack self-awareness.

I once read all the stories in a couple of issues of a literary journal to test my impression. Sure enough, every story involved the same class of people experiencing the same mundane things that cause them to engage in superficial reflection about those things and Life Itself. Note that I say "experiencing" in the purely perceptual sense of the word. No one actually does anything; having someone do something in a story seems to get your story rejected.

Take what I'll call the coffee cup story. It's not an actual story, but it exemplifies the typical plot of the contemporary short story. A discarded coffee cup rolling around on the street catches our narrator's attention. He watches it for a while. Then he walks home pondering how people--other people, of course, not him--abuse poor Gaia and how the rolling cup reminds him of his best friend's uncle who took a heart attack and died rolling around in the street. He ruminates, he despairs, and, finally, he goes to sleep. End of story.

Every time I'm left asking myself, "Why didn't you pick up the f***ing cup and put it in a garbage can?" You're wondering what that has to do with anything. The answer is everything. So many of these stories go the same way. The narrator experiences something--a discarded coffee cup, a car accident, a meteor hitting a playground full of children--and he does nothing but watch. Then he reflects. But he doesn't reflect on the fact that he was a useless bystander. Oh no! Instead, he indulges in his own feelings about the incident, as if to say, "Sure, a lot of kids were incinerated by that meteorite, but let me share my feelings with you."

This lack of self-awareness on the part of the malaise-suffering narrators mirrors the writers' lack of self-awareness about their own malaise. They've got nothing to say because they're passive bystanders in a world that interests them only insofar as it causes feelings in them that they can suss out and submit to lit fic journals.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Paul Hector Travis said:


> I'm acquainted with a traditionally published author of historical fiction. Though he read my first book and greatly enjoyed it, he said that it had zero chance of being taken on by an agent. But if I changed the hero to a llama herder in Peru who's lost his favourite llama, it would be an instant hit.


How about _Llament for a Lost Friend_?

On a more serious note, the fact that your (human) writer friend noticed what I noticed testifies to how widespread the sentiment is. So many people who read lit fic (or refuse to read it) believe this, but almost no one puts it in print.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dn8791 said:


> I didn't even realize Ferraris had air conditioning. I'm always picturing Magnum P.I. driving around with the top down.


LOL. I think Ferraris in the US started having AC in the late 60s.

Selleck drove with the top off (the 308GTS models used had a removal targa top) because he was too tall to drive it with the top on. Plus I guess it was better TV. 

That model might as well not have had air conditioning. The radiator was in the front, the engine in the back and the hoses ran past the passenger compartment, so you sit inside a big radiant-heat oven.


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## Patrick Urban (Oct 22, 2016)

brkingsolver said:


> As to whisky, I prefer Glenmorangie. For whiskey, I buy Redbreast, and generally prefer Irish products to Scottish.


Heretical slip on my part in using whiskey for Glenmorangie. I'll give proper deference to origin with the Scottish spelling in future.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Patrick Urban said:


> Heretical slip on my part in using whiskey for Glenmorangie. I'll give proper deference to origin with the Scottish spelling in future.


It's the sort of thing that can get your masterpiece knocked down to a 4-star review.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> LOL. I think Ferraris in the US started having AC in the late 60s.
> 
> Selleck drove with the top off (the 308GTS models used had a removal targa top) because he was too tall to drive it with the top on. Plus I guess it was better TV.


Magnum lived in Hawaii. Why the hell would you NOT drive with the top off if you drove a Ferrari and lived in Hawaii?


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## W.W. (Jun 27, 2011)

Rick Partlow said:


> Magnum lived in Hawaii. Why the hell would you NOT drive with the top off if you drove a Ferrari and lived in Hawaii?


Because at any moment there can be a downpour? They have to have rain in order to have all those rainbows.


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## Rick Partlow (Sep 6, 2016)

W.W. said:


> Because at any moment there can be a downpour? They have to have rain in order to have all those rainbows.


Shoot I was stationed there when I was in the military and the downpours were few and far between except in the rainy season. My car had a sun roof and it stayed open most of the time.


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

ThomasDiehl said:


> There can't be more bestsellers than there are because the number of slots is limited. The Top 100 won't suddenly become the Top 137.


I wonder why books are declared successes based only on chart position relative to other books, but music/albums - while they do have their "Top 40, Hot 100" etc rankings as well - get their industry-certified gold, platinum, and diamond awards based on units sold.





WHDean said:


> The problem with [short stories] is that they're utterly lacking in substance.


Some are, certainly. But one of my favorite authors is, IMO, at his very best when writing short stories, and although I love almost all his work*, the short stories are the ones that strike me as having the _most_ substance, as being the most powerful and leaving the most lasting impression.

*Oddly enough, the work he is best known for and which has had the most commercial success is the only thing he's ever published that I didn't enjoy.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> LOL. I think Ferraris in the US started having AC in the late 60s.
> 
> Selleck drove with the top off (the 308GTS models used had a removal targa top) because he was too tall to drive it with the top on. Plus I guess it was better TV.
> 
> That model might as well not have had air conditioning. The radiator was in the front, the engine in the back and the hoses ran past the passenger compartment, so you sit inside a big radiant-heat oven.


You never know what you'll learn on kboards.  Oh, and now I want to move to Hawaii and buy a Ferrari. Hmm, I should probably get back to writing. (Does vampire fiction still sell? Inquiring Ferrari buyers wanna know. lol)


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> LOL. I think Ferraris in the US started having AC in the late 60s.
> 
> Selleck drove with the top off (the 308GTS models used had a removal targa top) because he was too tall to drive it with the top on. Plus I guess it was better TV.
> 
> That model might as well not have had air conditioning. The radiator was in the front, the engine in the back and the hoses ran past the passenger compartment, so you sit inside a big radiant-heat oven.


I notice that among all the successful writers here, the person who knows about Ferraris is the moderator. Folks, we got into the wrong end of the business.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> I notice that among all the successful writers here, the person who knows about Ferraris is the moderator. Folks, we got into the wrong end of the business.


I heard she steals Ferraris, chops them up, and makes quilts out of the parts. Her name on the dark web where she sells them is Betsy the _Ferrari_ Quilter.


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## W.W. (Jun 27, 2011)

Rick Partlow said:


> Shoot I was stationed there when I was in the military and the downpours were few and far between except in the rainy season. My car had a sun roof and it stayed open most of the time.


I lived there for three years, and got rained on, out of the blue, numerous times.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

WHDean said:


> I heard she steals Ferraris, chops them up, and makes quilts out of the parts. Her name on the dark web where she sells them is Betsy the _Ferrari_ Quilter.


Shhhhh....



brkingsolver said:


> I notice that among all the successful writers here, the person who knows about Ferraris is the moderator. Folks, we got into the wrong end of the business.


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2017)

I haven't reached Ferrari level. BMW so far. But I'm working on it.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

WHDean said:


> I can't speak to lit fic novels because I haven't read enough lately, but I find that short stories are almost always well written, at least from a technical standpoint. The problem with them is that they're utterly lacking in substance. And that because of the other poison affecting literary fiction, malaise. I see it especially in lit fic journals, which are filled with tales written by people suffering from malaise. No other single word describes the vapid introspective pieces where no one acts and nothing happens--and everyone seems to lack self-awareness.
> 
> I once read all the stories in a couple of issues of a literary journal to test my impression. Sure enough, every story involved the same class of people experiencing the same mundane things that cause them to engage in superficial reflection about those things and Life Itself. Note that I say "experiencing" in the purely perceptual sense of the word. No one actually does anything; having someone do something in a story seems to get your story rejected.
> 
> ...


Literary fiction isn't immune to some stinkers, but if most of the short litfic you read leaves you only thinking why didn't they just pick up the cup, then maybe you're reading in the wrong places.

I have to read a lot of short stories to hit one that really resonates with me. I don't like most genre stories I read that well either, so there's some subjectivity involved. Many stories are just self-indulgent twaddle, but the best ones aren't.

This is one of my favorite stories, for instance. It might seem self-indulgent to other people, but I go through an entire range of emotions every time I read it (and I read it a few times a year, on average). It's very short. http://theliteraryunderground.org/pindeldyboz/kfhole.html If the opening doesn't appeal, skip to the third paragraph.

Another one that's completely different but moves me in similar ways is here: http://pankmagazine.com/piece/zack-bean/

My favorite is Ballistics by Alex Keegan, also very short, but no longer online anywhere I can find. It's in second person, a tense I despise, but it's so good I barely noticed. Some things just hum inside you like a tuning fork when you read them. And that's something I don't generally get from genre fiction, only short literary stories (and sometimes poems) on rare, special occasions.

Most stories in both of tho zines linked above don't move me, or I didn't finish them, or I came away irritated, which is really no different for me than reading any any other genre. Those two stuck with me enough I copied them so that if they were ever taken down I could revisit them, and I checked those places for new stories regularly. Pindeldyboz has been dead for years, unfortunately. My point is that a good story can focus on something insubstantial and be about so much more, and it feels as if the reader brings all that with them. If you don't like either of the stories above, then it could be that the genre's just not for you, or you haven't hit on the right stories yet. It's definitely not for everybody.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

This_Way_Down said:


> I haven't reached Ferrari level. BMW so far. But I'm working on it.


My vehicle is a pink bicycle. I did buy hubby a Subaru with heated seats, though. That was awesome.  Because the 15 y o minivan died on me while he was on a backpacking trip.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

SerenityEditing said:


> I wonder why books are declared successes based only on chart position relative to other books, but music/albums - while they do have their "Top 40, Hot 100" etc rankings as well - get their industry-certified gold, platinum, and diamond awards based on units sold.


Yeah, but I responded to the notion of there being more bestsellers, not success stories.

However, this thread is now about cars, apparently. I never even had the need or desire to make a driver's license (both the SF Bay Area and Ruhr have excellent public transport), so this discussion is completely alien to me.
But I'm currently building my second recumbent bike. So at least I can appreciate Rosalind's pink bicycle.


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2017)

Rosalind J said:


> My vehicle is a pink bicycle. I did buy hubby a Subaru with heated seats, though. That was awesome.  Because the 15 y o minivan died on me while he was on a backpacking trip.


I bought mine because I had never bought anything like it for myself before. I bought the wife and Audi Q7, the family a home, crap to put IN the home. It was time for daddy to have a shiny of his very own. The cool thing is, although it's an $80k sports car, I didn't pay nearly that much. It had 17k miles and was 1 1/2 years old. High end German cars lose most of their value in the first 2 years. I love it. It's fun on 4 wheels. And it's a luxury car too (at least the way it feels when you are sitting in the seat. I looked at the Corvette, but I didn't want to be "old man in in a Corvette".


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

This_Way_Down said:


> I bought mine because I had never bought anything like it for myself before. I looked at the Corvette, but I didn't want to be "old man in a Corvette."


So, you're O.K. with being "that old man trying to re-capture his wayward youth by getting a sports car" ?


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2017)

Word Fan said:


> So, you're O.K. with being "that old man trying to re-capture his wayward youth by getting a sports car" ?


You bet! I actually call it my midlife crisis mobile.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Shelley K said:


> Literary fiction isn't immune to some stinkers, but if most of the short litfic you read leaves you only thinking why didn't they just pick up the cup, then maybe you're reading in the wrong places.
> 
> I have to read a lot of short stories to hit one that really resonates with me. I don't like most genre stories I read that well either, so there's some subjectivity involved. Many stories are just self-indulgent twaddle, but the best ones aren't.
> 
> ...


No doubt there are still good short stories being written. I was pointing to an unfortunate trend within literary fiction specifically. Think _Threepenny Review, Missouri Review_, etc.

I will look at the links, though, so thanks for that.


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## Paul Hector Travis (Mar 2, 2017)

WHDean said:


> How about _Llament for a Lost Friend_?
> 
> On a more serious note, the fact that your (human) writer friend noticed what I noticed testifies to how widespread the sentiment is. So many people who read lit fic (or refuse to read it) believe this, but almost no one puts it in print.


 
It would have to be "Llament for a Lost Friend: A Novel."


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## SerenityEditing (May 3, 2016)

ThomasDiehl said:


> Yeah, but I responded to the notion of there being more bestsellers, not success stories.


Okay...? I still wonder why they do it that way.

I was thinking about this more after I posted. Most other forms of entertainment that I can think of usually get accolades based on their consumption (units sold/# of viewers/etc), and _sometimes_ their relative position to other products. Books, it's the other way around - usually their status is measured by their relative position, and only occasionally by their consumption. There's got to be a reason. And if I'd had more than twelve hours of sleep in the last three days I might be able to figure it out...


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