Hey there, indie author! Raise your hand if you’re jealous of one of the following authors:
etc. . . .
These are all self-publishing authors who have done exceptionally well, to the point that it might seem that their novels simply exploded on the scene.
The reality: These authors are the exception—the exceptionally small, minuscule margin of authors who have had a tremendous amount of success with a simple recipe of being at the right place at the right time and pure, dumb luck.
You’re the rule. Repeat after me: I. Am. The. Rule.
You can’t count on fortune and fame any more than you can count on being at the right place at the right time OR pure, dumb luck, but you CAN count on doing things the right way (quality editing, a solid cover design, etc.) so that you’ve got a better chance of doors opening for you. Still, you’re left with the lingering problem of knocking on the doors to make them open—unfortunately, you still have to make the effort to knock.
Beyond that, if your goal is fortune and fame, it’s most likely going to take a lot of knocking to get those doors to open. A. Lot. Of. Knocking. And, again, if your goal is fame and fortune, it will be easy to get discouraged when you’re longing for immediate gratification and it’s just not coming.
The only way to keep your sanity WHILE reaching for the fame and fortune is to have a grander mission for your book. If you make money with your book, it won’t be right away, so what else about your book will drive you to stay passionate? I’ll give you our missions for example.
We started Wise Ink because we wanted to have the best self-publishing options in the country for authors. We wanted to be cutting-edge yet simple and manageable; we wanted to offer the highest-quality design, editing, printing, and digital options in the business while also being affordable; we wanted to offer solutions to help our authors master the social-media world, those amazing connecting tools that leveled the playing field for all authors. Those were our end goals. In order to get there, we had to have a mission that lived within and also extended beyond the end goal. That mission? To arm authors with the best information and be industry thought leaders. Because we spent so much time focusing on our mission—through building our blog, social media presence, and connecting with as many people as possible rather than just saying “give me the money, I’ll give you a book”—we were able to “reach” our end goals (which are always evolving—no one ever arrives) with much greater ease. AND, even though we weren’t for profit when we were launching, we feel like our mission was fulfilled because we weren’t focused on the money.
The mission—not the money—is the key to success. If the end goal is book sales, your mission will support the book sales without you even trying to sell. If you’ve got a fantastic workbook for young girls to manage stress, your mission would be to support young girls rather than simple book sales. If you focus on helping girls with or without the book, the book sales will be a result of you focusing on your mission.
What is your greater mission with your book? Share it here!
This is true and false, I feel. They may be the exception because they are still a steep statistical minority. But as self-publishing begins to take off, (and there is every evidence that it will continue to do so) stories like this may go from “rare” to “uncommon” to simply a matter of putting in the work, just as with any fortune that is made in any endeavor, other than scratch of lottery tickets. And even then you have to scratch…
By this theory, I maintain that getting an agent is 100% “dumb luck”, or that agent being able to sell you novel to anyone is “100% dumb luck”. And even if that happens, anybody buying it is any quantity is “100% dumb luck.”
Or…none of it is. It could go either way. But a person isn’t going to succeed on levels like this if they start out with the assumption that “I am the rule, and I am not ever going to have a prayer of becoming rich through my writing.” After all, before any of the people above became worthy of mention in this article, they too were the rule…that is until they became the exception.
The first step in being the exception is to accept the fact that you can be…and the second step is finding out how to do it. One of those steps is not saying, “there’s not chance I will become famous, rich, or well beloved, so screw it, I’ll just write, and not care about those things.”
Now maybe somebody doesn’t care about those things, and that’s great. But i question whether sweeping any such ambitious under the rug of “100% dumb luck” is appropriate in the publishing age that is dawning now.
Absolutely, people have to work for it. I guess what I meant with the “dumb luck” is that I see so many incredibly talented authors with truly beautiful books work their tails off and not get anywhere . . . not that I don’t think it’s worth it! Of course it’s worth it. I guess what I should say is that sometimes there really isn’t a special formula or pattern for authors’ successes . . . sometimes things just explode on the scene for unknown reasons. BUT, as I did acknowledge in the article, authors who take the steps to do the right things in the right ways are prone to having more doors open for them.
It’s been said before, but it can never be said enough. Mission before money. (And without the mission, there’s no reason to be persistently knocking. Believe in the product and all that.)
And you ARE Thought-Leaders.
Thanks.
Amen, and thanks so much for your kind words!
Amen Amen Amen. My mission is to help men and women birth their souls…..which means to give them support for identifying and moving through the obstacles to living as their most authentic self and to empower them to live as their most authentic self….free….loving…peaceful….content….fulfilled….full of joy! PERIOD! And if my books help them along the way….then yay!
How true it is…If authors want to make money, I recommend they either invest in real estate or the stock market. Writing books has never been a practical path to accumulating wealth.
For me, I set out to write about the life of Alex Haley because I just wanted to know more about him since there was very little published about his life.
Exactly—you had a passion, an interest, that drove you to get past the financial concerns that come from publishing a book. It’s not just that fulfilling a mission/passion with a book makes the publishing worthwhile, it’s that (generally speaking) money won’t follow without a mission/passion driving it in the first place. Thanks for your comment!
All true – but equally so for the trad-published. For every Stephenie Meyer or Dan Brown there are a thousand capable writers who get minuscule advances and microscopic marketing efforts (if any). Look at the back-flap author bios and you’ll see that only the tiniest handful of even bestselling authors actually write-for-a-living. Most are also professors, lawyers, actors, or something else that actually pays the bills. No one, indie or otherwise, should begin writing with the primary goal of becoming wealthy.
All great points—we agree! If you don’t have a fulfilling mission with writing (regardless of how you publish), the money is probably not going to be enough to make up for it. Thanks for your great comment!
What a wonderful and inspiring article/comments. Thank you for such a powerful reminder. Mission and purpose before anything else! Keep the great work going, loving it!
I had a business plan right from the start. It changes as my needs and goals change. I write because I have to. My goal is to produce a story, and present it, in a manner that can stand next to the NYT Best Seller’s, and hold its own.
I can write a good story. It’s harder to find the professionals who can help me produce and present it professionally. And harder yet to learn how to market and promote efficiently.
My end goal is to off a quality product, for a reasonable price and build a connection with my readers that will continue throughout my writing career. I want them know, when they buy my book, they will get something of value from it.
Whether its a laugh, an idea, entertainment, or knowledge, I want them put the book down and wish it would go on just a little bit longer.
I want a fair exchange of value. I need to make a living. that’s just a fact but I want to do it in a way I’m proud of. I want my books to be read over, and over. I want them talked about, traded, and passed around. I want them loved by the reader.
Will I write even if I don’t make money? Yes. Because I have to. But I want to be proud of what I present to the public. I think its important to have as high a quality product as I’m capable of. I’m only at the beginning of my journey. I don’t worry about getting to the end. I only worry about the next step.
Some very important points. My mission is simple, and expressed in the mission statement of my small press (79 rat press)
art is very simple
build a poetics of hope
one truth at a time
until every soul sings
its own beautiful song
I write in the hope that I will change just one life, encourage just one person to truly live. And after that, one more life. And so on.
Although the ‘big’ money is earned by a few writers there are thousands of us that are making a decent living from our indie-books. I’m earning more now than I did as a full time, top of the scale, teacher.
I’m not jealous of any writer – just pleased they are doing so well. I’m happy to be making a good living from my writing – and none of my books are ‘best-sellers’. There’s enough for everyone in the indie-world – unlike the trad-world where advances and royalites are influenced by the failing economy.
Hugh Howey & Amanda Hocking BOTH have complained about other “writers” bombarding them with their “manuscripts” to read. Both have complained that manuscripts have been sent to their homes. Hugh Howey has said so in interviews & you can see on his face that he’s tired of it, and Amanda Hocking has talked about this in her Q&A on her blog.
If writers in general claim to be writing for “because they have to write” and all this other crap, why send manuscripts to writers who have made it?
Successful paranormal writer Zoe Winters said she had to turn off her comments for her blog because it was turning into a “writer’s hangout” when it was supposed to be for fans. Why do writers cling so hard to those who have made it? I mean, these authors are being harassed so hard. They need to stop hounding those that are successful & learn to do their OWN work. Now watch, a “writer” will come on here & say I hurt their feelings by saying this & start crying. Or they’ll say I’m “crushing dreams”. It’s always the same. Always.