Measuring Success
Recently an aspiring novelist told me she would never feel successful unless she published a bestseller.
I replied that book sales have little, if anything, to do with literary achievement. After all, if making the bestseller list is the chief barometer of a writer’s success then Jackie Collins and Victoria Gotti are outrageously successful. I have yet to meet anyone who aspires to write like them.
But this writer insisted on validation. If she didn’t publish, it could only mean that years of work on her novel had been wasted — that she had failed.
Comments like these both sadden and frustrate me because they entirely disregard the writer’s experience of doing the work. They only concern results.
The way I see it, there’s a difference between wanting to be a writer and truly wanting to write. If you’re a real and serious writer, you’re dedicated to the work for the sheer joy of doing it. If you publish, great. If not, well, maybe in due time. In the interim you have this wonderful thing you love to do every day. Real writers are enthralled with the process. They write to uncover life’s hidden truths, to discover things they didn’t know they knew–about themselves, about people, about life.
To paraphrase something Jane Smiley once said, if you deeply immerse yourself in your work, if you fall in love with your craft, you will gain two major boons: first, your work will get better, and so will be more likely to get published. Second, your relationship to the work itself and to the process will become so strong that you will care less and less about whether it ever gets published.
I’m not saying that getting published isn’t a great achievement. It certainly is. But a work of fiction or memoir will fail or succeed on its own terms. Whether it sells, or how well it sells, has little correlation to quality. In the end it’s your satisfaction with the work that determines its success.
That’s my take on success. What’s yours?
To believe you are only successful if you publish is problematic because it relies on othes evaluating your success. As a writer I set far more achievable and realistic goals for myself that I can control. Last year I set the goal to finish my first full manuscript. No half measures, no almost there’s but then I got distracted by this other thing, no excuses. Finish the manuscript. Draft it, edit it, edit it again and start getting it out there. And I did that. I was successful. That success made the process so rewarding I’ve since completed two more manuscripts though both are in various stages of editing.
Yes, I want to be published. Very few people who have written an entire novel will suggest that they now want to stick it under the bed and leave it there. Will being published make me any more successful as a writer? Not really.
I am an aspiring writer. I write my blog for now as I am growing and learning. I would love to write a devotional one day, and for awhile that is all I thought about, was being published. As my thinking changed, my writing changed, I lost focus of what the real purpose was for me. The real purpose for me was to share Christ, to share from my heart and bless others. For if I never get published and one person comes to know Christ through something I wrote,than it was all worth it. Writing must be a joy, it must be in your heart, and a gift you want to share with others. thank you so much for sharing so I too can learn..
“Whether it sells, or how well it sells, has little correlation to quality.” — Yes, and that includes whether it’s accepted by a traditional publisher or agent at all. The publishing biz, like all other big business, is about dollars. That means whatever seems “commercial” based on current trends is most likely to be allowed through the gate. They want the next bestseller, not the next classic.
Exceptions are the small presses, but even they have serious bottom-line pressure, so they adopt similar practices as the Big 6. When my story collection got a publishing offer from a small press I had carefully selected, I was horrified by their writer-unfriendly contract. When I politely voiced a concern, they withdrew the offer, no discussion.
So I decided to take control of my own destiny and publish myself. There is definitely a feeling of success that comes with seeing that self-created book in one’s hands. But of course, the difficulty of sales challenges that good feeling as time goes by.
It’s such great advice that you’re giving: love the journey, not the destination. As Krishna told Arjuna: take the action, let go of the result. I’m beginning to feel that again as I sink deeper into a novel in progress (whenever I can leave behind the marketing of my story collection). Thanks!
Hi. I read a few of your other posts and i wanted to say thank you for the informative posts.