Author: Dan Blank

Chuck Wendig asked some interesting questions recently:

“It’s a shame sometimes to see self-publishing so overwhelmed with people doing the same thing. You see more of the same kind of covers, more of the same kind of romance or science fiction. Why don’t you do something different with format? You can be as long or as short as you need it to be. You can be as serialized as you need it to be. Self-publishing doesn’t need to just be like, “Well, it’s an ebook novel and it looks just like what you’d see on the shelves,” or, unfortunately, in some cases, worse. So why not take some risks and get crazy with it?”

This immediately made me consider how writers measures success. Is it sales? Is it in the creative process itself? Is it in affect the lives of others? Clearly, each writer will have their own combination of these and many other measures, but it begs the question of whether becoming “an Amazon bestseller!” is the end goal of publishing.

Ze Frank explore this from a different angle, responding to a fan of his who is nervous about venturing off alone to a big city to start college. Ze’s advice:

“You are a worldmaker… you have so many different possibilities of creating a world that is right for you… and that’s exciting. It’s more exciting that trying to fit into a whole bunch of things that are expected of you.”

And I do see many writers and creative people RUSHING AROUND trying to figure out the quickest path to “success.” They obsess over what is working today – they want to know the “best practices” that make false-promises of shortcuts to an audience, to a platform. Oftentimes, the biggest headlines of what works really describe what worked 18 months ago for a handful of people, and is now no longer all that unique.

We seek what is known because it is safe. We justify it as being “proven,” but the fact of the matter is that success is a process of many tiny failures that add up to the more than the sum of their parts.

I tend to view writers as entrepreneurs. There is so much risk involved emotionally, in the return on investment of their time, and in any efforts they make in the publishing process. Even a moment ago, I read a quote from Steven Spielberg that his Oscar winning film Lincoln was “this close” to being a TV movie on HBO, never landing in theaters. As a viewer, we see Lincoln as another great award winning Spielberg film. But from his perspective, he likely pushed past barriers and risks for years on that film, including it never even getting into theaters.

Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude created works of enormous scale that required lengthy approval processes from governments and private organizations in order to build their art:

“These were all enormous projects in terms of scale, cost and planning. Sometimes it can take years for the artists to obtain the required permits to carry out their plans. The permit process often requires extensive environmental studies, costing millions of dollars. Avoiding words like “red tape” or “bureaucracy”, Christo and Jeanne-Claude simply call their quest to get a project approved as “process.”

The process was a core part of the art. I do feel that writers would be better served if they accepted a similar attitude in their work. That publishing is part of the process. That crafting a meaningful platform with readers is a part of the process.

Should writers take even more risks? No. But they should accept the risks that they are taking inherently as writers, embrace them, and use them to expand their work in new ways.

Here is my wife experiencing Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates” in New York City in 2005. She is looking out on something totally unexpected, something many did not consider to be “art” when first proposed by the artists back in 1979. It took 25 years to turn their idea into reality.

Should Christo and Jeanne-Claude have put oil paint on a rectangular canvas instead of crafting a wholly original process and works for art?

As a write, as a creator, you get to decide that for yourself. Porter Anderson recently explored the pressure being put on writers to write more and write faster. Well work checking out.

Thanks.
-Dan

Preparing for success is not about getting “followers” on social media. It is about crafting meaningful work and connecting it with the right readers. Paul Jarvis adequately encapsulated most writers’ book marketings strategy (although he is using a different example in this instance):

“Before social media, it was a simpler time. If you had a product or service, you’d actually have to bust your ass to come up with a marketing strategy and then work that ass off some more to implement it. You’d have to get out there and connect with people on a one-on-one basis to build relationships to get word out there. Yes it took a long time. But not everything can be instantly gratified.”

“Now it seems “I’ll tweet about my [book]” is a marketing plan. And the advanced strategy is “How many times a day I will tweet about my [book]”. Social media has removed every gate-keeper (which is awesome)—but sometimes those gate-keepers were there for good reason.”

When we talk about what it means to be a successful writer, it is often a combination of these three things:

1. The craft of writing
2. Luck
3. Preparation (what I call the craft of platform)

Here this is as a fancy diagram (the orange in the middle is where you want to be):

Okay, but this seems like some vague boring B.S. Venn diagram without some context, right? Let’s look at an example, an author that everyone seems to be talking about this year: Hugh Howey. Hugh’s story has inspired many with some simple facts, such as that he was reporting earnings of $150,000 per month from ebook sales of stories he self-published. The story is much deeper, but that alone grabs your attention, right?

I’ve seen Hugh speak, read lots of interviews, and read his story told by quite a few people. I’ve also read his most popular book, Wool, and enjoyed it. Hugh is a down-to-earth guy and talks about how he just uploaded his fiction online, and waiting for readers to really pay attention. But I think that his success goes far beyond that. So let’s apply the model here:

In other words:

Hugh had to develop as a writer, and he actively does so. He has a meter on the left side of his homepage that shows you his progress on several stories.

Hugh couldn’t plan for this to happen. He had no idea that WOOL would be the story that resonated with readers far beyond others. Right stories, right place, right time.

Hugh COULD plan on taking action based on what he saw. He paid attention to which stories were getting read, and took action to craft more of them. He noticed who his fans were, where they are online and off, and took efforts to connect with them. He is very open and down-to-earth, once you meet Hugh (virtually or in person), you want to stay connected. You will also notice that Hugh does not have an enormous social media following. His goal is not to grab as many “followers” as he can, but rather be present with the fans he meets online and off.

I do feel that being prepared and crafting one’s platform does help encourage luck from happening. For instance, too many writers:

• Write a “good enough” piece of work, then try to protect it. As anyone who writes professionally will tell you, it is hard work, day in and day out.
• Wait to go “viral.” They think they can plan for luck. You can’t.
• Don’t prepare. They see how much work it is to craft a meaningful platform, to understand who their readers are, to do something more than the “best practices,” so they make token efforts and go back to waiting for luck to happen.

Every successful writer has a slightly different story. There will be a different balance of the “writing craft, luck, preparation” equation. And it’s true, some work will succeed with only two of these three elements:

• Books that get critically panned for poor writing, but sell millions anyway.
• Books that are well crafted and the writer was inventive and tireless in their efforts to get it in front of readers, one at a time.
• And occasions where luck was 90% of success, and where it was 10% of success.”

What always interest me is how to be prepared for success. Hugh has been open about the role of luck in his success, that you can’t plan for becoming a bestseller by doing the exact things he did. But you can be prepared for success. You can learn to be more observant, find meaningful ways to engage with fans, and focus on the quality of connection with readers, not just the quantity.

I tend to see too many writers settling for only the “best practices” – the stuff that everyone else is doing. What I think is more critical is to do the deep research about readers, forging meaningful relationships, and creating a process for crafting your platform as a writer.

Thanks.
-Dan