Success Is Personal: Reflections On a Twelve-Year Journey

Everyone in author world has his or her own definition of success. Some define it as making six figures in royalties. Many want to be published by a big 5 publisher. Others want to be number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Still others are content selling a few copies of their book to family and friends. Whether seeking recognition in publishing, longing for feedback from readers, or craving the joy that comes with creative expression, most authors have at least attempted to define success.

Writing is my passion. Someone reading what I write is my dream. Success came when I finally made more money in royalties than I earned in accounting. If I am a professional writer, I can stop being a professional accountant. That’s how I define success: having the freedom to quit the day job, indulge my passion, and pursue my dream. Royalties mean books are being sold. That means someone out there is reading. Maybe that’s not your definition, but it’s the definition that is meaningful to me.

It’s been a twelve-year journey. I started this blog years ago with the title “Journey to Publication.” I changed the title to “Suspense, She Writes” when Still Moments Publishing released my first short story in 2012. At first, I labeled myself as a romance writer because Still Moments was a romance publisher. After a few years and a few releases, I realized that the title of this blog had always been a more accurate description of what I write. I love writing suspense. 

In 2014, I released my first paranormal romantic suspense novel and found my niche. After ten years of writing and publishing, I finally knew who I was as a writer. I had found the elusive voice that writers talk about—that quality of one’s writing that defines them as a writer.

Occasionally, an aspiring writer will ask me for advice on how to succeed in publishing. I try to give the best advice I can. The truth is I have no idea why my books began to sell. I have a few theories, but I can only guess. All I know for sure is that in January 2015 the first book in the Haunted Hearts series started selling, and it’s still selling. I’m grateful. It was my dream to be a professional writer. The success of the Haunted Hearts series has fulfilled my dream.

However, I am not at that place in my writing life, at least not psychologically, where I can boast about how I did it. I don’t feel comfortable giving how-to-succeed-in-this-business advice. When I do, I subconsciously, or maybe even consciously, wonder if I’m a fraud pretending like I know what I’m talking about when I really don’t. My success feels very much like being in the right place at the right time.

There is a subgenre of writing about writing, and some writers have been successful in publishing in that genre. I read their words, and I suspect those writing gurus are just as clueless about why they succeeded as I am. All of their advice is sound, but a writer could follow their advice and still remain unknown, unpublished, and unsuccessful. I'm sorry if that is discouraging, but it's the truth.

During these twelve years, there are a few things I’ve come to understand and I can state without feeling like I don’t know what I’m talking about.

1.     Very few authors are overnight successes. Actually, there probably aren’t any overnight successes. Authors who came onto the publishing scene with a breakout novel honed their craft for years before they had a successful debut novel.

2.     Fail proof marketing strategies do not exist. It’s all trial and error. Discovering what works is a process. Stubbornly sticking to a strategy that doesn’t produce results is a waste of time, money, and emotional energy.

3.     Not all “authoritative” publishing advice is valid. It’s like parenting advice. Some of it is great. Some of it, not so much. A few basic pieces of advice are sound. The rest is opinion. It takes time and experience to be able to determine the difference between advice and opinion.

4.     There are many paths to publishing success. Success has its own plotline and its own timeline, and it's different for every author.

5.     It’s the story. That’s it. If you have a sellable story, it doesn’t matter how well it’s written. Some of the biggest bestsellers have tons of reviews posted on Amazon about poor writing. Despite all the "authoritative" advice about making your story as good as it can be no matter how long it takes to get it right so you can compete in the marketplace, if the story doesn’t interest readers it’s not going to sell, which means no one is going to read it. I'm not saying don't insist on delivering a quality book to the marketplace. I'm saying don't count on the quality giving the book an edge over other books with better plots.

6.     Not everyone is going to love the story. Every book published is vulnerable to the one-star review. If the author hasn’t received a one-star yet, it’s coming. Wait for it. The negative review will punch the writer in the gut. Hard and without warning. It is survivable, and it doesn’t mean the writer is awful. One star reviews are not a sign the writer should stop writing. They are an indication that someone is paying attention.

7.     The more I learn, the less I know. This kind of sounds backward, but I find it to be true. The more I read and understand about the art and craft of writing, the more I feel like I have so much more to learn. Every new concept I discover strengthens and enhances my writing. A good writer never stops learning how to write better.

I cringe when I think about the first full-length manuscript I finished. I know now what I didn’t know then. The book was lame and the writing was terrible. You’ll never read that book because I don’t think I can revise it enough to make it sellable. Like I wrote before, I want people to read what I write, and I'm not fond of one-star reviews.

I have one piece of advice for aspiring writers. Do not let rejection, an unclear or uncertain path, or negative feedback discourage you from pursuing your writing goals, no matter how complex or simple they are. No matter how personal they are. No matter how long it takes to achieve them. Being a professional writer is a process, not a destination. Looking back on it, I was a professional writer twelve years ago. I just didn't realize it.

Are Ebook Sales Really Declining?

If you are an author, especially an indie author, the question of on-going viability in the ebook market is of great concern. Well, it is of great concern to me because 99% of my sales are ebooks through the 'Zon.

I think the big 5 publishing houses would like me to believe the days of my indie success are over, that perhaps, I should go back to groveling for their attention through the industry gatekeepers, the agents.

I'm not ready to give up my indie status. Not yet.

Recently, I've come across two very interesting articles with opposing points of view on the subject.

It would seem that the Association of American Publishers would like the public to believe that the shift away from paperbacks to ebooks has reversed and the ebook market is in decline. Not great news for indie authors or small presses. Or for the many trees who will have to give their lives for the resurgent success of the paperback market.

Here is an excerpt from an article posted to The New York Times website.

“E-books were this rocket ship going straight up,” said Len Vlahos, a former executive director of the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research group that tracks the publishing industry. “Just about everybody you talked to thought we were going the way of digital music.”

But the digital apocalypse never arrived, or at least not on schedule. While analysts once predicted that e-books would overtake print by 2015, digital sales have instead slowed sharply.

But here's the problem with their data:

It is also possible that a growing number of people are still buying and reading e-books, just not from traditional publishers. The declining e-book sales reported by publishers do not account for the millions of readers who have migrated to cheap and plentiful self-published e-books, which often cost less than a dollar.

Read the full article here.

While another site that monitors ebook sales on Amazon, Author Earnings, posted an article with a very different outlook for sellers of ebooks.

Here is an excerpt from the article.

The widely-heralded “plateauing” of the US ebook market has gotten plenty of press over the last 18 months, fueled primarily by these reports of declining ebook sales from the AAP, from Nielsen, and in the released quarterly financials of the Big Five.

Traditional publishers and publishing industry pundits are claiming that the broader US ebook market has now flattened, or is even shrinking.

But at the same time, the largest ebook store in world is telling the Wall Street Journal that the exact opposite is happening:

“Amazon says e-book sales in its Kindle store—which encompasses a host of titles that aren’t published by the five major houses—are up in 2015 in both units and revenue.”

You can read the full article here.

So are ebook sales declining or not? No, I don't think so. Author Earnings further reports:

But right now, as of September 2015:

• “Nontraditionally-published” ebooks from indie self-publishers and Amazon publishing imprints make up 58% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.

• Traditionally-published ebooks make up 42% of Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.

• When the AAP reports “declining ebook sales”, they are describing the shrinking portion of the US ebook market held by their 1200 participating traditional publishers, whose share of the broader US ebook market has fallen in the last 18 months from 46% of all Kindle ebook purchases to less than 32%.

This dramatic market share shift has not gone entirely unnoticed in traditional-publishing circles. In July, influential industry veteran Mike Shatzkin observed that:

“Ebook sales for big publishers may be declining but they’re being replaced by indie sales at lower prices (their USP) at Amazon.”

When the big 5 won their war with Amazon and began setting their own prices for ebooks, my sales soared. Is this just my experience or is this indicative of a larger trend in the market away from the higher prices set by the big 5? Did the big 5 basically shoot themselves in the proverbial foot?

No one is going to want to pay more for an ebook when you can get the paperback cheaper at Walmart. The big 5 were intentionally using this strategy to tank the ebook market and bolster the dying paperback market. So, yes, the big 5 ebook market was going to decline.

Readers who follow authors published by the big 5 are going to remain loyal and purchase the paperback if the ebook is more expensive. But what about those readers who have gotten used to the lower price of ebooks? A lot of them have migrated to independently published books.

I think the big 5 should break out of the denial their living in and quit believing that their segment of the publishing industry is the only segment that matters.