The uncomfortable truth about writing
Writer. Author. It sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? However, before you can indulge in all the wonderful aspects of being a writer, there are a few uncomfortable truths to face first.
You are not the next J.K. Rowling
How many next J.K. Rowlings do you know? Zero. The same with the next Stephen King, Tolkien, or Hemingway. There are a lot of okay writers out there. There are quite a few good writers out there. Great writers? Those are rare. The uncomfortable truth is that you are most likely not a great writer. (Don’t worry, I’m not either.)
The good news is that you don’t need to be a great writer. Being a good writer in combination with excellent marketing is what gets books sold. Why? Because being an author is a business.
Being an author is a business
As I said before, the real thing that sells books is marketing. Of course, if your story sucks or your book is full of grammatical mistakes, all the marketing in the world isn’t going to help you out. But that’s where editors come in. One of the biggest mistakes writers make is thinking that their book will magically sell itself because it is just “so good”. It’s not. We’ve already established you are not the next J.K. Rowling.
Being an author is so much more than just writing the book. I’d argue writing the book is actually the easiest part. Authors need to be social media specialists, marketing experts, web designers, public speakers, and tax magicians. The fact is that you’ve created a product that you now wish to exchange for money. That’s a business. You can put your head into the sand all you want, but if you wish to be a successful author, then you also need to embrace this side of running a business.
You need an editor and proofreader
This one is for self-publishing authors: you need an editor and proofreader. The self-edit is an important part of honing your craft, but it is no substitution for a professional editor. Self-publishing already has a bad rep, don’t contribute to this by publishing a non-edited book.
Even if your day job is being an editor or a proofreader, you still need to hire other professional people. This is because authors become blind to their own mistakes. We’ve dreamt the words, we’ve written the words, and we’ve edited the words, probably more than once. You need a fresh set of eyes to take your manuscript to the next level.
I know it’s expensive, but there really is no alternative. Not editing or not proofreading your book will cost you so much more in lost revenue and a bad reputation than the actual cost of hiring an editor and proofreader. You don’t have to hire top of the line if you can’t. There are many decent editors out there that are just starting their business and don’t charge premium rates (yet).
Most authors only sell xx books
It’s really hard to put a number on this, but the average self-publishing author only sells 250 copies. Read that number again: 250 copies. Another number that gets thrown around a lot is 3,000 copies in the lifetime of a traditionally published book. Those are just average numbers, which means that for every book that sells 5,000 copies, there’s another book that barely sells 5 copies.
The sad reality is that only a handful of authors can make writing their full-time job. Most of us will always need some sort of day job (on the side) to support our writing career.
You will need to embrace social media
Being a successful author is part-time being a good writer and part-time being an excellent marketeer. Look at the popularity of BookTube and BookTok. There’s a huge market of hungry readers out there, but they need to know your book exists. The recent success of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. The book got published in 2011 with an initial run of 20,000 copies. Nothing crazy happened after that until a young TikTokker went viral praising the book. In 2022, The Song of Achilles sold over 2 million copies.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to sell books without social media, but it will be damn hard. The sooner you embrace social media as part of your marketing strategy, the better chance you have of getting your book read.
Your friends and family don’t care (as much as you wish they cared)
You wrote a book? Great! Go show it to all of your family and friends. Now prepare yourself for their lack of enthusiasm. While finishing that first book will probably feel like the biggest achievement of your life, your friends and family are not as invested in this project as you are. And that’s okay. Because let’s be honest, while you are genuinely happy about that promotion your friend just got, you don’t care that much about it after the initial announcement.
There are always going to be haters
No matter how exceptional your work is, there will always be haters. It’s impossible to please everyone. Look at it this way; 10% will always criticize you, no matter what. Even if you engaged with that 10% and did everything they ask you to do, they would still find ways to criticize you. So do it for the other 90%.
There is another important lesson here. While you shouldn’t waste your emotional energy on that 10%, you should look at their criticism with a rational, impartial point of view. If you can detach yourself from the emotional side of negative feedback, you could learn a thing or two.
What I’m saying is, don’t disregard negative feedback just because it came from a hater, but also don’t put too much emotional effort into it.
Writer’s block isn’t real
I’m 100% convinced writer's block isn’t real and this is a hill I’m willing to die on. That’s not to say I don’t get stuck every once in a while. Sometimes even more than every once in a while.
Writing is hard, but not insurmountable. Most often writer’s block is just a lack of motivation. Procrastination isn’t cute and you can’t wait for inspiration to strike you. If you take this writing business seriously, then you’ll sometimes have to force yourself to write. And I mean truly write, not stare at a blank screen and tweet about your writer’s block.
Now stop procrastinating by reading other people’s blogs and get back to work.