Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

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Because their books don't address a wide enough audience? You can write an amazing horror thriller book about zombies, but the total addressable audience will be smaller than a well written fantasy book that can be read by someone ranging from 13 to 75.

As an example: artists often have this feeling that they need to stay "pure" to their air to make it. Yet, the best artists that often "make it" are actually businesspeople first and artists second. They will think about creating art that can and will sell.

Second to this is the fact that money generally ends up making more money. If I have $10m in the bank (a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and looking at how much money goes around in the world), then on average, if invested properly, this should generate you about $1m in capital gains per year. Most people don't spend a million a year.

Add to that any income you might be making from whatever you're doing (entrepreneurial stuff, etc) and it's generally very hard to drop out of the elite once you're there.

You're simultaneously missing and making my point.

Sure Rowling wrote a great book and the economic gods smiled on her and we got a new pop culture staple. But what about the authors of other books that are similar but made orders of magnitude less money? Does it make sense that there is such a gap? Is everyone involved being fairly compensated? Even the people running the printing presses and delivering the books?

Is it beneficial that "money makes money" without the promised trickle down effects to the middle class? Why is it possible to make a million dollars in a year with 10 million (10%!) but not just as easy to make say $100.00 with $1000.00? If $10,000,000.00 is such a small sum why will the overwhelming majority of people never see that amount of money in their lifetimes?

Yes it is hard to drop out of the elite, because they're keeping the wealth, they can't even help it. This is the neck stepping I referred to.

On the first matter. Yes, it makes perfect sense. Her books are superb, and very well written. The story flows great. She is an excellent writer _AND_ great at marketing.

Nothing ever stands alone and you generally need help from other people to achieve things. Her story is rags to riches -- if she can do it, literally anyone can do it. Was luck involved? Of course, to some extent. But hang out with the right people and you would be surprised at how much is possible in life. There is a reason why success often seems contagious.

On the second part: it's an effect from a capitalistic society. In fact, you can easily achieve the same returns (even higher) with lower capital. It's just that the outcome matters less: you can't live off of $100.

Have an open mind. $10m is literally one good idea away. Invested in Bitcoin in 2011? There you go. Made a great app in 2007? Maybe not $10m, but at least a few. Etc. Opportunities pop up all over the place -- most people are just not looking and too busy working a job and living life.

Literally everyone can make millions, IF that is what they desire and want to achieve in life. You just have to work towards it. Is it easy? Hell no. Should it be easy? Hell no.

Last: the elite isn't really keeping the wealth. They obviously won't just give it to you, but there are plenty of opportunities for people with good ideas but no money to team up with people who do have the money, and make something happen. And most will gladly share the gain.

Yes it is possible for anyone* to be a JK Rowling. It's not possible for everyone to be a JK Rowling. That is my point.

In order to create a system where it's possible to become a billionaire by writing a book we also create a system where a lot of people can't become millionaires by doing essentially the same thing.

I'm speaking philosophically here, you're describing our current civilization.

* a specific subset of all people who posses the correct personal traits and opportunities.

"It's not possible for everyone to be a JK Rowling. That is my point."

So?

"In order to create a system where it's possible to become a billionaire by writing a book we also create a system where a lot of people can't become millionaires by doing essentially the same thing."

But they are not doing the same thing. They also write, yes, but not so good. Or maybe also good, but not what the masses wants.

And that's the other point, the masses decided to buy it - so the masses decided to make Rowling a star and rich.

Where is the problem? That not everyone can have big fame and big success? Well, that's the nature of things.

It only gets problematic if the elite use their power to bend the rules of the game, so that not those who deserve it (those who create big value) get successful and rewarded, but those of other traits ... so the game should still be fair. But I think we made progress with that. Some decades ago, it mattered much more, where you came from (nobleman) than today.

He's basically pointing out that JK Rowling's success partly benefited from a feedback loop. For example, once everybody was talking about it, free publicity.

If somebody else had all the same skills and wrote another book that was just as good, there probably still wouldn't really be room for both of them. Only one series can be the pop culture youth fiction darling at a time.

Now you're back to the article! JK Rowling's success story is singular because the masses don't have oodles of disposable income. This is why companies are finding niches where they can earn income from "whales" rather than having to score the masses lottery.

JK Rowling's success story is singular because the masses don't have oodles of disposable income

Hardly, she could still be a huge success story if she split that pie of disposable income halfway with another author who was her equal- but public attention doesn't really work like that, is the problem.

But targeting whales to avoid the masses lottery, yes, I'm with you & the article there.

Her books are not that good; she's much closer to Dan Brown in terms of her success than people would think. The right product at the right time, quality is not paramount. Same as the Hunger Games, or Twilight, or Goosebumps.

If it were quality, Diane Duane or many, many other skilled writers would see success.

> But hang out with the right people and you would be surprised at how much is possible in life. There is a reason why success often seems contagious.

This has the potential to paint the wrong picture as is. The wrong picture being that growth breeds connections to successful people -> breed success -> breed wealth.

Another way to view it is, connections to successful people breed growth -> breed success -> breed wealth. This way "lucky" connections only aid in developing a better product, and not in practicing unfair marketing for existing products.

Sorry for picking out such aminor point but I think you are overestimating capital gains. Or at least I would be very interested on how to achieve capital gains of 10%.

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