So You Want to be a Writer (2016)
hughhowey.com
hughhowey.com
Few people want to talk about failure. But I've been watching the publishing industry for a long time, and it's not as simple as pressing the "Publish" button and watching sales roll in. Algorithms have changed the way things work. Bots promote works that are already popular or trending. It's harder than ever for newbies to get noticed.
By the time he made his big sale, he'd been writing for years. If you have six minutes to blow, go to his Audible page for his latest[1], scroll down to the video John Scalzi: My Story, and he talks about it.
That said, he also says he likes to pay it forward by pushing budding authors when he can to spread the luck.
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[1] https://www.audible.com/pd/Travel-by-Bullet-Audiobook/B0B838...
Of course, your book has to be good, which is the very hard part. Since Kindle lets you read free samples, I've read some of the lower ranked stuff in the genre I write in and it's pretty awful. However, I've heard there are people who write in certain genres like erotica and write total trash, but they making a living at it anyway by targeting various niches.
In 2009 I took basically the same path that Howey is proposing here. I started self-publishing on Amazon in 2011 and I've written five novels so far, and am working on a sixth.
Obviously I did not experience anywhere near the success that Howey did. This may be due to luck, but I've read Wool and it's also a much better novel than anything I've written (so far!) So it's not always about luck. An amazingly good novel can sometimes generate its own luck.
But my lack of success hasn't dissuaded me and I don't consider the journey I took in becoming a writer to have been wasted. On the contrary, it's been amazing every step of the way. I've learned so many things, met so many wonderful people, and even sold a couple of thousand books along the way, which isn't much, but it's not nothing either.
And at the same time, I've been writing non-fiction articles for Ars Technica, which has been considerably more successful for me. (An example would be my article on the history of OS/2, or my history of the Amiga computer). These articles have been read and enjoyed by orders of magnitude more people, which is very satisfying.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are more possibilities for being a writer than being a famous fiction author picked up by a major publishing house. There are all kinds of paths for writers to take.
Success is never guaranteed, and if you want to be a writer you have to be realistic about this. But if you really want to be a writer, nothing can stop you. In fact, that's kind of the only prerequisite for becoming one. If you feel compelled to write, regardless of any success or rewards, you will keep doing it. At the very least, you will become a better writer. And if you become a better writer, it's almost inevitable that, at some point, somebody will notice.
Don't expect to be famous. Expect to write.
Great writers can find jobs just about anywhere. The real question is whether or not you enjoy what you are writing.
I still have a day job (although I did write full-time for Ars for a couple of years) so this is a luxury I can afford. But I’m still happy to be able to do it.
I would also posit that the only way to be successful as a writer is to write about things you love. If you try to chase popular topics or genres without loving them, this cynicism will show in your writing and it won’t be much fun to read.
And it produced this, which I am loving to write.
Because it is transformative (for me).
Because the realization that what I love to write is writing that transforms me -- a new reification of several ideas that oscillate in my low frequency thoughts.
Which puts writing for money in the light of is-the-money-tranformative? I mean the statistically likely best possible option is getting paid enough to write to quit a less satisfying way of making money. The choice is between proverbially pumping gas and writing for most people, not between two amazingly fulfilling creative options.
To me, the real question is is producing nothing more fulfilling than producing the best I can?
For me, it isn't. YMMV.
There are problems, to be sure. There’s a tendency to chase after the latest trend, to assume that something won’t sell because nothing like it has sold before, or to dump a pile of money on someone famous because they’re famous (Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff), but that isn’t some publishing conspiracy, that’s human nature. And to pick a well-worn example, Harry Potter was widely rejected before it was finally picked up and became a media franchise. But none of this was some sort of conspiracy.
The fact of the matter is that publishing creative writing takes persistence and luck. Rare is the person who sends something out and gets a yes from the first place they sent it.¹ I’ve been through bios of over 5000 authors for the rankings that I publish at https://creativewritingmfa.info and many of the prize-winning stories/poems/essays were rejected multiple times before they were accepted, and these are presumably the best of their breed and are a small percentage of the nominated pieces.
It’s comforting to tell yourself that you’re not getting published because they won’t let you into their “club,” but truth be told, the bigger problem is likely that your writing just isn’t good enough and needs more work.
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1. I keep stats on my own publications and of the 20 stories I’ve published to date, the lowest number of rejections a piece has received has been 3, the highest 67.² I've averaged 49 rejections for every acceptance over the last 16 years, but the past few years, that’s been closer to 25–28 as I’ve gotten better as a writer.
2. This most-rejected story got near-miss rejections from Granta and The Atlantic, both of which are highly prestigious publications.
Once you have that, the writing will take care of itself.
> I’m always suspicious that everything is fake and good writers aren’t actually good and it’s just a social conspiracy to believe that they are, but these results are a vote in support of our existing writer-identification-institutions (are they all Substack? I guess it’s just Substack)[2]
[0] https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.... [1] https://rufuspollock.com/2017/12/10/tetlock-gardner-2015-sup... [2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-contest-20...
Anyway, I hate articles that just say "hard work":
> So here’s the #1 secret to success and a career of working in your underwear: You have to work harder than anyone else. Period.
Imagine how many books have been written that have gone unread but the author "worked hard" to no success.
> I did most of my writing as a yacht captain, roofer, and bookseller.
Sounds like they had plenty of free time to write. Good for them.
> 7) Live fully and cheaply. Yes, this goes with the craft of writing. Writing is much more than putting your butt in a seat. It’s making sure you have the time and financial freedom to write, and it’s ensuring that you have something to write about when you do plant that butt.
I'm going to stick with Steven Pressfield's advice of "put your ass where your heart wants to be". You don't have to live fully nor frugally to be a writer. If you're writing to gain your financial freedom, then you need time. I like simple advice like "do at least something towards your book everyday".