Is this success?

[Mad Swede]

Maybe go on your website and explain to the world why books dont appear as fast as some would like.

I don't have a website, or any form of social media presence as an author. I just don't have time. My publisher does explain when the next book is due, but there's always a few who won't accept that.

 

[xena]

I know, I know. That pressure is real and you are not also alone. Success changes the relationship with your work.

 

[minta]

This is like real success. Loving the work does not cancel the pressure it brings.

 

[The Dark One]

I can't in any true visceral sense relate to the OP's issue - my level of sales/fame is significantly lower than MS's - but I can relate in a theoretical/academic sense to the problem (I think) he's articulating.

Indeed, the novel I've almost completed deals with the desire for fame counterpointed with the negative reality of fame - including the pressure to go on creating when the well is all but dry. It's been fun to write but cautionary to say the least.

 

[JBCrowson]

Now I know that seems like an odd question, but bear with me through this post and maybe you'll understand why I'm asking myself that question.

I got the latest sales figures from my publisher today, the ones that cover the period leading up to the end of 2025. Total sales for all four of my books are now 101 032 copies, both physical and e-book.

Sounds impressive? Well, possibly. That's total sales for four books over nearly eight years and across all the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Faroes and Greenland) plus a few sales elsewhere in the world. Obviously (?) sales peak in the run up to Christmas, and also in late spring just before the summer holidays start. The rest of the year things are quieter, sometimes much quieter. The first book didn't start off selling that fast, it took nearly five years together with the publication of the second and third books before things got going. My publisher had a lot of patience and belief in me as an author, patience which paid off when the fourth book was published because that did sell well from the start.

So am I pleased? Yes, but...

Selling lots of books wasn't why I started writing and it isn't really what drives me on in my writing. I write because I have to, I can't not write, for reasons which are very personal and which I'm not going to explain here. The thing about these sorts of sales figures is that suddenly I feel under a form of pressure, I feel I have to produce more books and stories to satisfy my readers. Don't get me wrong, I love writing but there's an additional sort of edge to it now. It's not only that I can't not write, it's now also that I feel I can't stop writing. If that makes any sort of sense?

There's also the interactions I have with readers, both directly when I answer e-mails and talk to them at book signings, and indirectly through interviews and things like that. My writing is so very personal to me that when the readers start asking questions about why I write and why the characters are the way they are I find it hard to answer them. I'm not able to explain it all and I sometimes feel I'm letting my readers down because of this. It's like they're (unintentionally) intruding on something very personal and private and I feel very uncomfortable about it.

I had no idea that I would end up in a situation like this when I started writing, and it's sometimes hard to know how to handle it. My stories have taken on a life of their own, and I sometimes wonder if I'm still in control. I understand now what Sharyn McCrumb meant when she wrote that "writers build castles in the air; the fans move into them; and the publishers collect the rent. It's a nice place to live, but please don't try to live there."

If this is success I'm not sure I would recommend it to other writers...

You are clear in saying you write in response to an inner drive, which I'll refer to as your creative dictator. In thinking about how to respond to the situation you find yourself in, perhaps some of these questions will help, that is my intent in posting them...
There is a distinction between writing, publishing and sales. Does your creative dictator permit your writings to remain unpublished? If published does it drive you to pursue a particular level of sales numbers?
Few of us start writing with the aim of making a living at it; many I would guess see being trad-published as a form of positive appraisal of what they have written; the number who believe what they have written is so important that the world must read it is probably tiny.
So what does maintaining publication and those sales mean for you now?
If being less engaged with your readers (fans perhaps?) meant your publisher was unwilling to publish future works would it matter to you? If it does matter, is the effort worth the reward?
If you find neither sales numbers, nor having future works published matter at all, then perhaps simply writing, and letting the world take care of what happens thereafter is where your optimal state of contentment may lie.

 

[SamazonE]

Getting turned down is worse. I have sent in the first four chapters of my books a few times with little success. Books become lethargic after that. There is the joy of anonymous tips from a fan, sometimes a thin snippet. My family is always interested in reading it. Sometimes there is a naughty comment. There are people all over who are interested in other things. There is also life sucking responsibility. Sometimes I would rather not read. That is why my headspace is so cluttered. But, you have to pay the man.

If I was to write a book, it would be for love. That is to say if you do not love your work then nobody will. I think success is better served cold. But if it is too cold, you will freeze. That is why I am always thinking literally. You could say it is the chicken or the egg at this point.

 

[Mad Swede]

I can't in any true visceral sense relate to the OP's issue - my level of sales/fame is significantly lower than MS's - but I can relate in a theoretical/academic sense to the problem (I think) he's articulating.

Indeed, the novel I've almost completed deals with the desire for fame counterpointed with the negative reality of fame - including the pressure to go on creating when the well is all but dry. It's been fun to write but cautionary to say the least.

Yes, although I really wasn't aiming for fame when I sent the first story off to the publisher. Such fame as I have is very limited, Sweden isn't the centre of the world. I wasn't even aiming to make much if any money. I was in a way pushed into it. I don't regret any of it and I'd make the same choices and decisions again, but I wish I'd known what I was getting myself into because that way I might have been able to prepare a bit.

And yes, there is a sense of pressure to go on producing books, which is what I think I'm having trouble dealing with. It's not that I don't want to write, I can't stop writing, the problem is this sense that I'm now also expected to write no matter how I feel or what ever else I want to do. Now I can relate much more closely to the character Apin Dungannon in Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun. I understand what she was trying to get at with that character and I can also see how most readers missed that point in their attempts to work out whom she had based that character on.

Writing is still fun for me, I can't stop. But make sure you write because you love writing, and not because you want fame.