What is Important?

I love a good theoretical debate on what “good” writing is, but when you get right down to it, my focus is on actionable suggestions for making me a successful indie writer. So my question is:

What qualities are most important for a writer to develop in order to achieve commercial success?

First of all, I'm not sure "qualities" is the right word. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not, but at the moment, I'm at a loss as to what the right word should be. Feel free to supply a better one.

Second, let me admit straight off that I do not know the answer to the posed question. I'm going to list a few of my thoughts in order to get the conversation rolling. Please don't take these as anything other than conjecture.

1. Craft

In the beginning of my exploration of writing as a career, I focused a lot on learning craft. I do not in any way regret that time spent learning. However, I'm not sure that craft above a certain level is all that important for selling books.

It seems that really inferior craft will hold a book back, but I'm not sure that the effort and expense required to achieve really good (for all values of good) craft is worth it if you're seeking success from self publishing. I'm not nearly as familiar with what's required to do well with traditional publishing, but it seems to me that traditionally published works, in general, are superior from a craft perspective than most self published ones. It also seems to me, though, that the lack of superior craft in the independent books aren't harming sales as much as purists might want to think they would.

If I were to go back in time to advise a younger me on how to most efficiently proceed forward, I'm not sure what I'd say. From my current perspective, each step in the path to where I am now seems absolutely necessary. So even though I value craft less now than I did at the beginning, I'm not sure I would advise my younger self to change that opinion.

Bottom line: A minimum level of competence is required to keep readers turning pages, but that level is much lower than my personal taste requires.

2. Focus on the reader

If one wants to sell books, one simply must write books that a reader wants to read. It seems like there’s a lot of advice out there to write what you’re passionate about. Three issues: 1) if your passion is a really small niche, you’re probably not going to sell a lot of books just because the pool of buyers is too small and 2) just because you’re passionate about a subject, does not make your writing/story good and 3) just because you don’t have passion about a subject doesn’t mean the writing/story is going to be bad.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I have to constantly think, “How can I make this story interesting to the reader?”

My contention is that I’m already interested in my story. Therefore, my words don’t have to do the work of creating interest. When a reader picks up my story, however, all they have are my words to create that interest.

Back before I started this focus, I didn’t get anywhere hoping what I wrote would engage my reader. Since, it seems like things have gotten better.

3. Story

When evaluating a book I’ve just finished, my first criteria is, “Did I finish it?” If not, the likelihood that I’ll ever read that author again is slim. If so, the author’s craft skills were strong enough to keep me engaged. Best case scenario, that means I’d be open to reading that author again.

Here’s the problem, though. With so many authors and books out there, merely being open to reading the author again isn’t good enough. That author needs me to search out his books. To join his mailing list. To become a fan.

The only way any of that happens is if I loved the book, and the only way I love a book is if the combination of concept, characters, and conflict provoked an emotional response.

It seems to me that a key to long term success is figuring out how to write stories that compel your readers to search out the rest of your library.

4. Write a lot

I think the chances of any one book making you gazillions of dollars is slim, but if you have enough books on the market, the combined sales can make you decent money. Additionally, each book you put out is another opportunity to find members of your core audience, especially since Amazon more heavily promotes new releases.

Conclusion:

Going forward with my attempt to make a go of it as a self published author, here’s my current focus:

- Always keep improving my writing craft but don’t focus on it unless reader/sales feedback indicates that it is a problem.
- Take reader feedback to heart. Who is my core reader? What do they want? How can I better serve them?
- Put more time/money/effort into making my stories good than in making my writing good.
- Stop writing freaking forum posts and get back to editing my novel!

 

Skip,

First of all, I think it is completely cool to walk whatever path you want to walk. Within the context of the subject of what would tend to lead to a self published author being commercially successful, however, not writing according to the readers notions of formula is generally thought to be less likely to lead to success. That's not my stance on the subject as much as it is the prevailing theory that I've inferred from a very unscientific survey of posts by self published writers who are making bank.

Until many somebodies who have walked that path tell me, "Hey, readers are going for new stories that break all tropes!" I'm going to keep assuming that my ultimate commercial success is more likely to come by following formulas than it is to come from venturing off on my own.

The advice most given when this subject comes up is: your best bet is to find the intersection between what people are reading and the stories that you want to tell.

I don't know about you, but I could come up with a dozen ideas a day for stories. Probably more. All I have to do is let my mind drift for a while and Bang! there's another idea. I think the concept is: discard all the ideas that don't interest you and then pursue the one that is left that has the best chance of being commercially viable.

I'm not sure this idea holds much merit. If you want to know what readers are reading, simply study the bestsellers in your genre. There's no mystery to it.

I guess my thinking is this: what's more likely, long term, to lead to my financial well being - going to work every day or buying lotto tickets? Producing books that resemble the bestseller lists and that I know people want to read is likely to lead to sales. Those books may be less likely to break out into the stratosphere of GRRM, but they're also likely to provide that monthly paycheck. Going off on my own may give me "more" of a chance to break into GRRM's territory, but that chance is a lot like buying lotto tickets.

I get that some people have no aspiration to the mid list. They want to be GRRM or nothing. There is nothing wrong with swinging for the fences. However, I don't think that's the answer to the question, "What's the best path to commercial success?"

 

I think you're missing the point. The advice is to mirror the formulas and tropes used by the bestsellers in your genre. The goal is to make your book palatable to a large audience in order to give yourself the best chance of succeeding.

If you have tastes that are similar to the tropes and formulas that the genre wants, that's fantastic. If not, an either/or dynamic is created.

 

First of all, I think you probably need to be more efficient in your writing process. Writing only a book a year is probably going to make success kind of difficult.

Second, I think that, if you want to have a career as a writer, you have to treat it as a job, not as fun.

I really don't know the answer to this question. My assumption is that you feel this is a no brainer, that one cannot write well what one does not respect or admire.

I'm not sure that is the case. If your job is to write well and you know how to write well, does it matter what you're writing?

You absolutely do, however, have to know who you are as an author. There has to be something about some popular genre that you like.

 

I'm hopeful that "writing to my own tastes" is a good idea. That's really what I've done since I feel that my tastes are pretty in line with the market.

To be honest, though, the advice out there is not "write to your own tastes and hope." It's "figure out exactly what is selling and replicate that as closely as possible."

I'm not sure, however, that advice is as easy to follow in a genre like epic fantasy. It doesn't seem like there is one formula that is dominant, so maybe we have a bit more leeway. I'm hopeful of that.

Note that a lot of self publishers really making bank write in Romance. I think that, in those subgenres, following a particular formula is much more important.

Again, though, I'm doing a lot of speculating. I have no actual experience. As I gain experience and learn real world lessons, I'll share with the group my takeaways