by Dame Jenna
There are a lot of aspiring writers out there who believe that to sell a book, they have to get a “lucky break.” Those who are most attached to this idea are going to be mad at me for what I have to say in this blog, but we’re supposed to tell it like it is here, right? So I’m going to bite the bullet and say what I truly believe: luck has nothing to do with it. (And in case those of you who already believe this are wondering: yes, people have gotten offended when I’ve tried to tell them this before.)
Sometimes, it can be comforting to tell yourself that you need to get lucky to sell a book. I know–I used to believe this myself. When you get a particularly painful rejection, you can tell yourself it has nothing to do with your book or your writing. It’s all just a question of luck, and you didn’t get lucky this time. Your book didn’t cross the right editor’s desk at just the moment she needed a Regency vampire romantic comedy where the hero dies at the end, and that’s why you didn’t sell. But as comforting as this myth might appear on the surface, it can do tons of damage deep down inside you where you can’t see it. Because, you see, the thing about luck is you have no control over it. Repeat that a few times to yourself until it sinks in.
Okay, so maybe you’re thinking, “Well duh! I know I have no control over it! Why do you think it’s so frustrating trying to break in?!” And that is the problem. It’s one thing to believe that pouring your heart and soul into your books will eventually get you that first sale (and hopefully many more afterward). It’s quite another to think of all that hard work as being of secondary importance to the Great and Mighty Luck.
If you believe you need to get lucky to break in, then there’s no reason for you to improve your craft, right? If what you’re doing now is “good enough” in your own estimation, then why should you sweat trying to get better? It won’t make any difference anyway, because it won’t affect whether you get lucky or not. There’s no reason to grow, or change, or try different genres, or even write lots of new books. If you keep throwing the same-old same-old book back into the raffle, someday someone might pick it out of the thousands. Or maybe not . . . It’s beyond your control.
As I mentioned before, once upon a time, I fell into this way of thinking. I had so many close calls with my early novels that I was sure my writing was good enough to sell. But, damn it, I just couldn’t get that lucky break. I wrote exclusively science fiction and fantasy, never considering the possibility of exploring other genres, because hey, I knew I was good enough in this one. Besides, I was comfortable in F&SF, and it would have taken a lot of work to learn to write a different genre. Every rejection that came my way on these “good enough” books was like a dagger to my heart, because I just wasn’t the lucky sort. I knew that despite all the glimmers of hope those nice rejections gave me, I was never going to make it.
I kept right on believing all this [expletive deleted] up until I went to a workshop that changed my life as a writer. (Dame Devon knows all about this workshop, having attended herself, though not at the same time I did.) The teachers, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, were firmly convinced that luck had nothing to do with it. They were so convinced, and so passionate about the idea, that I allowed myself to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they could be right. Was it possible that if I worked on improving my craft and trying other genres to find my best fit I might actually be able to sell a book on my own merits, without the help of Almighty Luck?
I must admit, the idea seemed radical to me at the time. I was taking my dream into my own hands, and if I still kept failing, I’d have to take responsibility for that failure and not tell myself it was just bad luck. Scary! But the idea that I had some control over my fate was an empowering one.
I changed a lot about my writing habits over the year that followed. I made myself write at least 1,000 words a day, every day for 365 days in a row. I made myself try genres I’d never thought to write before. That’s how I “discovered” the romance genre, which turned out to be a good fit for me. And I refused to let myself sink into a funk and stop writing every time I got a rejection. I am firmly convinced it is not a coincidence that after this radical change in how I viewed my career, I ended up getting an agent and then selling my first book within about two years, after floundering for the previous fourteen. You might think it was the actual changes I made in my approach that made the difference, not my embracing of the idea that I didn’t need to get lucky. But understand that I never would have made those changes if I hadn’t first changed the way I looked at my chances of being published. Changing the way I looked at things changed the way I worked, and that’s what made the difference.
As a frame of reference, let me tell you that I attended that workshop in 2003. I got my agent in 2004 and sold my first book in 2005. That first book hit the shelves at the very end of 2006. It’s now 2009, and I have eight books on the shelves, and four more under contract. I believe to this day that luck had nothing to do with it. It was all about hard work and persistence. If you’re a frustrated aspiring writer, I hope you’ll take heart from my story. Believe in yourself and in your skills. Believe that your destiny is in your own hands. Keep working hard and improving. And never, ever give up.
P.S. Luck does exist, and it can help you get published faster. If your first book crosses the right editor’s desk at the right time, you could be one of those people we all love to hate who hit it big right from the start. But I firmly believe that if this is the case, you would have published a book eventually anyway, even if it wasn’t that first one. All you’d have had to do was keep writing and submitting, and you would have made it even without a single scrap of luck being tossed your way.
P.P.S. My first novel, Watchers in the Night, is dedicated to Dean and Kris, and I will always be grateful for the virtual smack upside the head they gave me.
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Thanks for a great post Jenna.
I heard luck once referred to as a “consistency break”. Persistence and quality writing will create conditions for opportunity to be taken advantage of. I’ve read great authors’ stories where that is the message contained therein.
Thanks for sharing,
All the best,
RKCharron
xoxo
Can you post the link to Dean’s site? I’ve heard great things about them from a few other pubbed and aspiring authors.
I’ve never thought luck would sell my books. Each time I got a rejection, I would work harder on the writing. Unfortunately, in the very beginning, one rejection made me set a book aside-but I was writing category romances and there was really only one market for those. But I worked on each book after. When I finally wrote a book I felt might have a better chance, I started querying agents.
This ought to be the preface for every book on writing. Believing in luck is a cop-out, an excuse to winge, ‘I know I’m a great writer but I just don’t get the breaks.’
A belief in luck is disempowering. I don’t regard rejection letters as failures just as learning experiences. The only way is work, more work and yet more work.
Heather: Here’s the link to Dean’s site: http://deanwesleysmith.com/
Aspiring writers: pay special attention to the “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing” posts.
That link was great.
On-topic, I can’t imagine someone taking serious offence at this post… It’s just common sense. (Which isn’t all that “common”, but you get my point, I hope.) I (try to) follow this philosophy in everything I do.
I’ve often said that it takes “persistence, talent, and a bit of luck” to make it. Then of course, I caveat that luck part with a bit on timing. If you’re a good writer, work at your craft, persist (and this means being willing to take years to publish), then at some point the timing will be right. It does indeed only take one. I’m an example of that. My book was rejected about 70-80 times. I’d about given up on it, and was well into writing the next story, when low and behold, an editor called me about four months after I’d submitted it to her wanting to buy it, and the next two as well. Lucky day! Well, not so much.
I’d made my own luck as it were. I wrote a good story. I’d made mistakes in querying it as suspense when it was actually more urban fantasy. But I kept putting it out there, until someone saw its potential. And thanks to connections I’d made with an agent through his blog, I got him to reconsider my formerly rejected material, and wouldn’t you know, he loved the story (kudos to the awesome Nathan Bransford!). It wouldn’t have happened without building that connection. It wouldn’t have happened without good storytelling and persistence. There also has to be some sense of confidence. You have to believe that if you have a good, well-written story, that someone out there will eventually see it. If not with the first story, then the next, or the next. If you aren’t willing to continue at it knowing you’ll get rejections, you might as well hang it up. Agents and editors don’t accept on a whim. They aren’t throwing darts at manuscripts to see which they’ll buy or represent. Keep at it, get better, submit, and don’t assume everyone should or will love your story.
Great post! While it’s cool to hear about the people who make it big through a lucky break (as super-rare as it is), I LOVE to hear about people who made it through hard work, determination, and good writing.
Congratulations on your success. Keep up the great stories and hard work!
Great post. I have been an editor for almost a decade, and prez of a writers’ group for five. I see far more of this thinking in new writers than I’d like. It’s like being a financial planner for a person who won’t let go of the million dollar lottery idea. Do a handful of people win the Mega-Millions every year? Sure. Is it a wise way to plan for retirement? ….um, that would be a “no.”
And sure, buy a lotto ticket every now and again and hope for luck to smile on you. Nothing wrong with that. But, it isn’t the plan of the truly successful. Same goes for publishing.
Again, great post.
I was about to protest that some luck had to be part of it until I read the end of your post. I guess the word I was looking for is timing, which you mentioned. I do believe a lot success in publishing comes down to timing, but even that can be used as a crutch.
I think the biggest change for me, personally as a writer, is the understanding that I have to write everyday. I think a lot of new writers believe you just have to write on inspiration, but if that is all we do, we’ll never get anything done.
Working harder, honing your craft, and finding the write place where you stuff belongs is key. Absolutely. I’m still working on all of these, but it’s always good to hear these stories
I agree, Jenna. Timing does play a role sometimes, but improving the product (and copious writing does that) will always raise the sale chances.
There was an element of luck and a hefty dose of timing involved in the publication of my debut One Apple Tasted. I first wrote the story in the mid 1990s – the early chapters are set in the 1980s, and a well-known novelist who has just given me a cracking review on http://www.amazon.co.uk, said that the mid 1990s was simply too early. That everyone was sick of the 1980s, but now it is nostalgia that got this published. I suffered all the nasty rejections, and they gave me writers’ block – plus children, marriage, full time work, ill parents etc. Life gets in the way of creativity. Now it’s out there, I need to get on with the next one … this year, we’ve moved house, husband broke leg etc etc… on we go. I have NEVER believed in luck though – it is such a getout clause, and used by people who can’t be bothered to put in the hours of slog. Bad luck = laziness.
Great post, Jenna!
Because there’s no ‘magic formula’ to getting published, often people scrabble for a reason and put it down to luck. But I (for one) got my ms published because I worked at it, and I’m proud to say so
Anyone who calls me ‘lucky’ obviously hasn’t seen me smacking my figurative head against my latest ms at two in the morning…
I have a writing friend (hi, AJ!) who’s recently found her genre of best fit (she’s now writing fantasy with rom elements when for ages she tried paranormal romances) and all of a sudden she’s getting requests when she never made it that far before. All because she was willing to try new things, listen to feedback and give herself the chance to improve.
[...] things, here are two great posts from the last week on the Deadline Dames blog. The first one, The Myth of Luck, is the antidote to all the talk about how luck is a big part of the publishing world. To a certain [...]