I'm writing my first book, what are the odds of it being successful?

What are the chances of going to Vegas and winning a ton-o-bucks? Or hitting the lottery? No one can predict success. But the same chance of success applies to all first book authors. Unless, of course, your publisher goes nuts over you book and promotes the **** out of it. Or a reviewer pushes it.
Then there's the chance of publishing a 'sleeper'. A book that doesn't sell a dozen copies for the first few years...then 'boom' it's a hit.

All anyone can tell you is, write it, believe in it and hope for the best.

 

I think you've made a lot of good points despite the fact that statistics--accurate or not--don't really apply to a particular actual writer and, even more rarely, to a given writer's perception of his own writing and whatever it is that drives him to write in the first place.

I agree with you that the writer who (a) actually writes something and (b) continues to improve and writes more of those somethings and (c) makes a concerted effort to get those things published is far more likely to fall onto the side of successfully publishing than one who fails to do all three of these things. I think publishers rarely, if ever, set out to discover a single-book writer. It's to their benefit to publish a writer who has more to offer than that. On the other side of the coin, I suspect the best, most successful writers (and authors) can't avoid being prolific on some level.

I've read quite a few manuscripts from writers who have only one story to tell (usually a story based squarely upon their own life experience in some way). And while some of these writers believe with all their hearts that their own story is as good as it gets, their publishing experience usually proves them wrong on that score.

In part, this often results from well-meaning feedback from people who don't understand how publishing works ("You really should write a book about what you've gone through") and from misperceiving the intentions of acquaintances in the industry who try to be helpful ("Sure, send it to me when you finish it"). Not incidentally, I think, the notion that one's story is "as good as it gets" also plays a good-sized role in the writer's experience of disappointment, especially if the writer fails to recognize the endless universe of things to be learned that will ultimately benefit his own writing.

Interestingly, I have read two single-story manuscripts I can think of right now (in my 20+ years of experience) that were light years better than most, in good part because they came from writers who were on a mission to do something other than to become income-producing authors. Of these, one did get published after much persistence and effort, and another had no intentions of publishing her story except for the benefit of her family.

Key to being a successful author (as you say, being able to count on your own published work for some reliable degree of income) is that unending aim for excellence in delivering to consumers--i.e., readers willing to part with something of value for the privilege--the stories that compel you to write in the first place.

 

Encore! Encore!

 

Because Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown know how to write good story that pulls in a lot of readers. Story is king, the prose itself secondary. It's the quality of the story, not the writing on a line by line level.

 

I agree with you on some level... but if something reads like a bitch then the reader could be bored by it. Every book has mundane moments, and I always say it's in the skill of the writer as to whether they can make it interesting... If the reader goes into a section like this and is bored they might lose touch with it...

 

I like reading good stories (cf Meyer) but this kind of well-known and wealthy writers we're talking about are not very talented and I became aware of this obvious fact when I felt the emotional strength provoked by a few lines. Well, I say that's literature, that are words used in their most powerful way.

 

I'd say that millions of fans probably means that author knows a thing or two about writing a story that holds a readers interest, and thus probably I can learn something from their work whether I like it personally or not

 

Don't mistake aggressive marketing for quality.

 

I'm not. All the aggressive marketing in the world can't make readers actually rave and love a book. The book has to have something in it or no one would finish it much less get fanatic about spreading the word.

The best-sellering fiction writers all know story and they all are basically masters of manipulating reactions in readers.

Come on guys, don't mistake your dislike of something or its popularity for a lack of ability. There is a reason they sell so many copies. Story is king.

 

Manipulating reactions from the reader often comes from good writing.

 

Marketing can only go so far. In my experience, youths won't read 500 pages of a story that doesn't interest them--and keep their interest no matter how much it's hyped by the publisher/marketing department. The writing has to be stong enough to convey the story in an interesting and effective manner.

Stephenie Meyer accomplished this. JK Rowling did this as well.

To be successful, one has to convey a good/interesting story in a competent manner--minimum. The 'better' the story and the 'better' the writing, the better the chances. And here I think 'better' is a somewhat subjective term.

 

Mantha- true, good writing is nice. But you can write utterly beautifully and still turn out a very boring story that no one wants to finish. Story is what matters. As long as the writing is readable, the story is what is going to make a reader keep going.

 

keep in mind that most buyers/readers of the schlock bestsellers are not discriminating readers... they don't know good writing from bad and are only interested in the story...

and that's what turns a piece of dreck into a runaway bestseller... along with touts from oprah [one of those readers mentioned above] and marketing brilliance...

i agree that some works hailed as great literature do not make for exciting reading, despite the masterful wordsmithery being employed... i'd never get through rushdie's much-vaunted epic, for instance... and many of the nobelists in literature leave me cold...

 

What is a discriminating reader? Every single human being has opinions about things in life. "Good" is subjective. If two people say your stories are awesome, you might be "good". If two million do, well, you definitely hit some sort of reader cookie, so I'd say it wouldn't be a stretch to consider the story good.

Oprah picks books that she likes. Then the millions of people who watch her show read them based on her recommendation (same as if I read a review on a blog and go read a book based on that, only on a larger scale). If the story sucked, that spike in popularity wouldn't last because the word of mouth would stop there. Best sellers have some luck component in them, sure. But there is a reason the same authors stay on the list book after book. They can tell a great story and keep readers hooked.

 

I'd have to agree. Being an excellent wordsmith is fine and all IF that's what the reader wants. But if what you say is 'horrible' something that sells millions of copies well, frankly who's right?

You might be right in your terms but millions of people are certainly right by theirs.

 

those millions are only right in that they possibly enjoyed reading it... not in that it was 'good' writing, if it so clearly was not...

sadly, many people who buy books can't tell good writing from bad, because their own grammar lacks 'polish'... that can be seen just by the many who want to consider themselves writers and self-publish, write blogs, and/or post poorly-written work on sites like this... to think their poor writing is ok would have to mean they can't tell the difference by reading, either...

 

"perfect writing" isn't required to make a fantastic book that millions of people will enjoy. Getting hung up on grammar and spelling and the "perfect" word choice is a good way to never ever learn how to tell a better story

All depends what the goal of the writer is. If the goal is to tell a story that millions of readers will love, then the writer needs to worry about story and how to improve his/her story telling abilities.

If the goal of the writer is craft the perfect sentence, that's a totally different thing. Good fiction, with dialogue that snaps and is realistic and a story that hums along keeping each reader turning pages, isn't always grammatically correct (in fact, it often isn't). I believe the thread topic was about the odds of a first book being successful. If the writer hasn't mastered story (or at least enough elements of story to keep a reader hooked), then no amount of pretty, polished writing will make a book a success. What's the point in reading a book if you don't enjoy it?

I'm super amused by the idea that a few people think their tastes (because that is all it is, personal taste) should be the benchmark for published quality. Just because someone doesn't like a book doesn't mean that the thousands of people who disagree with them are somehow stupid or wrong. All it means is that they, personally, didn't like a book

 

I think you need to define "successful".

I feel my first book was very successful. I got it published. It sold across the USA and Canada. I got royalties on it for several years. To me that is success.

My 2nd novel has just been picked up by a publisher. To me, that is success.

If you define sucess as things that make you happy, then you probably will be very successful in life.

If you define success as money and fame, then you probably won't be very successful

 

The thing is, good writing will not salvage a horrible plot. The same is true vice versa. All successful writers, and I do mean all, write both wonderfully within their chosen demographic and construct meaningful worlds. Sure, we can bash Twilight and Eragon, but take some things into consideration. The audience for Twilight are comprised nearly entirely of teenage girls, did you expect Faulkner? Paolini himself was a teen when he wrote Eragon, I mean, come on, his parents published it.

But are they successful? Yes. Why? A writing style that caters to their audience and (sigh) plots that are just begging to make money.

 

Dan Brown is not a horrible writer per se. I don't like his books, but that is only my personal taste.
His books are bordering to perfect in almost every respect; included here is, he is targeting at an audience that won't read Eco, e.g., and still wants to have a bit of that "Search for the Holy Grail"-feeling.
It has to be acknowledged, in my opinion, that Brown's books are perfect products, designed for a specific market, means a large audience.

 

I'm not saying writing is King. Neither are King. The two must be kept in near equilibrium for the book to be successful.

 

Let's leave King out of this.

 

especially if we're discussing 'good' writing!

 

I think you're overestimating the importance of story, at least as far as general/literary fiction is concerned. Consider Lolita, one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed novels of the 20th century. It's a first person account of a pedophile travelling across the country with a young girl. Story has nothing to do with that novel's success. Consider American Psycho, which has very little "story" to speak of, being cumulative rather than strictly linear in terms of narrative. There are many, many examples of books that are made great by the style and writing of their authors, not by the superficial and ultimately unimportant details of the story. I mean, it depends on genre, because that kind of approach wouldn't fly for a lot of genre fiction, but story isn't universally the most important factor in the writing of a novel.

 

I think you are mistaking "story" for "plot". They aren't the same thing. Both Lolita and American Psycho have a lot of story to them, even if the plots aren't traditional.