Why Mega-Successful Authors are Good News for Everyone

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So there’s this post floating around from the Huffington Post that activated some massive internal raging. 

I’m not going to link to it, because I don’t want to give it extra free traffic, but if you’re so inclined, it’s pretty easy to find on Twitter, as it involves telling J.K. Rowling to stop writing adult books because she’s hogging up all the success—but it’s ok for her to write kid lit because those books aren’t as good anyway. Yep. 

As much as I'd like to rage about why kidlit is just as important as adult literature, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, so I'm going to focus on something equally important (and a little less screamy).

The thing that some people, particularly people outside of the publishing industry tend to forget, is that there’s room for everyone to be successful. In fact, one author’s mega-success is actually good for everyone else.

Think about it.

Let’s take J.K. Rowling, for example. The Harry Potter series was one of the first major crossover kid lit titles that blew the door wide open for other kid lit successes. Why? Well let’s take a look.

Harry Potter, as we all know, sold incredibly well. Incredibly x a million. Hugely successful books means more money for publishers—who then have more cash to buy more books from writers and give more debuts a chance, more money for bookstores—who then run less of a risk of crashing and burning like Borders, and more money for the authors—who, quite frankly, deserve their success. But it’s not just the money—hugely successful books are the direct result of more people reading. 

Why is more people reading a good thing, you ask? I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve heard say “I didn’t like reading but I loved [insert popular book title here].” Successful books show people who didn’t think they liked to read that reading can actually be great. Successful books get more people buying books, and guess what? Many times when they finish reading said successful book, they look for another book. Because maybe reading isn’t so bad after all and they’ll like the next book just as much as that successful book they just read.

Time and time again, successful books have proven that they help so much more than the author.

The Twilight series brought the spotlight down on YA lit.

The Hunger Games series opened the door to a variety of fantastic dystopian novels, like say, a little series called Divergent.

The 50 Shades of Grey series gave a huge boost to erotica sales.

All of these books created new readers—people who didn’t really read much before because they thought they wouldn’t like it and changed their minds after reading that successful book. And that’s good for everyone, because more readers = more book sales, and more book sales = good news for writers.

See, this one huge aspect of the publishing world that I love—we can genuinely be happy for each other’s successes, even (and especially) crazy-massive successes, because it’s good news for everyone. Books are not a market like cars or laptops or iPads where the customer will only buy one for several years. The success of one book opens the door for the successes of many others, and to me, that’s one of the many things that makes this community so incredibly wonderful.

So let’s cut the jealousy and the bitterness and just be happy and supportive for one another, okay? There’s no need for negativity in this incredible community that I will always love.

What do you think? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Writer @Ava_Jae breaks down why mega-successes like J.K. Rowling & E.L. James are good for the publishing community. (Click to tweet)  

.@Ava_Jae says “…there’s room for everyone to be successful [in the publishing industry].” What do you think? (Click to tweet) 

Do You Really Want Overnight Success?

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J.K. Rowling. Stephanie Meyer. Suzanne Collins. Amanda Hocking. These are the names of authors who have often been described as overnight successes. Writers who leaped from the depths of the unknown to making a fortune with their words. 

Now while I largely don't believe that the overnight success as we like to imagine it exists (Nathan Bransford wrote a fantastic post about it here), the idea of sudden, massive success with an author's debut novel is one that many writers dream about while pounding away at their books. The idea of achieving celebrity-like author status with your first book is a tempting one, even if you're probably more likely to win the lottery and get struck by lightning at the same time. 

But all that talk about so-called overnight success has got me thinking—is it really something that we should strive for?

I'm not going to pretend that there aren't any pros to achieving massive success with your first published book: I imagine the financial security alone is a pretty fantastic plus, and it certainly can't feel too terrible to walk into a bookstore and see your book highlighted on the shelves. Depending on your personality, the hoards of raving fans that can't get enough of your books is also a pretty nice side effect of being a highly successful author. 

Yet there's a dark side that people don't often like to talk about, namely, pressure and expectations.

I imagine achieving massive success with your first book feels pretty great—more likely than not it way outdid your expectations for the kind of success you'd achieve with your first novel, and it can't feel too horrible to see just how many people really enjoy your words. 

The thing is, however, no author wants to be a one-hit wonder. And if you're writing a series, you now have hundreds of thousands of people waiting for the incredible new book that you might not have written yet. Suddenly you have an audience—a publisher expecting your work to give them another boost in sales—who have probably already paid you a nice sum of money for the next book, and readers clinging to every update on the sequel. You have people counting on you, who fully expect books two to be as wildly successful as the first one was. 

And chances are, once you've made it that big, it will be pretty successful, but it's still a lot to handle while you're trying to write, and it's a pressure that will follow you for the rest of your career as an author. 

Look, I'm not saying it isn't nice to make millions with your writing, and I'm not saying it's absolutely impossible to do so (we all know it isn't impossible). All I'm saying is working your way up to a successful career with an accumulation of mid-listing, then more successful novels with the experience of publishing book after book behind you and a slowly growing, but loyal fan base supporting you isn't a bad way to do it. All I'm saying is overnight success might not be the dream without a single downside we like to imagine it to be. 

All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for and don't sweat it if you don't get it. There's more than one way to the top.

What do you think? If you could choose, would you pick overnight success or a gradual accumulation of success? Why?

How (Not) to Become the Next Kindle Bazillionaire

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It’s no secret that we’re living in an age of opportunity for writers—an era where writers can trek out into the e-publishing landscape on their own and, with enough hard work, patience, and a bit of luck, can eventually make a living doing so. More writers upload their books to Amazon and Smashwords every day and success stories of all magnitudes remind us that there’s more than one path to publishing prowess.

And because every writer dreams of hoards of screaming fans chanting their name as they enter the room while money falls from the clouds and rains down upon them (or something like that), I’m sure you’re now wondering what you need to do to achieve the legendary status of Kindle Bazillionaire. So here’s how to get your personal mob of rabid fans dying to get their hands on your next book.

How to Become the Next Kindle Bazillionaire*

Photo credit: My genius work (obviously)

1. Create your cover on Paint. Tell me, who can resist a genius cover like the AMAZING KEWL FICTION NOVEL over there? (Seriously, tell me who. I’ll hunt them down for you).** 


2. Publish the moment you finish your first draft. Everyone knows that the first draft is pure gold that must not be altered under any conditions, or else you risk losing the magic of your masterpiece. And no one wants to lose the magic of the masterpiece, so go celebrate completing your first draft by hitting the publish button. As a bonus, think of all the money you’ll save from not hiring an editor!


3. Don’t bother with formatting. Formatting takes forever and every moment you waste not publishing your masterpiece first draft is a moment that a reader isn’t buying your book. And it’s not like anyone really cares if your book looks like it was pasted together at random intervals with a bunch of seemingly unrelated symbols and funky spacing issues.


4. Avoid giveaways like the plague. I mean really, the audacity some people have. Give away your work for free? Who would do such a thing?


5. Price your book at $100 a copy. The logic for this is obvious. You will have to sell considerably fewer copies at $100 a copy to reach a bazillion dollars than you would if your book was priced at $2.99 or (God forbid) $0.99.


6. Tell everyone on Twitter about your work. Twitter accounts are useless unless you tweet about your book at least once an hour. Anything less just tells your followers that you’re not committed to selling your book.


7. Only publish one book. The last thing you want is to spread yourself thin by dividing your attention up between many different books. Write a masterpiece and sell nothing else. Besides, you’ll be making so much money you won’t need to write a second book, anyway.


8. E-mail publishers and agents to let them know about your success. The e-mail should go something along the lines of, “IM A KINDLE BAZILLIONAIRE NOW NO THANKS TO YOU SO HA. HAVE FUN DROWNING WIT THE REST OF THE PRINT INDUSTRY LOOOZER.” You know, something classy.


9. Bash others in your genre. You’re a genius—a prodigy and everyone else writing in your genre doesn’t know what they’re doing. Make sure everyone else knows that, too, so they only buy your books.


10. Answer poor reviews with a flaming letter of rage. I mean, you’re not going to get bad reviews, but on the off chance you do, make sure you scare anyone else off from repeating the mean reviewer’s mistake.

And that’s it! With those ten easy steps you’ll be well on your way to fortunes raining down from the heavens. Go to Malibu and celebrate. Or go buy Malibu. Whatever works.

*= Why yes, this is another sarcastic post! Please, please, please, please, DO NOT do these things, ok? Promise?

**=No I won’t.

Now it’s your turn! What fabulous tips would you add to the list? 

How to Celebrate Your Writing Success

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So it’s now officially December, which means NaNoWriMo has come to an end. While not everyone who participated and became NaNoWriMo winners completed a full novel (as 50,000 words doesn’t always equate to a full-length novel), chances are those that didn’t will be doing so in the next couple of weeks.

So for those of you who are NaNo winners or have recently reached another writing milestone (or even wrote anything at all in the last month)—Congratulations! You’re awesome.

Naturally then, celebrations are in order.

I admit that I haven’t had the best track record when it comes to celebrating my writing successes (namely, finishing a WIP), in fact more times than not I sort of let the event slide by quietly and celebrated by giving people hugs, not writing for a couple of days, then going back to work.

Now, while hugs are fantastic, I’m making a point of actually celebrating next time I have a writing accomplishment, and I think you should too. Why?

We deserve it. Whether it’s completing a first draft or a final draft or getting an agent or being published or a plethora of accomplishments in the writing world, you deserve it. Writing is hard, time-consuming work and you deserve to take the time to celebrate when you’ve reached a milestone.

Really. You do.

Then of course there’s the question of how. How do writers celebrate completing a novel? Or getting an agent? Or whatever writing milestone they’ve reached?

So I’ve decided to formulate a list of ways to celebrate so no one can claim they don’t know how. Excuses are no longer an option. You’ve been warned. (You’re welcome).

• Bake something delicious. Whether it’s Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies or Butterbeer Cupcakes or Red Velvet Cookies with Cream Cheese Swirl, make yourself a delicious dessert to share (optional) with your friends and family. Don’t forget to tell everyone it’s to celebrate how awesome you are. Or that you finished a book/got an agent/are going to be published. Either way. 


• Go out to eat. Maybe you’re not big on the baking or you set your kitchen on fire every time you step into it. No worries! Eating something yummy to celebrate is still an option if you go out to eat. Plus then you can talk about how awesome you are while enjoying your delicious hot meal.


• Throw a party. Hey, why not? This is especially appropriate if you just got an agent or a publishing contract or anything of the sorts. Throw a party—invite everyone—and make sure the cake says “Congratulations on being awesome.” 


• Do something fun you don’t normally do. Go to the theater and watch a movie (or a play). Or go ice skating. Or go on a day trip somewhere. Point is that you do something enjoyable and out of the ordinary so it’s a legitimate celebration. 


• Spend time with your family and friends. Chances are you’ve been kind of neglecting them since you’ve been busy with the whole novel-writing thing. Go out with your loved ones, spend some time with them and let them know they’re appreciated. (And you can mention how awesome you are—just throwing that out there.) 


• Read. I’m sure you have a couple of books sitting on your TBR pile (and if you don’t, go find some). Guess what? You have a little extra time now. Go read.


• Don’t write. Even if it’s only for a few days, take a little writing hiatus. Or at the very least don’t write anything WIP-related.

So it’s not a comprehensive list, but it should at the very least generate a couple of ideas. Now go forth and celebrate.

What do you think? How do YOU celebrate your writing accomplishments? Any ideas to add to the list?

What is Success to You?

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It’s no secret that a war is waging over the impossible question of which is better: indie or traditional publishing?

After laying out the pros and cons, I still didn’t really give you guys a straight answer about where I stand, and the truth is, it’s because I don’t have a stance. Not the kind that backs one side, anyway.

Hear me out. It’s not that I’m indecisive (ok, maybe it’s a little that) or that I’m dodging the question (although I’m good at that, too), it’s that I truly don’t believe that a one-size-fits-all answer exists.

So now you’re wondering what in the sugary, confetti-laden blazes this has to do with the title, and the answer is everything.  

I want you to stop and think for a moment about how you define success. Maybe success to you is just to be read. To get your work out there in the hands of some readers and see where it goes. Maybe you don’t care about having an agent or speaking at book conventions or having author signings or any of that. If that’s the case, then going indie might be right for you.

Or maybe success to you is walking into a bookstore and seeing your book on the shelves. Being able to hold a copy in your hands or see others reading your book out in public. If that’s the case, then maybe you want to go traditional.

Maybe your version of success something else entirely—maybe it’s when you make x-amount of dollars or sell x-amount of copies or write x-amount of books. Maybe success to you is having an agent or a publishing contract or going out and doing it alone and knowing that you’ve achieved something incredible on your own.

My point is that it’s different for everyone, so whatever decision you make should be based on your vision of success. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says or thinks, it’s your responsibility to decide what’s best for you.

But how can you tell? Well first, answer the question: What is your version of success?

Have an idea? Good.  Now ask yourself: How can I get there? The answer may not be clear, but eventually one (or a combination of the two) will emerge. Eventually you will know what you want to do—what is best for you, and that’s when you can act.

Instead of arguing over who has a better publishing model, we need to support each other and realize that the right answer for you isn’t necessarily the right answer for everyone else. In the end, what does it matter which side you choose? We’re all writers with different ideas of success and the petty fighting needs to end.

So let’s hear it, guys: what is success to you?