Authors: How do YOU define success? Updated 9/2018

Part of Google's definition of success is:

suc·cess

səkˈses/ 

noun

1.    the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

"the president had some success in restoring confidence"

synonyms:		favorable outcome, successfulness, successful result, triumph;  Hollywood ending "the success of the scheme"

o   the attainment of popularity or profit.

"the success of his play"

synonyms:		prosperity, affluence, wealth, riches,  opulence "the trappings of success"

o   a person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains prosperity.

"I must make a success of my business"

synonyms:

triumph, bestseller, blockbuster, sellout;

Any of these definitions could apply to you and your writing. If you don’t think any of them do apply to you, I wonder what your definition of success for an author might be. More on that in part 2 of this topic.

My definition might have been cobbled together from this list. It wasn’t. I pulled the list off Google on February 10, 2017.

I’ve been writing “professionally” since 2013. I was a writer before then, but I wasn’t serious enough about it to invest the time required. In point of fact, the reality of needing to make enough money to support my family was more important than the time commitment until I retired.

My definition of success as a professional writer has matured since my first book was accepted for publication.

My first definition of success was “get published.” 
I sent a manuscript to a couple of publishers. While I was waiting to hear from the second one, I learned of the process of co-publishing through KoehlerBooks. The first book I sent to them, Traveler’s HOT L, was picked up for co-publication with ten days.

An Aside

I should have investigated thoroughly before I let my ego make a decision. 

Writer’s Digest has this to say about co-publishing.

A co-publishing agreement is one where the author and the publisher share publication costs to get the book in print. This is more common in poetry and experimental fiction than in others, but does happen in all walks of publishing. 

The bad news: It costs the author some money upfront to get the book published. The good news: The author gets a much, much bigger share of the profits. More risk is put on you as the author, but that risk can reap a higher reward. It’s a trade off you have to consider before diving in to this type of agreement.

Some money could go as high as $10,000. Bigger share ended up as $1.00/book in my case.

The best definition of the best use of co-publishing is “if you want to sell your book at the back of the auditorium after you speak.”

One of my students from Great Oak High found this in the bookstore at San Diego State University. They have an "Alumni Author Section." I was excited when she put this on Facebook.

 There is a real “good news/bad news” aspect to the speed of that process. 

Good:

      1.   I was published—with an advance! Okay, the advance was $100
          but it was an advance on royalties.

      2.   Two editors liked the book. 

      3.   They thought my manuscript was well-edited.

Bad:

      ·      They thought the book was well edited. That ended up being more
          curse than blessing.

My second definition of success was “make money.” 
This is a logical morph once you've been successful as defined in definition #1. 

Fame was also part of this definition. It wasn’t a big part, though. I had a successful career as a science teacher. I received school, district, county, state, and national recognition for my teaching. I’ve also had over 5000 students, most of whom still say nice things about me. 

I’ve had more than my 15-minutes of fame.

Initially, I had a goal of selling 5000 copies of Traveler’s HOT L in 2014, the year it was published. It won the Best Science Fiction Novel in the USA Best Book competition. I expected/hoped to recoup my investment and make some money that year.

I am still waiting to receive a royalty payment on Traveler's HOT L from the publisher. According to the royalty statements I get, all my royalties—about a buck a book, remember?—have gone to restocking fees, etc. As of September, 2018, I’ve sold between 300-400 copies of Traveler’s HOT L. Most of those are sales at book signings and other personal appearances.

My third definition of success “getting books out.” 
I published like a mad man during the first two years of my professional writing career. I have 7 fiction titles and 4 non-fiction titles with publication dates between 2014 and 2016.

This is an old screenshot of my site. Click this to visit my website. It's got a new look and more titles.

That sounds like I met this definition. Unfortunately, there was an underlying issue that seriously diluted the good feelings. We’ll pick up the next blog with the remainder of my morphed definitions of success as a professional writer.

Yep. There are more! 

Next Authors post: Fine-tuning a Definition of Success.

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I'd appreciate your feedback!

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