What are you willing to do?

A thread in the Kindle Boards forum asked authors "What are you willing to do (or give up) to be a successful writer?"

I already feel like a successful writer because I am taking steps to find whatever audience I deserve. I had six books on the shelves (one is still clinging to the late stages of being in print), and I never was able to "quit the day job," but the money from Act I of my career helped get me a house. I measure success differently these days, because I am already pretty content with my life, though I do have the goal of cutting out that trip to the office every day.

Self-publishing books for me are not a way to get attention, assuage my ego, or get instant gratification. I have over 500 rejection slips and I still get them. I still want to publish in a major press. But now I have a baseline for what my work is worth and what the rights are worth. I believe this is a viable foundation for a lasting career, because I can track how much income I can expect to make and how many books it would take to make a living. My sales have increased to the point where having six novels out would equal my take-home pay from my day job. Of course, this ebook enterprise doesn't have a retirement plan or health insurance. If the U.S. adopted nationalized health care, I'm sure I would join the hundreds of thousands of people who would immediately follow their dreams instead of taking the "safe route."

Well, no route is safe. Amazon could cut a deal today with major publishers and drop all indie authors. The continued recession could lead to the death of $250 handheld reading devices. Ebooks could become seen as free content and few writers would even stay in business. Ebooks could evolve into interactive experiences requiring large and skilled production staffs, adding audio and video, that make printing and shipping a paper book look like a walk in the park. The ebook market could reach the saturation point when most every book ever printed floods the market in the next few years.

There are no guarantees, and even the experts are already weeks or months behind what is actually happening in the trenches. All I know is to act on the evidence I see before me: Publish X number of novels and get X number of sales per month and earn X dollars. Publish in New York to stay visible and reach the paper audience, because it is the ebook audience of the future. Write stories without regard to narrow commercial considerations, because now they are lasting works of art instead of three-month shelf products. Write without bitterness over an industry that some feel conspires to keep writers locked out.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's excellent blog "Freelance Survival Guide" muses on the various business considerations of the writing life, as well as the ephemeral notions of success. She says it much more succinctly than I can but the gist is success will change over the course of your life and career. For me, there are measurable goals of sales, income, and the reaching, serving, and satisfying of an audience. But no check I've ever received has matched that feeling of typing the last line of a story and sitting there all sick and shivery and tense and dewy-eyed and whispering, "Nailed it."

There is only one thing I'm willing to do to be a successful writer: write.

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that's a wrap, Mummy

As I finish up the latest novel (the one closest to the end), I look around at the various crossroads, and on most of the detours, it doesn't really make sense to remain "Scott Nicholson." Indeed, I've already submitted one novel under a pen name, and another book I'm working on is in a distinctly different genre. I am very grateful to have published some books and I have some loyal readers. There's nothing as humbling, nor as clear a reminder of why we do this, as when you get a note from someone that says "You're my new favorite author."

Scott Nicholson is a decent commodity and has published some solid work. He is not a bestseller, just a humble hack pouring his heart and lungs out on a keyboard. The word "horror" is on the spines of his six novels but he doesn't feel horrible at all. The books just happened to have some ghosts and creatures in them. They are about faith and love, things Nicholson believes in. He doesn't believe in ghosts and creatures. They contain some darkness. Nicholson has seen darkness. They have some redemption. Well...it is FICTION, after all.

After a flurry of study, research, and inquisition, I've been able to take a more remote look at what I write, how it is presented, and, on the marketing end, how it is categorized out there in the wider world. One thing the online booksellers really excel at is compiling search histories and customer track records and seeing which books you're clumped with. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd never read the types of books I write, but I'm nowhere near my literary heroes. A lot of that comes to me, and how hard I work at it, and how much I want it. Boy, I love this job. Even though it's a part-time occupation, it's a full-time obsession. It is incredibly satisfying to be published. In the rank of things I wanted to do on this planet, that's probably in third, right after wife and kids (which are really tied for first, I suppose.)

But maybe Scott Nicholson needs to die. It won't be pretty, because I've known him long enough to know he won't go down without a fight. I may have to club him from behind with a shovel, or poison his coffee, or short-circuit his computer. He's got an incredible ego. He thinks what he has to say is important and that the world needs to hear it. Such people are dangerous and tend to persevere.

But if he were gone, I could convince myself to start fresh and never write a scary book. I could write about easy love and blind faith and sincere trust and happy endings. I'd have snappy, likable characters with indentifiable quirks. I'd create a series character. Two series characters, who quibbled over easy love.

But I suspect Scott Nicholson would slide out of his grave at night, dirt spilling from his rotted jacket as he sought his revenge. I'd go down a lot easier than he would.