Did you know the average book will never sell more than 300 copies?
Less than 10 books a year sell more than a million copies, and less than 500 sell more than 100k. Those big brand deals where a book gets turned into a movie or TV Show are one in a million. More than 4 million books get published each year and somewhere between 500k and 1 million new authors are debuting. The market is oversaturated. There are not enough readers for all the books getting published. That's the hard truth. Statistically, most aspiring authors will never find success in this field. It takes thousands of hours, years even, to publish a book and most authors will never break even on the work it takes, let alone make a profit.
Discouraging is an understatement when looking at all the above statistics. When I first learned for myself the state of today's book market, I was shocked. I dove head first into research on what all these numbers meant, and how I could navigate them to best set myself up for success, and the results were unanimous; I needed to publish my book to a waiting audience because the likelihood that a stranger will find and buy a book they do not know about is slim. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are becoming a thing of the past, most people buy their books online and do not "browse" anymore. Instead, they search for the book they want by name and purchase it. Unknown books remain unknown. So to do this right, I would need to establish an audience before the book is ever ready for publishing. How do you do that? By developing an author platform; the website, socials, and the writing presence. You have to be a marketing genius, a social media manager, and stand out as an author, while also writing the damn book. There’s no way around it, it seems. If I want to be an author, and I do, I’ll have to adapt to this new market and also become a social presence. Easier said than done, but certainly not the hardest thing. What I find harder nowadays, is writing.
I’ve wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember, and it’s certainly not because I wanted to stress about how many clicks my blog posts were getting or how many followers I had on Instagram. No, it’s because I love writing. Ever since I could talk I was telling stories, as soon as I could hold a pen I was drawing and creating. I garnered a reputation in my younger years for “being a fibber” when in reality I was trying to tell my stories, to anyone and everyone who would listen. Somewhere in the last 5 years, sitting down to write become stressful. I always just assumed it was because of the above; how hard it is to be an author nowadays. But the last few months have been eye-opening. I’ve decided to come back to this platform and revive my projects, but I wanted to start by explaining why I left in the first place. The mental shift I have gone through regarding writing comes down to bad advice that gets passed around the community and directed aggressively at new novelists. Two pieces of advice specifically;
“Writing shouldn’t be hard, and if you are finding it difficult, it’s probably not the craft for you”
“Write what you want to read, not what others want to read.”
I got caught up in the idea that if I wasn't loving every second I wrote, I shouldn't be writing. I’ve convinced myself so often that I’m bad at it because there are days when it doesn’t come naturally to me. This idea that authors won’t find writing hard goes hand in hand with the idea that you have to love every bit of your job, and if you don't then you should find a different one or switch careers altogether. I think people get a bit too obsessed with the idea that things you like can't also be hard. I’m creative. I used to easily be able to come up with the most fantastic stories, but nowadays it feels like that well has run dry. I think I’ve told myself so many times that I’m not good at this, not cut out for it, that I subconsciously started believing it. It’s like I’ve manifested my problems and am now living them. I've studied so many blogs, books, and videos from established authors talking about how writing should be the easiest part of becoming an author, and I let that thought convince me that the issues I was dealing with were indications that I shouldn’t continue trying to write.
And there’s that second bit of advice, that creating stories based on what other people want to read is somehow terrible. I think this started well, mainly referring to the type of authors that chase trends and write their books based on whatever genre or trope is currently booming. That’s not how it's intended nowadays when most people offer that advice to debut novelists. Now, it’s used as a way to diminish those who want to be successful. You can’t want your books to be well received, you can’t write your book in the hopes people will enjoy it. You have to write only for your enjoyment, and if you don’t you’re betraying the craft or even betraying yourself somehow. Well, I don’t write just for myself, I do write in the hopes people will also enjoy the stories that I love so much. Is that so wrong? It’s not like I take polls and decide what my characters will be like and what sort of adventures they’ll go on based on public opinion. I write what I want to write, in the hopes that other people will want to read it.
The truth is I stopped my projects because I had to. Whenever I encountered something difficult in a writing project that made me not enjoy working on it, I stopped. I’d think back on all the above advice, that if you don't enjoy it you aren't made for it, and I’d tell myself to put it down because I wasn’t in the right headspace. The problem with that is all my projects get left on hard issues, and I never find myself "in the right headspace" to want to work through them, because working through them is hard. It’s a cycle that would repeat itself no matter how many different projects I had. And I didn’t want to work on the blog if I wasn’t even working on the book. That somehow felt like lying, as if I was growing a platform for a book I couldn’t even write. Every time I would sit down and open my laptop I would be flooded with stress, eventually, I stopped opening it. But recently I’ve found myself reading, as many books as often as I can and it's lit a fire under me to finish what I’ve started; finish my damn book.
I do genuinely hope to find success in this field, and my writing platform is going to reflect that. I will struggle sometimes, and that's ok. Coming up with ideas and writing whatever WIP may be difficult occasionally. I’m not a “pantser” nor will I ever be. In other words; my book will be heavily plotted, difficult to complete, and made for the enjoyment of others. It will also be made with passion, full of all my love and creativity, and contain lots and LOTS of dragons and adventure. If that's the style of book you think you’ll like, or more importantly, if I’m the type of author you think you’ll like, then follow me along on this difficult, rewarding journey. This blog will continue to focus on comparison reviews and marketing tidbits, which will be uploaded every other month starting now. I’ll try and upload bonus content, mainly short stories as well as the occasional ramble like this, as often as I can. Also, I will be participating in Scriptober every year, so the October blog post will be on that theme rather than a normal one. I hope that by reviving this blog and staying consistent with its posting schedule I can grow this platform to the point where I can have a fighting chance at success. Because nowadays, if you don't have an established author platform before you ever announce your book, you will likely never sell more than 300 copies.
cover art by Lazy Buns (https://ayebuns.carrd.co/#)
So glad you’re back to the blog! Writing a novel is way more nuanced than I had thought. It’s very refreshing to have an honest look into what it takes to go through this journey. Thanks for bringing us along!