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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jan 5, 2019 19:54:22 GMT
If you read a lot of author forums you will see tons of threads asking about success, and if a certain genre or subgenre is worth it to write in. But these questions are tricky to answer because we all have a different definition of success. For me, personally, if I sell even one copy of a book I consider that book to be a success.
My personal goal/dream is to be able to financially support myself from my books. And every sale I make gets me closer to that goal. So every sale is a success. And yes, I'd love to be rich. But rich to me means being able to pay rent and utilities and to buy food. Just getting by, but not having to live on the streets would be absolutely amazing.
But for other people, none of my goals would feel like a success at all, but failure. So what are your definitions of success and have you met your goals yet?
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Post by davidvandyke on Jan 6, 2019 0:41:29 GMT
I've achieved success--ongoing success. To me, that means a comfortable living that provides freedom and control of my own life.
Anything above that is gravy. Sure, I'd like to win some big award or have a breakout hit and pick up a bunch of extra bucks, but those things aren't important enough to disrupt my work-life balance.
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Post by dormouse on Jan 7, 2019 0:06:21 GMT
As a writer, my idea of success is based entirely on whether I think I've done justice to the ideas. I always put everything into making it as good as I can and success is when I think I've done well (for me). Money/sales doesn't really come into this, and never has, even when I didn't have any money - and when I didn't have any time. If I'm happy, I'll send it off to whoever I think will do best for marketing it. If I'm not, I hold it and maybe revisit in the future. If I'm meh, I might send it, I might not.
As a publisher I want the editing & production to be as good as possible, and I have a minimum quality level, but I do have to be realistic when looking at costs against likely receipts. I see publishing as a business like any other. I expect a profit unless I have decided to subsidise a publication (and I'll have set a fixed subsidy amount). I don't mind who has done the writing, and I'm quite happy to turn down my own work. I won't accept anything I don't think I can do justice to. It's interesting how different something can look when I'm wearing my publisher hat.
I'm privileged in that I haven't had to worry about money for a long time, but I've always been very fixed on quality rather than money. And, looking back, that seems to have been the general approach that's paid me best in the end.
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