(Or, Life Is Good?)
Life as an independently published writer is hard. Really. It just is. It’s often exciting, and it’s just as often fun. But it’s hard. Especially down here in the pool of working, but little-followed, collective that is most of us. Building a career in this business is about building a following, after all. And that’s predicated on, but not even close to guaranteed by, writing stories worth reading.
In layman’s terms: discoverability is a bitch.
A couple months back, Kris Rusch and Dean Smith were putting final preparations on the class they are running that’s focused on the sexy concept of how to make $40K a year with fiction. They asked for my thoughts. They’ve been doing this a while, so I didn’t have many details that they aren’t already aware of, but I said something like this: “Be sure to focus on the idea that committing to doing this as a real thing means you’re committing to be in it for the long haul.”
There is no Magic Button.
There is no specific thing you can do that will guarantee you any readers.
And, as I put it at the time: “If you can be dissuaded, you will be.”
It’s an idea adjacent to an argument that was floating in the publishing ether as I came up. Established writers were often arguing about how to interact with us young bucks, and if I heard “if they can be discouraged, they should be” once, I heard it a hundred times.
These are two different things, of course. In my mind, anyway.
People discourage. The world dissuades.
In that light, I’d change my phrasing a little. It’s not “those who can be dissuaded will be.”
It’s…
“Those who can’t be dissuaded won’t be.”
I’m thinking a lot about this because over the past few days I’ve run into several bits that suggest that the entire world of individual creators has been aligning over how things are getting even tougher today than they have been.
Writers talking about the grind.
Musicians discussing the steep cost of beginning a career, and the difficulty of dealing with the long and winding road to whatever success is.
YouTubers discussing the impact of YouTube’s latest steps to make monetization harder on kids just starting out.
If That Sounds Like Self-Pity, Think Again
If you follow those links, which I suggest you do, you won’t find a lot of “woe is me” in them. Oh, sure, they all have an essence of complaining. At its core, finding those ever-elusive 1,000 true fans (that Kevin Kelly suggested is what one needs to make a living with your art) is no walk in the park. It is almost always a slow process that feels excruciatingly long. I am personally, for example, on the path but a very long way from that magic number.
But these people talking about the harshness of life as independent artists are not giving up. More importantly, they are not suggesting anyone give up, either. None of them are attempting to discourage anyone from following their paths.
They are, instead, attempting to wave the yellow flag as new, would-be artists go whizzing past. Be careful, they are saying. Take care of yourself. Walk into this life with a real understanding of what you’re getting yourself into. Because, while the work of creating stuff is kind of dreamy, the emotional toil that comes with the work of getting and being seen can be intense.
The life of a creative is insanely personal.
Dealing with the downs takes deep-seated fortitude.
They are saying this, I think, because in their hearts they know they are not alone. They know there are millions of people in this world for whom nothing will keep them from trying. So they are saying what they are saying because they know that, for those people who cannot be dissuaded, understanding the landscape will make things better. That, for those people, hearing “established” artists lay out the course will help simply because when they hit the inevitable rocks, they will not feel quite as alone.
Aside: I note that the word “quite” in that sentence is doing a lot of work. Suffering through the silent sense of rejection that comes with the endlessly slow slog to attention can be debilitating, even when you know it’s probably coming.
Like Those Artists, I Wish I Had Something Better To Say.
I wish I had something to say that would make things not “better,” but truly easier.
But I don’t.
I think this fact is tied up in today’s conversation about the use of AI in the arts (don’t worry, this conversation isn’t about AI at all, except that it exists and does, indeed, touch on the topic). Among the many areas of complaint from established artists is that they judge people using AI as if those people are trying to short-circuit the process. To a small degree, they are. But the process of creating cool stuff, as my daughter would say, is very different from the process of showing that cool stuff to people (as Brigid, again, has called it). It’s my take that people entering this creative world using AI as if it’s the Magic Button are doomed from day one because, in my world, using AI to create your masterpieces is using it for the easy part. The “fun” part, if you want to go that far.
Everyone who puts the time in can learn how to write a passable story themselves.
If they can’t, then using AI is unlikely to help them in the big picture.
Where writers fail today is where they’ve always failed and likely will always fail—and that’s the idea of discovery. Success, regardless of your form of art or creation method, is about getting your cool stuff in front of the right people. For most of us, that takes time.
A lot of time.
Dealing with that takes…well…gumption, to use an old-fashioned word.
Grit.
Spunk.
Initiative.
Backbone.
It takes the ability to watch projects you loved creating sit untouched by readers. Oddly, it also takes dealing with watching a project do really, really well, and trying your best not to let that success give you false expectations about your next. I’m an engineer, you know? In my mental framework, once a number goes up, it’s supposed to always go up.
Alas.
The ability to do ice cream therapy and get to work on the next project is a big deal.
The ability to tend to your body in such a way that it will work consistently is a big deal.
The ability to manage all aspects of your projects is a big deal.
The ability to determine what “quality” is for every aspect of your projects is a big deal.
The ability to develop your taste is a big deal.
The ability to maintain a work ethic as life changes is a big deal.
The ability to learn how to put your work into as many formats and distribution channels as you can is a big deal.
The ability to be comfortable managing your backlist is a big deal.
The ability to be happy while you’re creating is a big deal.
I can go on.
But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll stop here, except to say this.
My first publication came in 1993. That means I’ve been writing professionally now for thirty-three years. I’ve had some very good times. I’ve won awards. Two of my series have been on Wide Channel Bestseller lists. I’ve published a couple hundred short stories, and (without counting them) 40ish books.
And yet…
While I am lucky enough (or, worked hard enough for long enough) that my family and financial foundation have allowed me to do this full-time for the last fifteen years, I have never made the bulk of my living with my fiction.
I wish I could say otherwise, of course, but that would be a lie.
Throughout all this time, I’ve worked danged hard, but I am, as I’ve written on a few occasions, a low five-figure author. In addition to my bestsellers, I’ve had a LOT of projects that I’ve loved making and that I think are great reads and spectacular fun get met with a whole wagonful of “meh.”
That’s all good, though.
I’m still working hard. Still trying to find good ways to put my stuff in front of the “right” set of readers…one at a time, counting to that magic 1,000.
If that happens, it happens.
If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
But barring health or other physical or mental issues that might be in my unknowable future, I’m never stopping. I enjoy the process too much. I get soooo much out of the work. The real work, that is. The creative part. The making of cool stuff.
That’s why I can leave you with this: If you cannot be dissuaded, you will not be.
And, as hard as that can be in any particular moment, this is a beautiful thing.
I keep a Patreon Page.
A lot of the things that show up here start there. If you’d like to get these early, or you’d just like to support me, get thee over that way. Thanks so much!