Lottery and Writing Odds

The two aren't comparable - you can't be better than anyone else at 'playing' the lottery. Every single number combination has an equal chance of winning, something that just isn't true of books.

The machine or person that draws lottery balls does so at random, and though it may seem like it for books, personal preference and writing ability figure into that decision.

I agree that you can't compare, but just for fun...

Wikipedia quotes 206,000 new books published in the UK in 2006. Take off, say, 50000, for foreign authors and domestic ones publishing more than one, that makes 156000 UK books from 60 million population, or roughly 0.25% per person per year. Take our minors and people who haven't actually produced a title, and you're looking at a figure way, way, better than lottery jackpot odds, which I believe in the UK lottery are one in 14 million per ticket. Those odds mean that if you had bought one ticket per year, you would have scooped the lottery four or five times since the extinction of the dinosaurs.

If you're in Niger, though, the quoted figures of 5 books from 14 million population means purchasing a few weekly lottery tickets will soon take you past your publication possibility.

The only way the lottery and publishing industry are comparable is that you have to enter in order to stand any chance of winning in the first place.

MM

Nice MM.

Huh. So maybe that's why I never win the lotto...

quidscribis said:

Huh. So maybe that's why I never win the lotto...

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You keep sending your manuscripts to the lottery commission?

JimmyB27 said:

The two aren't comparable - you can't be better than anyone else at 'playing' the lottery. Every single number combination has an equal chance of winning, something that just isn't true of books.

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I agree -- one is a pure mathematical probability issue - pure chance. The other requires talent, work, skills, desires, etc. and you can't even begin to measure that.

It's not as if everyone who ever writes and put their mss. out there has equal chances, unlike, um, lottery.

maestrowork said:

I agree -- one is a pure mathematical probability issue - pure chance. The other requires talent, work, skills, desires, etc. and you can't even begin to measure that

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But let's change it a bit with some assumptions. Suppose you’re a fantasy writer. And let’s also suppose you've written a reasonably good book, good enough in fact to be published by a major publisher – Tor, Eos, Roc, etc.

We all know how hard it is to get published. It seems like an unbelievably rare accomplishment. But go into a SF/F bookstore and look around. Shelf after shelf of books, floor to ceiling. And for every writer you know, there are ten you’ve never even heard of.

So what are your chances then of hitting the (relative) big time? (Like, say, Anne Rice) Or of even making a living off your writing? One in a thousand? A hundred? One in ten?

Inquiring minds want to know.

rugcat said:

So what are your chances then of hitting the (relative) big time? (Like, say, Anne Rice) Or of even making a living off your writing? One in a thousand? A hundred? One in ten?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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If you write well enough, if you tell a story well enough, if you build characters readers care about, the odds are pretty much 100% in your favor. No matter what the scenario, writing remains talent and skill.

No amount of talent or skill or hard work can change my odds on winning the lottery.

I save my pennies from playing futile games of chance and spend them on postage for submissions, thank you.

BTW: I thought this thread was going to be about Patricia's book.

Just for fun you could buy a lottery ticket for every query you send. See which jackpot you hit first.

I don't know that it's talent alone. If talent really determined success then people like Terry Goodkind wouldn't have a career.

Or a more socially acceptable example, Paris Hilton wouldn't get any gigs acting if talent actually mattered.

Don't get me wrong. Talent does matter. But there are varying degrees of talent, and more often than not shallow books are more successful than really thoughtful, extremely well written ones. For all of Rowling's glory, the Harry Potter novels just aren't very deep. Maybe this can be excused since she's writing children's fiction, and therefore, at least to some degree she has to keep things a bit simpler. But there are a lot of really popular writers out there who can't hold a candle to some of the less successful authors out there when it comes to talent.

That said, they say that 95% of all manuscripts submitted by first time authors is unpublishable, damn near unreadable crap. And of the 5% remaining, more than half get thrown out for not following the submission guidelines. So you're really only competing with 2% of the people out there, and while that still might be dozens or even hundreds of people, your odds are still significantly better than ever coming close to winning the lottery.

Shane Fitzsimmons said:

I don't know that it's talent alone. If talent really determined success then people like Terry Goodkind wouldn't have a career.

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Wizard's First Rule was a great book. Goodkind and Jordan are just great examples of how an author can murder a good story as well as birth one.

Soccer Mom said:

No amount of talent or skill or hard work can change my odds on winning the lottery.

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Another, better analogy is gambling. I can play all I want and the odds for me winning the lottery remains small. I can increase my chance slightly by buying 100,000 tickets instead of one, but the odds are still very small, and I will more likely than not lose $100,000 if I do that.

Or I can play Blackjack. It's still a chance game but my odds of winning increases tremendously if I'm a good player and know my strategy. I'll be honest to say I've never lost in Blackjack. Does that means my odds are 100%? It's part luck and part skills/strategy. And I get out of the game when I'm still winning.

If you look purely at the numbers the odds seem bad: millions of people write and only a handful become very successful. But if you consider everything, then it really is not just a chance game. Certain amount of luck is involved but there are other things in play: skills, talent, market, needs, the stories themselves (you can the greatest writer in the world but if your story doesn't interest anyone, no one will buy). Unlike the lottery and more like Blackjack, your chances are much, much, much greater if you possess these qualities.

Shane Fitzsimmons said:

Don't get me wrong. Talent does matter. But there are varying degrees of talent, and more often than not shallow books are more successful than really thoughtful, extremely well written ones. For all of Rowling's glory, the Harry Potter novels just aren't very deep. Maybe this can be excused since she's writing children's fiction, and therefore, at least to some degree she has to keep things a bit simpler. But there are a lot of really popular writers out there who can't hold a candle to some of the less successful authors out there when it comes to talent.

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Talent = depth? Says who?

Shane Fitzsimmons said:

I don't know that it's talent alone. If talent really determined success then people like Terry Goodkind wouldn't have a career.

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This attitude, that really successful writers actually write crap and don't deserve to be published is wearing thin with me. [Note: I'm not speaking as a mod here.] If the books really and truly sucked, the readers wouldn't buy them, they wouldn't recommend them to their friends, and they wouldn't go looking for the next one. They just wouldn't. Readers are fickle like that.

Stories don't have to necessarily be deep or have layers or great underlying meaning. They can exist to simply entertain. People like to escape. They like to be entertained. And the writers who are successful do that very, very well.

Azraelsbane said:

Wizard's First Rule was a great book. Goodkind and Jordan are just great examples of how an author can murder a good story as well as birth one.

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The early Wheel of Time books were very captivating. They pulled the reader into the world and made him/her care about the characters. Later books seemed to have lost forward momentum and, consequently, Jordan lost readers, but he didn't lose all of his readers and his books continue to sell really, really well because his readers care about the characters. They want to know what happened to them and how the story, which was a good story, ended.

There's a lesson to be learned there.

Roger said:

Talent = depth? Says who?

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Maybe I should've said "smart" instead, but shallow fit and depth matched it better than shifting gears and making it about intelligence. Plus the I don't think the Harry Potter books are stupid. But it's popcorn. It's candy. There's some real swordfish steaks out there that struggle like crazy.

But smart fits my point better. There are some incredibly simple-minded stories being told out there. I can't tell you how sick and tired I am of seeing Farmer Boys Finding Special Powers and Destroying the Dark Lord, Good vs. Evil stories out there. I think something can be relatively simple in presentation and still be incredibly smart and straightforward. Look at Serenity for instance. Not everything requires a great deal of thinking on the reader/viewrs part to be smart and good, but there's a major difference between shallow writing and smart writing.

Birol said:

This attitude, that really successful writers actually write crap and don't deserve to be published is wearing thin with me. If the books really and truly sucked, the readers wouldn't buy them, they wouldn't recommend them to their friends, and they wouldn't go looking for the next one. They just wouldn't. Readers are fickle like that.

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Don't know that that's true. Else American Idol wouldn't have been the most popular show in America, y'know? People buy crap all the time. We're basically bred to. But even if we're talking about books, a Star Wars hardcover is an instant best seller, it doesn't matter who's writing them. Likewise, if you write those Dungeons and Dragons novels you can wind up racking in hundreds of thousands of dollars off of a single book because they sell so well, and those have to be some of the most poorly written books out there.

The best novel I've ever read sold less than 20,000 copies (though that number may have gone up by now, but not by much).

But the meat of my argument wasn't that talent isn't a factor. Just that it wasn't the only factor. Or even the main factor, when it comes to determining success.

Stories don't have to necessarily be deep or have layers or great underlying meaning. They can exist to simply entertain. People like to escape. They like to be entertained. And the writers who are successful do that very, very well.

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You're right, but I don't think that's a product of talented writing so much as it is an ability to appeal to shallow readers. I often wonder about people who're just looking to "escape" and simply be "entertained" by movies and books and TV. It's this sort of mentality that makes crapfactory movies like The Matrix Revolutions and Scary Movie 3,217 sell so well. That doesn't make them good movies. It just makes them catering to people's shallow and easily amused mentalities.

People assume that books are automatically better simply because people have decided that anyone who reads for enjoyment must be highly intelligent, but this really isn't the case. People read bad books all the time. If they didn't, then there wouldn't be so many bad books published.

Again though, that isn't to say that all books that sell well are automatically bad books. But talent most certainly isn't the deciding factor for success.

I happen to like American Idol.

One man's crap is another man's Antique Roadshow treasure.

I don't think I'll ever understand how a writer can succeed with the attitude of "readers are shallow and stupid." That kind of disrespect for the people who (we hope) will be buying our books just boggles my mind.

Shane Fitzsimmons said:

I don't know that it's talent alone. If talent really determined success then people like Terry Goodkind wouldn't have a career.

Or a more socially acceptable example, Paris Hilton wouldn't get any gigs acting if talent actually mattered.

Don't get me wrong. Talent does matter. But there are varying degrees of talent, and more often than not shallow books are more successful than really thoughtful, extremely well written ones. For all of Rowling's glory, the Harry Potter novels just aren't very deep. Maybe this can be excused since she's writing children's fiction, and therefore, at least to some degree she has to keep things a bit simpler. But there are a lot of really popular writers out there who can't hold a candle to some of the less successful authors out there when it comes to talent.

That said, they say that 95% of all manuscripts submitted by first time authors is unpublishable, damn near unreadable crap. And of the 5% remaining, more than half get thrown out for not following the submission guidelines. So you're really only competing with 2% of the people out there, and while that still might be dozens or even hundreds of people, your odds are still significantly better than ever coming close to winning the lottery.

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I think "deep" is word used by those who have no idea what matters. "Deep' is not only an elitist term, it's an incorrect one. "Deep" is almost always synonymous with" can't write a grocery list without help."

"Deep" is the book you like, shallow is the one you don't like.

Harry Potter is more meaningful to those who love him than all the deep crap out there. It's not only elistist to think otherwise, it's silly.

Terry Goodkind has more talent than most, and because you don't like him doesn't lesson his talent an iota. And Paris Hilton has nothing at all to do with anything. You might as well have brought in a complaint about a new car.

The bestselling writers are invariably also the most talented writers, but their talent lies in areas that actually matter to real people, not in writing something "deep" that requires hip boots to wade through.

This nonsense about bestselling writers writing crap is not only old, it's an indication to me that more people out to play video games and give up reading. They aren't cut out for it.

Shallow books, my ass. There are no shallow books, there are only shallow readers.

gordon? is that you?

My Great Good God - I don't watch a movie or read a book to be educated - I watch that movie or read that book to be entertained. If I want education, I'll pick up a non-fiction (which I do quite often).

Writers who blanket-insult the very people who we all hope will purchase our books boggle my mind. Unless a writer is hoping only 403 people buy his/her book - and pass an IQ and Appreciation Test first, then I just don't get it.

I don't like Harry Potter, but clearly they're successful books, written by a successful writer. I don't like James Bond flicks, but millions of people can't be wrong. I can't tolerate American Idol, but I know people who are greatly entertained by that show and I say they're lucky to have entertainment.

At least I can appreciate that which I don't personally enjoy.