How do you define success?

Getting a huge fan base. The rest follows.

If you'd rather measure success in monetary, you're in the wrong business.

When someone says they loved my book and hated what I did to my characters; I'm a happy man.

I'm a success in writing when I get the story in my head onto the pages of the book. It's the only thing I have 100% control in, so it's the only thing I'm willing to measure as "success".

Publication and popularity is so out of my control, I've learned not to use it as a measure of how well I write. When I've gotten published, my stories have been well-received and there have been positive fan letters and reviews, which means that my success (getting the story on paper) worked well for others. But if I didn't nail my personal success to begin with, none of the rest is possible.

DeleyanLee said:

I'm a success in writing when I get the story in my head onto the pages of the book. It's the only thing I have 100% control in, so it's the only thing I'm willing to measure as "success".

Publication and popularity is so out of my control, I've learned not to use it as a measure of how well I write. When I've gotten published, my stories have been well-received and there have been positive fan letters and reviews, which means that my success (getting the story on paper) worked well for others. But if I didn't nail my personal success to begin with, none of the rest is possible.

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This.

Which means, right now, I'm a huge failure because I have no desire to even pick up my pen.

Also, I voted for when someone likes my story. That is such an incredible feeling. Especially when it's someone I'd never expect - like this guy at work that bought it for his kindle. One of those tall, big, manly-seeming men - enjoyed my women's fiction! He never would have told me that if it weren't true because we rarely have occasion to see each other or talk.

But he enjoyed my story!

THAT is success!

Now if only I can get myself back to writing.

Success overall? Being published, earning a living doing what I love, putting out a quality product that people will enjoy.

Success as a writer? Writing a book that says what I want to say, says it well enough that other people 'get it'.

Fans would be nice. Won't deny that I dream of the day that I have my own category on fanfiction sites, but that's not really a huge marker of success, just a blip on the graph that says "I've arrived".

Alpha Echo said:

Which means, right now, I'm a huge failure because I have no desire to even pick up my pen.

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*pours you a cup of [insert fav morning drink here] and sits down with you* suffering from that right now.

As an artist? Fans.

As a realist? Earning a living.

bearilou said:

*pours you a cup of [insert fav morning drink here] and sits down with you* suffering from that right now.

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Forget coffee.

Let's get out the good stuff. Whiskey?

I think just being accepted by anyone is a huge success. Whether that's a fan, a publisher or an agent.

Alpha Echo said:

Forget coffee.

Let's get out the good stuff. Whiskey?

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All I've got on hand is Jägermeister and my apple pie moonshine.

WillSauger said:

All I've got on hand is Jägermeister and my apple pie moonshine.

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Ooof. I'll stick to my wine.

Money first, and pleasure in how I earn the money a close second. Take away the money or the pleasure, and wouldn't write another word.

I mostly want to be great.

And also super rich, but if I had the choice between greatness and wealth, I'd choose the former, with a little hesitation.

WillSauger said:

If you'd rather measure success in monetary, you're in the wrong business.

When someone says they loved my book and hated what I did to my characters; I'm a happy man.

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Why not aim for both?

Becoming a household name and having my creations become part of the cultural lexicon.

There are different levels of success for me. I felt success when I published a book with a legitimate publishing house, but I will feel truly, completely successful when I can make a living doing nothing but writing. Whether that's achieved by self-pubbing or traditional-pubbing, I don't care.

seun said:

Why not aim for both?

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You could. But it's hard done.

The happiest part of the week, for me, is when one of my betas come up to me and say "F!@# you! I liked what you had going and you ruined it!"
And I smile and go "So, you liked it, right?"
They nod their heads and ask "Please sir, can I have some more?"

WillSauger said:

You could. But it's hard done.

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If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth trying for.

WillSauger said:

You could. But it's hard done.

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Jamesaritchie said:

If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth trying for.

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It's rare James and I see eye to eye on how he states his case (as he could tell you), but I'm behind this one. It's great to get a good reaction from readers, but there's nothing wrong with aiming for financial rewards at the same time. I figure if I please enough people with my writing, the chances of earning a living from it are much higher.

ether said:

There are different levels of success for me. I felt success when I published a book with a legitimate publishing house, but I will feel truly, completely successful when I can make a living doing nothing but writing. Whether that's achieved by self-pubbing or traditional-pubbing, I don't care.

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Yeah, same here. Getting a respectable-sized fan base -- through traditional or self-publishing; it doesn't matter to me as much as it used to -- is one tier of success. Getting published by one of the big six is the next tier. Being able to support myself through my writing comes next. Getting marginally wealthy off it is after. Movies, screenplays and bathing in money is Now I Can Die Happy. Throughout all of this, I'd expect to grow comfortable with my style of writing and my ability to say something semi-meaningful without being totally annoying about it, and that would be another kind of success, one much more difficult to measure.

Obviously, most of those things probably won't happen, but life would be boring without a challenge! Or two. Or three hundred. And I don't believe in being satisfied, so that's all right.

seun said:

It's rare James and I see eye to eye on how he states his case (as he could tell you), but I'm behind this one. It's great to get a good reaction from readers, but there's nothing wrong with aiming for financial rewards at the same time. I figure if I please enough people with my writing, the chances of earning a living from it are much higher.

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Well, writer's names are brands.
I'd read a Olvier Sacks book because I've always loved his stuff.

But I'd rather get my work out there to let people enjoy it.
If I can get money for it, I'll try.


I'm still unpublished and working heavily on my own work.
But I'll query some agents to get feedback before I'll set myself to self-publishing.


If I make money, I would like a new computer chair and desk. My knees are killing me as I write.
But I would never rely on writing to put bread on the table.


What are the chances/percent of writers who can sustain a living off their works? (I've heard of one with 40~ novels with low sales somehow does)

I don't have a single goal that counts as "success" in my mind; being successful in writing would involve reaching various goals repeatedly over a long period of time. But as a starting goal?

Being published by a trade publisher.

With my book selling well enough that they'll buy another one from me.

...and then finding fanfic of it written by someone I don't already know.

Now that's when I'll know I've really hit the right path.

I've always felt successful in an economic sense, which to me is being able to support myself and my family. I didn't start writing for money or for fans but somewhere along the line I started to wrestle with the idea that I wasn't good enough unless my writing attracted both. Maybe I'll never be good enough. I'm improving, so I suppose that's a start. In a way, I suppose I started feeling less successful when I began to seriously pursue writing. So my answer for today would be just to hear from someone I trusted (meaning someone that didn't have any reason to hand me the polite compliment) that I'm good. That would make me feel successful and would give me a little hope that someday I'll be great.

I don't even know if that makes sense to anyone but me.

Hmm. I voted for "making a living," because I think I'd call any other writer successful who did that. If it's just getting published, I've done that. If it's having strangers say something good about me, I've done that. Despite my very limited publications I even twice had a total stranger know who I was. I had a lit student email about an analysis of one of my stories she did for a lit class. So if those are "succeeding," then I've succeeded, and so why not quit? They must not be, then, entirely satisfying me.

After I had written fiction for 12 or 15 years, published for four years fewer, I wrote a long letter to my grandmother, reminiscing about our times together, including describing this odd thing she used to do with my grandfather at the dinner table, where she'd put some bizarre object on the table to see if he'd notice (like a bottle of bleach or a coiled garden hose), proving that he didn't notice much. And we'd laugh about it together back then. As an adult, writing about it, I wondered if he didn't actually notice, but decided not to engage her wrath (she was a spunky little thing!) by mentioning it. A few weeks later, my sister phoned and said my grandmother had said I must really be a good writer, because the last letter had made her cry. And I thought, you know, maybe this is the only really important reason I've learned to write this well, so that I could thank someone I really did love to bits with the writing. She died two years later, and I still miss her lots. Everything else seems like icing, really, after that.

I define success by how the actual writing of a story makes me feel. If I get in the zone and feel all goose-bumpity and happy about the story, I have succeeded.