Instead of persistence, writers should focus on this
If you’ve ever looked into how to be a successful author or how to get published, you’ve most likely come across the common writing advice that says ‘persistence pays off’. But I want to offer a slightly different perspective. Persistence is important, but it isn’t the key to building a successful writing career, especially now that the book and publishing markets are completely oversaturated. Here are some reasons why you should focus on skill before persistence.
We don’t have an accurate view of our writing ability
One of the biggest obstacles writers face is that we think we’re better or more skilled at writing than we actually are. I wrote about this in my post The mindset challenge that derails your success as an author. We don’t always have an accurate view of our writing from our audience’s perspective. An example of this is when things in our story make perfect sense to us, but someone else reads it and doesn’t understand what’s happening. This is why it’s important to get beta readers or an editor who can give us a ‘fresh eyes’ perspective. If you persist with submitting writing that hasn’t been vetted by a sample audience, you won’t get far. You could submit to thousands of agents, magazines or publishers and that would feel like persistence, but if they are rejecting you because your work can’t deliver for their audience, you will continue to be rejected no matter how many times you submit. Make sure part of your writing process involves having others read your work before you submit it.
How to write a book that stands out
Whether you’re traditionally published or self-published, the book market is completely oversaturated. That means if you have a mediocre story or an overdone topic, you won’t be able to stand out. If audiences, agents and publishers aren’t interested in your story, you’re not going to get traction through acceptance letters or sales. Again, skill and knowledge are going to serve you much better than persistence here (unless it’s persistence to level up your skills or learn the market). Mastering your craft will help you stand out and so will having knowledge about the book market. You can write something with limited craft skill or market knowledge and cross your fingers that it will get picked up, or you can work on your craft and understanding of the market and have a much higher chance of getting picked up.
Once you acquire the skills you can repeat success
We have to address something here and that is that the industry isn’t always fair. Lots of times authors and books that aren’t particularly high in skill or are outside market trends find skyrocketing success. Marketing plays a big part in an author’s success too — how hyped is their story before it’s released? I talked about the effect of marketing in my blog post Why is Lightlark so popular? However, and this is important, many people who get fast or accidental success in writing can’t repeat it! This is what we call a one-hit wonder. Wouldn’t it be heartbreaking to reach soaring success with one book and then have no idea how to repeat that in your second book? When you focus on your craft skills, it might take longer to reach success, but when you do, you’ll know that it is because of what you learned. If you’ve already learned the craft and storytelling skills that readers are wowed by, you’ll be able to repeat it with your next books.
When you need persistence in writing
Persistence does have a place in writing, but it should come after you’ve built up your knowledge and skills and after you’ve had lots of people read your work and give you feedback. The best kind of persistence comes in the form of continuing to learn and work on your skills, not in seeking success, results or outcomes. When you have confidence in your craft skills, you can keep going even in the face of rejection. No hack or shortcut in writing will ever pay off in the long run. Basically, you have to apply your persistence and hard work to the right aspect of writing or you won’t get very far.
If you’re looking for help levelling up your craft and storytelling skills, that’s exactly what I do as a book coach and developmental editor. I help writers learn the skills that give them confidence in themselves as writers, please their readers and allow them to repeat success for future books. Get in touch or check out my services and pricing.
