In this continuing series, I will show you how not to give a fuck about your book rejections, bad reviews, and disappointing sales. Please see the table of contents at the bottom of this post for more in this series.
This is a lesson that’s usually learned the hard way, but if you can learn it up front, you have a lot less work to do. Plenty of authors go into this business thinking their manuscripts are hot shit and they’ll sell really well. They think they know the market, that their book is perfect, and the NY Times bestseller list is only a few weeks away.
And I’m sure you’re reading that last sentence and thinking, “But surely, she isn’t talking about me. I’m going to make it big.” This is me over here laughing at you. You’re precious, really, you are. The sad fact of the matter is that so few authors “make it big time,” meaning they have immediate success and are able to make a living off writing right away. And quite frankly, very few authors even can consider themselves mid-list authors after a few books published. Being an author is a career where you start out at the very bottom and work your way up. And I do mean work. You will need to work for every sale, every review, every bit of word of mouth you can get.
If you go into this business knowing this ahead of time, you’ll be better off. Temper your expectations! Understand what’s ahead of you. Lots of authors nowadays quit in the first year because they weren’t prepared for what’s to come. The first year is the hardest. You will work, blood, sweat, and quite a few tears into your manuscript, your business plan, you advertising plan, and everything else you have to do before the first book is out. Then the first book is out! You celebrate! Now what? You go back to work, immediately if possible. You promote the first book while you get the second one ready to publish. There are no breaks. If you rest, you lose momentum. It is extremely easy to burn-out, especially in the first five years when this is your pace. Especially if you want to make a livable wage at this.
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I really enjoy these posts. I wish you didn’t have Fuck in the headline. I don’t tweet anything with Fuck in the headline. Even if it has an asterisk.
I’m glad you like the posts! Funny, I don’t tweet about sexy stuff. :) Everyone has their limits.
You may also feel free to compose your own tweet without using the word! It’s up to you. Everyone has their own standards for what they put on Twitter. The use of fuck in these posts is meant to be provocative and get attention. But the content of the posts, not necessarily the headline, is the more important part.
Good point! I think this is true for a lot of other topics as well, temper your expectations and make sure they are realistic. Else you just get disappointed or frustrated.
And for a lot of things in life the last part is true as well, you have to put in a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it eventually. And the first few years are the most difficult until you’ve built a bit of an audience.
I notice this with my tour company too, every year gets a little bit easier, but it’s still a lot of work. Totally worth it, but that there is a lot of time and effort that goes into it.
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