Do successful writers consider their audiences?
July 19, 2024 12:33 PM Subscribe
I have published a book and am very disappointed in its low sales. To me, not having an audience just means I wasted my time. My spouse says I should create work for my own satisfaction and not worry about who else likes it. Are there any quotes or writing from successful (or unsuccessful) artists out there about the importance of an audience?
Writing (and rewriting) the book took incredible motivation, which for me only comes from anticipating reaching a large audience. Is that valid?
Answers with quotes/writing from published authors/directors/artists (successful or not) will be the most helpful.
Writing (and rewriting) the book took incredible motivation, which for me only comes from anticipating reaching a large audience. Is that valid?
Answers with quotes/writing from published authors/directors/artists (successful or not) will be the most helpful.
I mean Toni Morrison said if there’s a book you want to read and it doesn’t exist then you have to write it .
Somebody else said I write because if I don’t I’ll explode. Maybe that was me
posted by toodleydoodley at 12:48 PM on July 19, 2024 [10 favorites]
Somebody else said I write because if I don’t I’ll explode. Maybe that was me
posted by toodleydoodley at 12:48 PM on July 19, 2024 [10 favorites]
Also, I meant to say, congratulations on writing and publishing a book; that’s a big undertaking and something to be proud of in itself, IMO.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:51 PM on July 19, 2024 [21 favorites]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:51 PM on July 19, 2024 [21 favorites]
“If a story is in you, it has to come out.”
—William Faulkner
Re: your second question. It is fine to hope for an audience, that is valid. As an aside, with some writing successes (and some not so much) under my belt, nothing is as poisonous as putting the reader's wants too far forward. Yes, everyone who publishes wants to be read. But bending the writing process to an expectation that an audience will just appear - and pre-anticipating what they want - is a recipe for something that ultimately does not satisfy.
It's hard to finish a book and edit it. I am also someone who responds to deadlines. The spectre of a looming publication date is a fine and valid force.
It's OK to write because you want to be read, but ultimately you should primarily want to be read by yourself. Which is what it seems your spouse is saying.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 12:53 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
—William Faulkner
Re: your second question. It is fine to hope for an audience, that is valid. As an aside, with some writing successes (and some not so much) under my belt, nothing is as poisonous as putting the reader's wants too far forward. Yes, everyone who publishes wants to be read. But bending the writing process to an expectation that an audience will just appear - and pre-anticipating what they want - is a recipe for something that ultimately does not satisfy.
It's hard to finish a book and edit it. I am also someone who responds to deadlines. The spectre of a looming publication date is a fine and valid force.
It's OK to write because you want to be read, but ultimately you should primarily want to be read by yourself. Which is what it seems your spouse is saying.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 12:53 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Ann Lamott talks about this a bit in her lovely book on writing, Bird by Bird. I find her attitude towards motivation to write and the ultimate hollowness of publication to be grounding. About her first book:
I had secretly believed that trumpets would blare, major reviewers would proclaim that not since Moby Dick had an American novel so captured life in all of its dizzying complexity. And this is what I thought when my second book came out, and my third, and my fourth, and my fifth. And each time I was wrong
But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warm people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it's cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.
Of course, your disappointment is still valid. It's not like you were writing a journal - what you wrote was meant to be read. But the gifts of writing go beyond popularity and acclaim. I hope you find your way back to that deeper motivation, once you've taken the time to process how you feel about your first book.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 1:09 PM on July 19, 2024 [9 favorites]
I had secretly believed that trumpets would blare, major reviewers would proclaim that not since Moby Dick had an American novel so captured life in all of its dizzying complexity. And this is what I thought when my second book came out, and my third, and my fourth, and my fifth. And each time I was wrong
But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warm people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it's cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.
Of course, your disappointment is still valid. It's not like you were writing a journal - what you wrote was meant to be read. But the gifts of writing go beyond popularity and acclaim. I hope you find your way back to that deeper motivation, once you've taken the time to process how you feel about your first book.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 1:09 PM on July 19, 2024 [9 favorites]
Best answer: Editor here. Low sales are often more about your marketing strategy (or publisher's marketing strategy, if you're not a self-published author) than anything else. There are poorly written books that become "bestsellers" as well as amazing books that never left the shadow of obscurity.
A book's true, inherent quality means something, yes, but it does not always mean as much for profitability as we might like to believe. Whether a book flies off the shelves is, at the end of the day, all about the spin.
Only you can determine if the book was a waste of your time, but I (personally) would bet that it wasn't. You have accomplished something that many aspire to achieve, but of which few actually follow through. I have enough familiarity with the book creation process to offer you nothing but my respect and congratulations for your accomplishment. Yes, accomplishment.
In response to your actual question, here's what Stephen King has to say:
What would be very wrong, I think, is to turn away from what you know and like . . . in favor of things you believe will impress your friends, relatives, and writing-circle colleagues. What’s equally wrong is the deliberate turning toward some genre or type of fiction in order to make money.
posted by nightrecordings at 1:12 PM on July 19, 2024 [21 favorites]
A book's true, inherent quality means something, yes, but it does not always mean as much for profitability as we might like to believe. Whether a book flies off the shelves is, at the end of the day, all about the spin.
Only you can determine if the book was a waste of your time, but I (personally) would bet that it wasn't. You have accomplished something that many aspire to achieve, but of which few actually follow through. I have enough familiarity with the book creation process to offer you nothing but my respect and congratulations for your accomplishment. Yes, accomplishment.
In response to your actual question, here's what Stephen King has to say:
What would be very wrong, I think, is to turn away from what you know and like . . . in favor of things you believe will impress your friends, relatives, and writing-circle colleagues. What’s equally wrong is the deliberate turning toward some genre or type of fiction in order to make money.
posted by nightrecordings at 1:12 PM on July 19, 2024 [21 favorites]
I don't personally share the perspective that you should "write for yourself," at least in the way most people seem to mean it. For me, the purpose of writing is communicating something, putting a thought in someone else's head. It's like telling an actor that they can just act in front of a mirror, so why worry about getting parts?
So I'm with you there. The issue I see in your question is the phrase "LARGE audience," because you really can't control that. Too much of it is just random chance, nothing to do with the quality of the work. For me, if one or two people whose writing I respect say they like something of mine, an a handful of other randoms also say they like it, that fills up like 80% of my ego gauge for the project. I don't expect more, so if I do get more, it's a delightful surprise.
I'm curious if you have any writing peers - a critique group or just other friends who are also writers. Writing can feel very isolating, but if you can find or build a community around it, you don't get that same awful feeling of slaving away in the dark alone for no guaranteed payoff.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:12 PM on July 19, 2024 [4 favorites]
So I'm with you there. The issue I see in your question is the phrase "LARGE audience," because you really can't control that. Too much of it is just random chance, nothing to do with the quality of the work. For me, if one or two people whose writing I respect say they like something of mine, an a handful of other randoms also say they like it, that fills up like 80% of my ego gauge for the project. I don't expect more, so if I do get more, it's a delightful surprise.
I'm curious if you have any writing peers - a critique group or just other friends who are also writers. Writing can feel very isolating, but if you can find or build a community around it, you don't get that same awful feeling of slaving away in the dark alone for no guaranteed payoff.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:12 PM on July 19, 2024 [4 favorites]
Another editor chiming in to say that writing a book and marketing a book are two completely different skill sets. You can be proud of your writing even if the marketing plan didn't work.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:14 PM on July 19, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:14 PM on July 19, 2024 [7 favorites]
the general field's reception theory [oxford]
posted by HearHere at 1:18 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 1:18 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
You did an extraordinary thing writing a book! But if your goals were audience-oriented what did you and your publisher do to to assure that audience's existence before you wrote the book? What did you do to orient yourself to that audience and get in front of them before the book was released? Generally your publisher won't even give you an advance if their math says the reception isn't going to be there, so was there a gap between what marketing you thought they were going to do and what they expected you to do on your on dime and time?
If you had the numbers when you put together the plan but the numbers turned out not to be there after release, did something happen in between? And was it the pandemic? Because everyone I know in a writing career says the landscape has just shifted in surprising ways in the past 5 years.
Given the painful arena that writing and publishing is, you should definitely not write a book unless you can be happy with having written a book and nothing else. But it sounds like you thought the audience was going to be there and then they weren't, which is usually an analyzable set of metrics.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:44 PM on July 19, 2024 [3 favorites]
If you had the numbers when you put together the plan but the numbers turned out not to be there after release, did something happen in between? And was it the pandemic? Because everyone I know in a writing career says the landscape has just shifted in surprising ways in the past 5 years.
Given the painful arena that writing and publishing is, you should definitely not write a book unless you can be happy with having written a book and nothing else. But it sounds like you thought the audience was going to be there and then they weren't, which is usually an analyzable set of metrics.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:44 PM on July 19, 2024 [3 favorites]
Well, you were anticipating the right audience to get yourself to write the book, but now you need to retool your audience anticipation strategy to get yourself to feel good about having written the book so that, in time, you'll be able to gear up to write the next one. What if you were to reach a large audience but the audience was primarily dullards and hate-readers? That would be suboptimal.
Fortunately, that hasn't happened. The audience right now is small, but maybe your book is a sleeper. Slowly its audience will grow. Eventually your book will be, whatever, The Big Lebowski.
Or maybe the book never finds a big audience. Maybe it finds only a few people or even just one person but it changes that person's life. It answers some question they had. It becomes their favorite book. It delights them; it offers them solace in a dark time.
Hunts in Dreams did that for me. I read it and it unexpectedly blasted away a depression I was in, and because of that I will love Tom Drury forever. I think that's the way to think about it.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:48 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
Fortunately, that hasn't happened. The audience right now is small, but maybe your book is a sleeper. Slowly its audience will grow. Eventually your book will be, whatever, The Big Lebowski.
Or maybe the book never finds a big audience. Maybe it finds only a few people or even just one person but it changes that person's life. It answers some question they had. It becomes their favorite book. It delights them; it offers them solace in a dark time.
Hunts in Dreams did that for me. I read it and it unexpectedly blasted away a depression I was in, and because of that I will love Tom Drury forever. I think that's the way to think about it.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:48 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
I hope you have listed your published book in the "Projects" section of the site. I am sure that you will sell a few more copies than you otherwise would.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:05 PM on July 19, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:05 PM on July 19, 2024 [7 favorites]
Best answer: That Gertrude Stein quote at the top of the answers is perfect.
I wrote a personal-finance blog for 15+ years. I published a book about personal finance. I created an Audible course about personal finance. For most of this writing "career", I didn't think at all about my readers. I thought about me and what I wish I had known about money when I was younger. I had some modest success, and I think it's precisely because of the approach I took.
That said, many writers do have to consider their audience. It depends on the circumstances, yes?
All of that said, you can't really control how an audience receives your work. All you can do is create the best product you can based on your experience/knowledge, then put it out into the world. But, as others have noted in this thread, simply writing the book isn't enough. If you want sales, you have to market it. This is a Dirty Little Secret that most folks don't know when they start writing books. You have to be able to market your book if you want sales. That generally means you need a "platform", some sort built-in existing audience. (In my case, I had 100,000+ blog subscribers as a platform.)
I've been privy to behind-the-scenes marketing for a handful of New York Times bestsellers. The folks I know who have enjoyed great sales have universally marketed the hell out of their book. They've flogged it everywhere they could. What's more, a handful of these folks have artificially "juiced" the numbers. They buy a HUGE quantity of their own book to inflate initial sales, which has a cascade effect on future sales. Best-seller lists try to flag this sort of behavior with an asterisk, but it's easy to do this without anyone noticing. One guy I know who has had multiple best-sellers simply has his friends and colleagues order a bunch of copies (say 25 to 50), then he reimburses them for the purchase. He has a storage unit filled with his own books.
Bottom line: You need to decide what successful means to you. If successful means lots of sales, then you need to do the things that generate lots of sales: build an audience, market the hell out of your book. But if being successful simply means getting your story/message out into the world, then focus on doing that. (That was my definition of success.) These aren't mutually exclusive, obviously. You can write something important/great AND market a book too.
posted by jdroth at 2:36 PM on July 19, 2024 [12 favorites]
I wrote a personal-finance blog for 15+ years. I published a book about personal finance. I created an Audible course about personal finance. For most of this writing "career", I didn't think at all about my readers. I thought about me and what I wish I had known about money when I was younger. I had some modest success, and I think it's precisely because of the approach I took.
That said, many writers do have to consider their audience. It depends on the circumstances, yes?
All of that said, you can't really control how an audience receives your work. All you can do is create the best product you can based on your experience/knowledge, then put it out into the world. But, as others have noted in this thread, simply writing the book isn't enough. If you want sales, you have to market it. This is a Dirty Little Secret that most folks don't know when they start writing books. You have to be able to market your book if you want sales. That generally means you need a "platform", some sort built-in existing audience. (In my case, I had 100,000+ blog subscribers as a platform.)
I've been privy to behind-the-scenes marketing for a handful of New York Times bestsellers. The folks I know who have enjoyed great sales have universally marketed the hell out of their book. They've flogged it everywhere they could. What's more, a handful of these folks have artificially "juiced" the numbers. They buy a HUGE quantity of their own book to inflate initial sales, which has a cascade effect on future sales. Best-seller lists try to flag this sort of behavior with an asterisk, but it's easy to do this without anyone noticing. One guy I know who has had multiple best-sellers simply has his friends and colleagues order a bunch of copies (say 25 to 50), then he reimburses them for the purchase. He has a storage unit filled with his own books.
Bottom line: You need to decide what successful means to you. If successful means lots of sales, then you need to do the things that generate lots of sales: build an audience, market the hell out of your book. But if being successful simply means getting your story/message out into the world, then focus on doing that. (That was my definition of success.) These aren't mutually exclusive, obviously. You can write something important/great AND market a book too.
posted by jdroth at 2:36 PM on July 19, 2024 [12 favorites]
One of AskMe's most recommended authors over the past year or so started off with a bottom-to-midlist career until one book hit a vein of public interest and skyrocketed.
I would just encourage you to keep going, keep writing your thing. She never stopped writing her thing, and a TV series based on her work is currently in production - but I bet very few people could name her earlier works.
Nobody starts off Stephen King. (Well, I guess Stephen King did, but that's a party of one.) You've had incredible success just through being published! Now the trick is just to keep putting words on paper and maintain the courage to put them out int he world.
posted by invincible summer at 2:39 PM on July 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
I would just encourage you to keep going, keep writing your thing. She never stopped writing her thing, and a TV series based on her work is currently in production - but I bet very few people could name her earlier works.
Nobody starts off Stephen King. (Well, I guess Stephen King did, but that's a party of one.) You've had incredible success just through being published! Now the trick is just to keep putting words on paper and maintain the courage to put them out int he world.
posted by invincible summer at 2:39 PM on July 19, 2024 [5 favorites]
In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last. - Rick Rubin, The Creative Act
posted by adekllny at 3:32 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by adekllny at 3:32 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Playwright Simon Stephens: “I think as a writer, if you’re thinking about anything other than the play you wish somebody else had written so that you can watch it, if you’re thinking about what’s going to happen to the play, whether it’s going to be produced, are you writing a producible play? Are you writing a play that’s going to resonate? Are you writing a play that’s going to shock? Are you writing a play that’s going to upset people? Are you writing a play that’s going to succeed?
“That is the worst thing. Never, ever, ever aspire to success. If you aspire to success in any form of life, the best you will ever achieve is the very good. Be unafraid of failure and hold on, tenaciously, like a dog with a lockjaw, onto the play that you wish somebody else had written so that you could watch it. And as long as you’re doing that, and as long as you don’t quit, as long as you take your craft seriously, then you can get there.”
(That quote’s at 4m26s, sorry, am on my phone and can’t get a timestamped link. Also: Sorry, not entirely sure if you were after quotes supporting the need for a writer to think about their audience, or discouraging it. If this is the opposite of what you want, disregard!)
posted by penguin pie at 5:01 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
“That is the worst thing. Never, ever, ever aspire to success. If you aspire to success in any form of life, the best you will ever achieve is the very good. Be unafraid of failure and hold on, tenaciously, like a dog with a lockjaw, onto the play that you wish somebody else had written so that you could watch it. And as long as you’re doing that, and as long as you don’t quit, as long as you take your craft seriously, then you can get there.”
(That quote’s at 4m26s, sorry, am on my phone and can’t get a timestamped link. Also: Sorry, not entirely sure if you were after quotes supporting the need for a writer to think about their audience, or discouraging it. If this is the opposite of what you want, disregard!)
posted by penguin pie at 5:01 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
Full-time science fiction writer Charles Stross wrote a series of common misconceptions about publishing posts during 2010-2013, you may find something actionable in there.
Replying to the title "do successful writers consider their audiences?"...
I see "web developer" & "creator of software developer tutorial content" in your profile. Outside of writing and books there's the related scenario of an entrepreneurial solo software developer working very hard to design, build and launch their own new software product or SaaS business, and then after launching find they have have zero or very few customers. A book I recommend is Rob Walling's book 2010 "Start Small, Stay Small - a developer's guide to launching a startup". Rob's book is writing for the audience of entrepreneurial software developers who are looking to start their own businesses, but do not understand marketing. A lot of the specific tactics - e.g. using particular 2010-era analytic tools to figure out what potential customers are already searching for to measure customer demand - are very dated, but I think the overall philosophy is sound if you are trying to create and market a product and reach enough customers to achieve commercial success.
The book argues that getting a sound plan in place for marketing early is more important than working on the product -- marketing isn't merely "advertising" but considering different markets/audiences/niches that could be sold to, identifying a commercially interesting niche, figuring out a plan for how you can communicate with this audience/niche so they can discover your wonderful new product, understanding what pain points that audience/niche has and what kind of a product you could design to best help them, etc. This is the opposite to the cliche of the secluded artist toiling away producing a masterwork that realises their own artistic vision without any external feedback from the world or considering what anyone else wants. It is more like "identify a niche of customers and what they need, figure out a way they will find out about your work, then start communicating with them and running experiments to assess if you are making a product that your audience will actually buy before sinking too much effort into your project".
posted by are-coral-made at 5:57 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Replying to the title "do successful writers consider their audiences?"...
I see "web developer" & "creator of software developer tutorial content" in your profile. Outside of writing and books there's the related scenario of an entrepreneurial solo software developer working very hard to design, build and launch their own new software product or SaaS business, and then after launching find they have have zero or very few customers. A book I recommend is Rob Walling's book 2010 "Start Small, Stay Small - a developer's guide to launching a startup". Rob's book is writing for the audience of entrepreneurial software developers who are looking to start their own businesses, but do not understand marketing. A lot of the specific tactics - e.g. using particular 2010-era analytic tools to figure out what potential customers are already searching for to measure customer demand - are very dated, but I think the overall philosophy is sound if you are trying to create and market a product and reach enough customers to achieve commercial success.
The book argues that getting a sound plan in place for marketing early is more important than working on the product -- marketing isn't merely "advertising" but considering different markets/audiences/niches that could be sold to, identifying a commercially interesting niche, figuring out a plan for how you can communicate with this audience/niche so they can discover your wonderful new product, understanding what pain points that audience/niche has and what kind of a product you could design to best help them, etc. This is the opposite to the cliche of the secluded artist toiling away producing a masterwork that realises their own artistic vision without any external feedback from the world or considering what anyone else wants. It is more like "identify a niche of customers and what they need, figure out a way they will find out about your work, then start communicating with them and running experiments to assess if you are making a product that your audience will actually buy before sinking too much effort into your project".
posted by are-coral-made at 5:57 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
I recently read that there was one year where none of the books longlisted for the National Book Award sold more than 1500 copies and one of the titles sold less than 170. Sales do not equal quality.
posted by dobbs at 6:04 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 6:04 PM on July 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
I don't think he's ever written a similar sentiment but I went to a reading by Chuck Palahniuk where someone asked something like "how do you get started writing?" and his advice was "write what you want to read." I guess it gets at the intrinsic motives for writing, which is writing what you want to read because the world needs more interesting books, not more Handbook for Mortals.
posted by fiercekitten at 6:25 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by fiercekitten at 6:25 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
You get to decide what you care about and what your motivation to write is. So the answer to your question is, yes, it is valid for your motivation to only come from the anticipation of a large audience.
That said, you're also right that not every writer feels that way. I don't. I have written a book that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and I've written a novel that sold.... a lot fewer copies than that. I'm really proud of both books and glad I spent the time and energy to write them. I don't really think about readers when I'm writing, just how good the words are on the page.
Again: you get to pick what matters to you. It doesn't have to be what matters to me. But if you're focused on audience because you think you should only care about writing if a lot of people read it, it might be worth asking yourself whether that's how you really feel or whether it's a message that's gotten into your thinking from somewhere else.
posted by escabeche at 8:26 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
That said, you're also right that not every writer feels that way. I don't. I have written a book that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and I've written a novel that sold.... a lot fewer copies than that. I'm really proud of both books and glad I spent the time and energy to write them. I don't really think about readers when I'm writing, just how good the words are on the page.
Again: you get to pick what matters to you. It doesn't have to be what matters to me. But if you're focused on audience because you think you should only care about writing if a lot of people read it, it might be worth asking yourself whether that's how you really feel or whether it's a message that's gotten into your thinking from somewhere else.
posted by escabeche at 8:26 PM on July 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
Only a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny proportion of the millions of books published ever reach the kind of large audience you seemed to have in mind. Often, their success in doing that relies on factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the book itself - marketing budget, publisher's level of commitment, being in a commercially successful genre, author's celebrity, contacts in the publishing world, prospects for sale to Hollywood and simple luck.
Going to all the trouble of writing and editing a book with that large audience as your only measure of success is a fool's errand. The overwhelming probability is that it isn't going to happen, so don't worry about it. Write to please yourself and for the pride of practising your craft well. That has real satisfactions to offer and ones which are far more likely to come your way. Chances are you'll produce a better book too.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:31 AM on July 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
Going to all the trouble of writing and editing a book with that large audience as your only measure of success is a fool's errand. The overwhelming probability is that it isn't going to happen, so don't worry about it. Write to please yourself and for the pride of practising your craft well. That has real satisfactions to offer and ones which are far more likely to come your way. Chances are you'll produce a better book too.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:31 AM on July 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
You asked for quotes:
"Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for" Mark Twain
I've been ignoring that advice for 20 years and 2 million words.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:34 AM on July 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
"Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for" Mark Twain
I've been ignoring that advice for 20 years and 2 million words.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:34 AM on July 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
Best answer: This is a topic about which many commercially-successful artists lie. Out of vanity (desire to be seen as an artist) or calculation (desire not to disclose methods) they are not candid about how laser-focused they are on their audience at all times and how somewhere between all and an intentional large share (“one for them, one for me”) of their output has sales as its primary purpose.
posted by MattD at 6:05 AM on July 21, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 6:05 AM on July 21, 2024 [2 favorites]
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― Gertrude Stein
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:43 PM on July 19, 2024 [14 favorites]