We all know that feeling. You start reading a book, even perhaps a best seller, and after a few pages you think to yourself, ‘How on earth did this ever get into print? I could do better!’

When you’re unpublished, it seems unfair that someone who peppers their prose with exclamation marks and clichés, or poor grammar and clunky sentences, can find a publisher. And when you are published, it seems just as unfair that the author of that same shoddy writing gets millions while you worry about whether you’ll earn out the modest advance you got.

So how come a book like that gets published in the first place? And once published, how come it sells millions? Is it luck?

No, of course not, but it sure helps to be in the right place at the right time for the right person. And the only way you ensure that is by getting your book – the best work you can write – out there to as many people as possible. I am an object lesson when it comes to this.

My first novel was accepted by an agent just after I turned forty-five. It should have been earlier – after all, I was only seven or eight when I decided I was going to be a writer. Well, authoress was the word I used, I believe! So what the hell took me so long? I did write. I even finished books. A number of them. But I never got anywhere with them. Why not?

Because the sheer dogged determination was not there. I was too caught up in all the paraphernalia of everyday life, earning a living, raising kids…you know the story. But in this business you make your own luck by stubborn persistence, and without that drive, my books weren’t out there being seen by enough people. In effect, I wasn’t making my own luck.

Then the kids grew older and my husband took a job in Vienna, Austria. We moved into a smaller house where the housework could be done in one tenth the time and there was no wildlife sharing our living space necessitating constant cleaning (people who live in the tropics will know what I mean!). I had no full-time job so I had time to write; we weren’t earning third world salaries any more and so I had the cash to sent out a manuscript repeatedly. I got serious. I changed my luck.

That poorly written work by the now bestselling author I mentioned above? That may not have appealed to 99% of the publisher and agents who saw it originally – but it hit the right person at the right time, someone for whom the story resonated, or who realised it would resonate with the reading public. Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean other people won’t like it either.

We have to accept that sometimes good writing doesn’t sell, whereas a good story can sometimes survive poor writing. It’s annoying to those who take care to craft good novels, but hey, this is a business as well as a creative art, and we have to live with it. And the best advice remains: make your own luck.

Be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch as well as a good craftsman.

Originally posted in Glenda’s blog on Thursday, 16 February 2006 (3 Comments).