How Authors Fight the Feeling of Failure
Feeling failure as an author at points in an author’s career is unavoidable, but we need to learn from our mistakes
During the course of an author’s career, it won’t be unusual to feel a twinge of failure now and again.
Whether this is due to how your book release went, how many reviews your book has, or even what others say to you about your career, know that at some point you will face some kind of failure. Why? Because not everything you do will go well or even go as planned.
For example, I spoke with someone on X recently who told me they had unpublished their book because they had never received a single review over the span of years.
Upon speaking further with this person, I found out these key elements:
They paid thousands for editing
They relied only on family and friends to leave reviews
They set the bar too high for their book release
After speaking with them, I came to realize that for so many authors out there, how much it affects them if their first book doesn’t gain traction. I also hope that they don’t give up because it takes three to five books to gain an audience.
In a way, they reminded me of myself at the beginning of my career.
Back when I began publishing, I spent three thousand dollars paying a service called CreateSpace to edit, upload my book to Amazon, create a cover, format it, and write the book description. And afterward, I never thought I’d publish another book because paying that much to publish wasn’t sustainable. Yet, here I am now with fifteen books under my name.
It just goes to show that even if you face failure in some way, you can’t allow it to define you because you never know what could happen.
As I previously said, failure can also appear when other people point out aspects of your career.
For example, on Facebook, I receive nearly twenty to thirty inquiries a month from people trying to sell me their book marketing services. Despite my numerous attempts to tell people that I am not participating in paid services for marketing or books.
I have received messages telling me, ‘If you have so many books, why don’t you have many reviews? It must be something you are doing wrong. But, alas, I can fix this for you!’ or ‘I have looked over the analytics for your book and I am the only person who has key elements to get your book noticed by your target audience.’
I’m not going to lie, it stinks to hear other people point out everything they believe you are doing wrong. But the truth is, we cannot let it bog us down.
In the long run, know that failure is not guaranteed and it’s not unsurpassable.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn from failures and to continue forward. Know that the journey as an author is different for everyone. Know that the journey to authorship isn’t an easy one.