Quote:
Originally Posted by dadioflex
13. Until you have a measure of success such that the average man on the street knows who you are, you shouldn't be making lists telling writers what to do, or not do.
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I have to differ here. The brush you are using,
dadioflex, is ill fitting. Being a good author doesn't give you the publicity that one run on American Idol does for previously unknown singers and I couldn't tell you any of the winners on that show beyond Carrie Underwood, and I don't watch American Idol. I just like her and I keep hearing that she won it one year.
I would say that most here in this erudite group at MR could not name the fiction authors that had a book sell 50,000 or more copies last year, or whose books have sold a total of 100,000 copies over the last 5 years and most here would say that those were reasonably proficient authors, though they haven't attained wild success.
Probably only a few here could name all the authors that had one book sell 1 Million copies in any year of the last 10. Those we might consider having something close to what many here at MR would consider wild success, especially if they had duplicated that feat more than once.
Further I would say that being able to sell "One Million" in one year or even achieve that number in each of several years doesn't enable one to be the best "how to do list" writer for other writers.
There are some books that make a lot of money that I consider drivel, and other very good books by stereotype "starving authors" that nobody knows.