Most writers would like to think that our brilliant writing, clever premise, and skillful plot manipulation are the primary things that lead to a book selling. We want to believe this, perhaps even need to believe this, because it helps us feel that we have some control over our writing careers, such as they are. If it’s all about skills, we can just work harder to become better writers, thereby increasing our chances of being published.
That said, as many writers can tell you, luck is a big component to the publishing game. You have to write not just a good book, or a great book, but the right book. Then you (or the right agent) have to send it out to the the right editor at just the right time. If this weren’t true, then how would any of the great classics of literature have ever been rejected even once? If all it were about was the quality of the writing and the story, every great book would immediately sell, leading to accolades, fame, and wealth for the author. We know it ain’t so.
Yet sometimes I encounter writers who would have you believe that it was only their hard work that led to their writing successes. As though they alone controlled the outcome.
Today, I read a news story about a CNN producer who has won the lottery twice. She tells her own story here. Part of the story is touching, because she apparently won $100,000 the first time, just at the moment she most needed it. Those are wonderful stories, when crisis is averted by a sudden windfall.
The rest of the story is pure aggravation. Here is what she has to say about why she won:
“I believe that this blessing came to me because I have worked very hard.”
Scratch harder!!!
I have scratched lottery tickets before. It’s not that difficult. It certainly doesn’t qualify as “hard work.” Somehow, this woman believes that she won the lottery because she deserved it for working so hard. These are the words of someone who is either delusional or lacking in logic. Unless one is cheating, one wins the lottery, because through a process of random chance, one has purchased a winning ticket. It has nothing to do with hard work or being deserving.
The same is true with writing and publishing. To get published, you have to write a book (or in some cases, hire someone to write your book.) Hard work helps with this, because writing a book is not as easy as buying a lottery ticket. That said, the rest of the equation is all about getting your book into the hands of the right editor at the right moment. This rests a very great deal on chance.
What say you? How important is luck? In publishing? In winning the lottery? In everyday life?
Bryn Greenwood 
That woman makes me want to set my brother (closing in on his PhD in logic) on her. I don’t think she’d learn anything, but it would be entertaining to watch her sit through his intro class.
As I posted in the Pit, my take on the publishing equation:
Published = 15% premise + 5% skill + 5% perseverance + 75% luck.
And one could arguably call choosing the “right” premise a bit of luck too.
I admit, I have no patience for writers who insist luck has nothing to do with it. The space in their brain that should be devoted to logic instead tends to be filled with ego.
As much as I wish the luck component weren’t so high, I have to agree with your basic math. Certainly, having the right premise drop into your lap at the right time is key. I think we’ve seen how difficult it is to respond to trends in a timely manner, so one really already has to be on the trend when it happens. Yes, please, could we go back to teaching basic logic in high school?
Of course winning the lottery is pure luck, especially scratch-off tickets as opposed to games that require picking your own numbers. Publishing, however, isn’t so black and white. Lots of factors play a role in the acquisition or rejection of a manuscript, but I would agree that some element of luck is also involved. And that’s what makes it so difficult for most writers. We can control the words on the page, but we can’t manipulate the stars.
It’s definitely the thing that makes me feel mildly crazy sometimes!
This post brought to mind Frank DeFord’s commentary on Jeremy Lin, the basketball player who was consistently overlooked but caught a break because of a number of odd factors in this year’s NBA season. He talks about how so much talent – not just in sports – is not recognized because the people in charge are looking in all the same places.
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/15/146856935/looking-for-lin-in-all-the-wrong-places
I always enjoy Frank’s commentaries. In fact, it’s the only sports news I ever listen to. And I love him for being willing to call a creep a creep.
Luck smuck. Luck can be defined as good karma, the stars aligning, all your work with “The Secret” finally coming to fruition, positive thinking, creative visualization…and so on. As I stated in the Pit, there are 3 authors whom I believe wrote outstanding novels — the kind that stay with you long after reading them. I have a hard time believing luck had anything to do with their being published.
The lottery winner is a different enchilada altogether. I do believe that was luck AND good karma.
As I said, though, if there were no luck involved, the first editor who read each of those books would have bought them immediately. I doubt that happened. Even incredible books written by talented people get rejected, because the book hasn’t reached the right editor at the right moment. Talent and hard work are not enough. If they were, talented, hard-working writers wouldn’t get rejected.
Oh, and I equate luck with chance, having nothing to do with karma or positive thinking. Chance as a product of chaos, entropy.
Luck plays a huge role. I also become irritated with those who don’t recognize how important having the right book at the right time is in finding publishing success. But it is also important to be prepared to meet fortune when it smiles upon you. All the luck in the world isn’t going to make up for a book that fails in one of the other areas of that equation.
I don’t know if premise is as big a factor in the formula (maybe this depends on the type of book though) as to outweigh skill so significantly. I find many books that are based on a good idea or have a great hook, but it is in the execution that things fall a part. So, I vote to increase “skill” marginally. Then again, this might be me wanting to steal back some control from that bigger part dependent upon luck 😉
Good post, Bryn.
I totally want skill to play a bigger part, because I feel I can control that. I can work harder, improve my writing. I know I can! Just give me a chance!
I see her mistaken attribution as a desire to claim control over the uncontrollable. It’s similar to a rape victim believing she was assaulted because of how she dressed. Avoid wearing a short skirt and sexy lipstick, or so the logic goes, and forever more avoid the notice of cruel and barbaric people.
Being a control freak myself, I understand the urge to invent causality. 😉
Except winning the lottery is good. I see more that she’s attempting to proclaim that she “earned” this outcome.
Yes. And where success happened before because of effort, it’s replicable. She need never be poor, unloved, or subject to any personal bogeymen again except if she slacks off. Nor might she be obliged to share her new-found wealth with all those pesky new relatives she’ll acquire.
I’m speculating and projecting, of course, but these are the kind of mind games a person can play. Writers do it all the time.
It troubles me because I view it as a kind of entitlement. The old “born on third base, thinks he hit a triple.” And as you say, people in that place tend to view those who haven’t made it with a certain contempt. If you’re not successful, it’s your fault!
I’m not sure “I deserve it because I work hard” implies belief in “only deserving hard-workers win lotteries.” Even less that “if you haven’t won a lottery, that’s because you’re an undeserving slacker.”
Unless I have evidence to the contrary, I’ll assume she made a spontaneous and unthinking comment. But that’s gaff-prone me who hopes others will extend forgiveness.
Lottery is luck, plain and simple. The stories of “she worked so hard” or “they won right when they lost their house, their dog, their brother Bill” are all to make us think that something is behind it. Do I believe in karma? Yes, I’m a Buddhist. But, karma is not that simple. Sometimes fortune simply smiles upon the lucky.
Yes, if only karma were so simple that good people would be immediately rewarded with good things. Life is often so complicated as to be incomprehensible.
Jan, it wasn’t an unthinking comment. It was an essay she published on the CNN site. Why CNN published it, I don’t know.
Ah. Clearly I need to do more research before I advance theories or defense. See what I mean about being gaff-prone?
I gave up understanding CNN a long time ago.
And the CNN issue ties it back to publishing! I haven’t queried CNN with an essay, but I bet they reject a ton of submissions. Somehow, they found room for that piece of goofiness from one of their own….
Clearly she deserved to have it published because she works so hard, right? It was obviously the best-reasoned, best-written, most-newsworthy submission they had all week.
I did find that …. typical of CNN, but no less mysterious. They so frequently publish things that leave me scratching my head in wonder.
Hmmm, well, yes, there’s an element of luck involved (or timing if you prefer). It is not as huge a factor as in winning the lottery though. Winning the lottery, there’s no way to improve your odds, and your odds of winning are astronomical. The publishing “lottery,” the skill and talent you bring to the project increase your odds of success tremendously. So I wouldn’t equate the two.
But yes, right project, right house, right time, that is definitely hitting a moving target, at the very least.
Well, I certainly hope that there are reliable ways to raise your odds, but so many times the things that increase the odds of being published seem awful random. Still, not as random or as unlikely as the lottery.
Great post, Bryn. I don’t even know how to beging to distill things down–whether it’s luck, timing, circumstance, or if they’re all one and the same. I do love the analogy about great books getting published–that they would never have been rejected in the first place. And of course, there are countless “great” books out there unpublished.
As for the CNN chick attributing her winnings to working hard…ridiculous.