How to Write a Successful Novel

Everyone wants their writing to be successful in some way, but what is a successful novel?

That starts with your definition of success.

If you measure success by the amount of books you finally sell, then you’re probably setting yourself up for some disappointment. Exact figures are hard to come by and are complicated by whether you count ebooks and audiobooks along with print books.

It’s estimated that 15% of new books published by the top 10 publishers in the US will sell fewer than 12 copies in a year; only 0.04% will sell more than 100,000. It’s generally considered that a book needs to sell 5,000 copies to break even; 85% of books don’t achieve that.* Reports suggest that self-published books sell five copies on average, but that seems on the low side to me.

Acknowledgement

Maybe it’s enough to get a publishing deal from a traditional publisher, to get that kind of industry recognition. That’s a fair aim, but so many of us in the WU community know how difficult that can be as the rejections pile up.

The decision by a publisher or agent to take on a book is such a subjective process. One book might resonate strongly with one reader because they relate positively to the content, but another reader’s own personal experiences and biases might set them dead against the idea of publishing the same story.

I see this in my own work with Arkbound publishing. We have a committee to decide on the proposals we receive precisely because of how subjective such decisions can be. Our opinions very rarely vary too much – great or poor writing will always be recognized – but it’s interesting to see where opinions diverge, and so we go with a majority decision, meaning no one person has the responsibility for rejecting a work.

With the odds seemingly against you, why bother spending all that time and immense effort to write a book?

There are, of course, many benefits to writing.

Research has shown that it can help you organize your thoughts. Dr M Cecil Smith of West Virginia University suggests that writing ‘requires focusing of attention, planning and forethought, organization of one’s thinking, and reflective thought, among other abilities – thereby sharpening these skills through practice and reinforcement.’ Walter Ong, a professor of English literature and philosophy, stated that writing is necessary to help the human mind achieve its full potential.

Cognitive psychologist James Pennebaker has researched how writing can help people overcome trauma, even with short writing exercises, and found that people feel happier, or at least less negative, and experienced fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety after a series of writing exercises. Other research suggests that people can be healthier as a result of writing as it is likely to boost the immune system, and writing has been shown to improve chronic conditions such as asthma and arthritis.

Aims

But I don’t think many people sit down to write a novel with the specific aim of improving their health, unless you’re writing about a specific trauma or experience. But writing so you can have fewer visits to the doctor is rarely the main motivation.

Most writers are looking for something more. And if becoming a bestselling author or landing a lucrative publishing deal are out of reach for most of us, then how can you ever be a successful author?

If your sole aim is to become a famous author, then it can be useful to know the odds are against you. And of all the well known authors out there, I’d guess that few actually set out to be famous, if any.

Instead, it’s useful to ask yourself why you want to write and what you expect to get out of it. Maybe you have a point you want to make, to write a book about a social or political situation you feel strongly about, such as climate change, and you see writing about it as the best way to explore and communicate that message.

Maybe you want to create a whole other world and civilization and see how the people there react to such a situation.

And maybe you just have this story that goes round and round in your head and the only way to stop it is to get type it out onto a page.

Appreciation

People’s motivations and choices for writing are as many as there are writers. Figuring out yours can be helpful to then identify what your expectations are.

Maybe you’d like to get back the costs of self-publishing, and you’ve worked out that means x amount of purchases. That’s a reasonable goal too. But that can take a lot of effort to market and promote your book – not necessarily skills every writer is equipped with.

Many authors start writing for a specific audience, which might be even a single person. Is it enough for that person or group to have read your work? Probably not, you probably want them to enjoy it too. But what if they don’t?

The key is gratitude. Look at what you have already achieved in writing a book. Think about what you learned with this experience. Your writing will have improved greatly just through the practice of writing. You also showed that you have the persistence to write a book – no easy feat by any standards. That kind of determination can be applied to so many parts of life.

So, if you feel that your novel has not been quite as successful as you’d hoped, consider the ways in which you can still be grateful and, of course, write that down.

For most people though, being a successful author is all about the joy of writing, of escaping into another world and feeling a sense of completion and achievement when you finally type THE END. That, I think, is the main aim for most writers when they start out, and anything else is extra. It’s good to have a goal for your writing, but success often comes purely from the writing. Deep in their core, few writers look for much more.

What is your motivation for writing? What do you get out of it?

• Book sales statistics come from More or Less: Behind the Stats from BBC Radio 4, October 22, 2022