How Successful is Success?

 

Terry here, answering the elusive questions: How do you measure “business success”? How “successful” have you been in terms of “business” this year? 

 If I want a good laugh I remember when I was VERY young and asked my husband how he’d feel if I became a published author and made more money than him. Hahahahaha. 

Ahem. My last royalty check, with nine books published, was enough to take the two of us to dinner at a reasonably expensive restaurant (read: not MacDonald’s). 

I think most people measure business success in terms of money, but that one is not on the table. I’ve had some nice advances, but nothing that would mean I could buy that 3-bedroom place in Santa Monica that I’d really like. Or even a dollhouse that was built to scale on that place. 

Although I have been “successful” in terms of having a continuous line of books published since 2013—number ten just came out—none of them has ever hit the big time.

Oddly, that doesn’t jibe with the reviews. I always get terrific reviews, but again, that doesn’t seem to translate to sales. 

 So what other success is there? Having your brand known. Okay, I do have a pretty good brand recognition. Fans write to me and come up to me at conferences and ask me to sign my books. And I’m grateful. It always feels great to have someone offer my book for my signature, holding the book as if it’s something precious. Is that enough? It should be. 

 But I look with envy at the long lines of adoring fans for the high echelon in crime-writing—William Kent Krueger, Catriona McPherson, Deborah Crombie, Thomas Perry, Craig Johnson, Rhys Bowen, Laurie King…I could go on and on. Not that I wish them ill; I just would like to have some of their magic dust. 

 My books have been nominated for numerous awards and have a won a few.

That’s success—and yet, it doesn’t seem to move to needle on sales. I wonder if it’s necessary to do big publicity to get sales. I don’t see some of the big time authors’ names splashed all over. It’s a puzzle to me how their books become big sellers. 

This year I think I should feel “successful.” The tenth book in the Samuel Craddock series, Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store, came out in October. The debut book in my new Jessie Madison series, Perilous Waters, comes out next April, and I will have another Craddock out in fall of 2024. I also have a standalone out on submission. Shouldn’t that feel like success? And yet, I bemoan the fact that none of my books has been picked up for audible, despite people frequently asking why and when. I constantly get told that my books would make a terrific TV series, but again…nada. 

 So I try to adjust my assessment of success and be satisfied with what I’ve achieved. I try to remember the time before I was published and how often I thought, “I don’t really care if it’s a best-seller, I just want to be published.”

Well, honey, you have that. Be happy. That’s success!