Personal Glory or Commercial Success?

[Starry Eve]

Ideally, we'd like to be able to write books that are both meaningful to us as well as popular in the consumer market.  Realistically though, it's extremely uncommon to have both.  If you had to choose, would you rather write for personal fulfillment even if it doesn't attract much in the way of sales or write what will more likely appeal to the masses and give you some amount of decent profit?

[Carolyn Kephart]

Speaking as a realist, it's perfectly possible to have both, and hope springs eternal.

Good luck.

CK

[modwitch]

I don't believe it's extremely uncommon.  I'll bet most authors here find their books very meaningful to themselves, and quite a few are commercially successful as well.

[Ben White]

Honestly, as long as people enjoy my books, I don't really mind.

[judd.exley]

"Work like you don't need the money" is a great old axiom and writing, for me, has been even more to the extreme.

Personally, I can't imagine the creative process to be done with anything financial in mind.  I wouldn't be able to do it properly if I even considered how to make money off it.

Of course, when I'm a bestseller and living the life... I might feel differently.  Heh.

[Dara England]

What Carolyn said. I believe a book can appeal to me and to the masses at the same time. My taste isn't that unusual. 

[tim290280]

There seems to be an assumption here that a book that you find rewarding to write can't be accessible to others. I'd like to think that I share something in common with the audience and thus the commercial success is more down to how good a job I've done.

[ASparrow]

I'm aiming for personal meaning over commerce (though, I'm not even sure I'm even achieving that). With every book I write, I hope to get closer to a piece of art that is robust enough to sustain itself. Whether readers are able to enjoy what I produce is a side benefit. Not that I'm aiming for my writing to be obtuse or unpleasant, it's just that my plots, structures and characters sometimes go places that aren't exactly obvious or enjoyable. But that's life.

[Jon Olson]

I just try to please myself and  trust that others will like it. I sort of think, you write the book you can write, and let your (sunny?)  personality come through.

[J. Carson Black]

I don't see this as a choice.  Well-written books abound, and they're successful. James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly are good examples of that in my field.  They're successful because they're good, and because people buy them, read them, and love them. 

My guess is it's deeply fulfilling to write a compelling story that pulls people along.  That takes a ton of skill and attention to craft. And craft done well, in my view, leads to extreme happiness.  Or at least bursts of ebullience and moments of gloating.

...

Working on it!

[Lexus Luke]

Rewarding to me is many readers enjoying my novel. Yes, there's an underlying theme. If they get it, terrific. If they don't, that's okay, too.

Good art reaches as many people as possible, maybe even everyone.

[traceya]

I write because I love to write.  I could no more stop writing than stop breathing.  If people also happen to buy my books and like them that's a bonus.

[kookoo88]

I think writing flows best if you write what you like.  The nice thing about Indie Writing is that it's opening up doors to new ideas and allowing authors to actually be artists instead of fitting them into what an organization thinks will be successful.

Write what you love and hope it makes you rich. 

[David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish]

I'll take the money and run.

[BTackitt]

Says the guy with.. 9? or 10? books selling well.

[David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish]

Says the guy with.. 9? or 10? books selling well.

Exactly. But no one feel too jealous. Devil's coming to take my soul in two years.

[J. Carson Black]

Exactly. But no one feel too jealous. Devil's coming to take my soul in two years.

You gotta go to the Crossroads for that to happen.   

[EllenFisher]

Albert Payson Terhune once said:

I found I could make more money as a scrawler of second- and third-rate stuff. While it is a noble thing to starve in a garret and to leave to posterity a few precious volumes which all folk praise and few read, yet to me there was something better worthwhile in grinding out work which brought me plenty of cash, if no high repute.

I had known what it was to be hungry. I did not care to risk the experience again, either for myself or for those who depended on me. Deliberately, happily, I sold my highly putative literary birthright for a very actual and bounteous mess of pottage.

Personally, I've never been a literary writer, but what my mother called a "hack" writer.  (She used the term in a positive way, to describe her own fast-but-not-brilliant writing.)  My goal is to make as many readers happy as possible.  If I'm successful at that, I will hopefully make money at it and be a commercial success.  And making money is a very important thing when you're trying to support a family.

[John Hartness]

Pay. Me.

 

[EverythingIndie]

I write what I want to write - I'd just like that to be commercially successful.

[jonathanmoeller]

In electronic self-publishing, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

-JM

[Rhonda Helms]

Jonathan--haaaaaahahaha. EPIC. I wish I could "like" your comment.

[kcmay]

I don't believe it's extremely uncommon.  I'll bet most authors here find their books very meaningful to themselves, and quite a few are commercially successful as well.

This. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I want to write what people want to read, but I'll still make the stories meaningful to me.

[Starry Eve]

How are we defining commercial success though?  I guess I'm thinking too far along the lines of mega-successes like JK Rowling whose work has expanded beyond books into merchandising and theme parks even.  I don't think I could do a good job with a book if I didn't write what is meaningful to me.  It'd be wonderful if a lot of other people could appreciate it as much, but I try not to expect it and set myself up for disappointment.  I'm truly grateful for the technology nowadays which are allowing indie self-publishers to express themselves to the world even if the world may not always know they're out there (yet). 

[Edward C. Patterson]

You left out the most important element.

READER SATISFACTION.

They determine the outcome of the equation.

Edward C. Patterson
Go for the gold - readership, and whatever will be will be good