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You have about a 1 in 1,300 chance of being struck by lightning in any given year—surprisingly high, I thought, but with 6 million strikes, 240,000 injuries, and 24,000 deaths, not necessarily the kiss of death one would assume.
You have a 1 in 100,000ish chance of winning any lottery over a $1M if you play, though of course that chance is zero if you don’t.
That puts your chances of making it onto a New York Times’ Bestseller List—roughly 1 in 48,000—smack dab between winning a $1M and being struck by lightning. Not the best odds.
My point? You probably need to have some more realistic expectations—and more reasons to keep writing—than becoming a bestselling author. It is not impossible, but it is very hard.
This is my contribution to our cause; we are not alone in obscurity, we are walking together shoulder-to-shoulder toward happy destiny.
The Road to Published: Now FREE to all subscribers
The Road to Published series is not so much a how-to for aspiring authors as it is a travelog of my own experiences writing and publishing my first book, Lamb: A novel in snapshots. You’ve all read about it here ad nauseum, but here’s a link again just in case, along with a few snippets from reviews.
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Originally, The Road to Published was supposed to be a little thank you to paid subscribers for their generosity and support, but recently I launched the new series It’s a Pretty OK! Life, and realized that with once or twice-a-month editions of that pay-walled series*, the only free content left would be The Books We ❤️ Club and occasional other posts. No bueno.
(*I mentioned before how some suspicious activity led me to believe my newsletter was scraped by LLM-bots. IPOKL is so personal to me, with memories and ideas from my own life I will probably someday turn into fiction, I just don’t feel comfortable giving AI free access so someone else can let ChatGPT vomit a novel for them, only to discover later that my life has been pre-empted by another “writer.”)
So. There is still some pay-walled content to thank paying subscribers, but going forward, The Road to Published will be free to all—starting with the original posts, links below.
Thank you so much for reading my stuff. I couldn’t have done any of this without all of you—reading is by far the most important way to support any writer.
Yours,
MTF 💜🎩🐈⬛
The Road to Published - the choose-your-own-adventure approach to writing and publishing books
→ The power and magic of Art, Stories, and Imagination
Like prayer, our making is not always successful. We may wish to express the idea we discover inside ourselves just as we wish for the return of a loved one. But it is only an act of faith that, though our prayers and dreams may go unfulfilled, we are better for the trying.
Forget about becoming a writer. It’s not your job to be a writer. It’s your job to write. Let’s get to it!
→ A practice to corral your thoughts
→ A practice to tap into deeper wisdom and calm the chaos
Yes, yes, yes. If I wasn’t saying Yes to myself, I wouldn’t have opened my eyes to the possibilities that exist all around us.
More and more, an author platform is becoming THE crucial factor by which readers, agents, and publishers assess whether they should take you and your work seriously.
Self-published—or independently published, as we are trying to rebrand it—has its own set of rules and strategies, a parallel universe in which publicity, appearances, book tours, and customer bases are definitely not Big 5 marketing teams, Today Shows, The New York Times, or Oprah-Reese-Jenna book club trifectas.
“Make it work”—the mantra that applies equally to writing.
Should you find anything of value in these newly free posts, a little Thank you in return would be most appreciated. Here’s a coupon.
Look at all that juicy reading! AI has nothing on you.
Troy Ford is an endless source of good on Substack!