How Do You Measure Success?

Measuring success. It’s one of those things that plagues any goal-oriented person. After all, the difference between a dream and a goal is a set of measurable actions. But success is a nebulous term for a writer.

What is the goal for a writer? Well, in the beginning of your career, your goal is probably to find an agent. Then it turns to getting a contract from a publisher. But from there, things get harder to define. If you sell a million copies, well, I imagine everyone would consider that a success. But what about a thousand copies? A hundred? Ten? One? Should those still be considered a success? Where’s the cutoff? As a Christian writer, should sales even figure into our definition of success?[Tweet “As a Christian #writer, should sales even figure into our definition of success?”]

Now, I’m not saying the oxen isn’t worth of it’s hire – it is! But should money be how we define our success? As a Christian businessperson (because I think this translates to more than just writers), I don’t think so. Yes, we all hope to make money using the talents God gave us. For a writer, this translates to needing sales. But I think we need to separate those sales and our desire to make a living (or extra spending money or whatever in-between level we’re hoping for) from success.

Why? Because we, as writers and/or publishers, can’t control sales. Can we do everything in our power to market and advertise our work? Absolutely. Should we do everything in our power to ensure that our books are the very best they can be? Definitely. But it’s that age-old saying rearing its ugly head: You can lead a reader to the book, but you can’t make them buy.

If you can’t control it, it shouldn’t be how you measure success. (Even marketers don’t base their success in marketing solely on sales, there are engagement measures and so forth. Yes, sales are a huge part, but if marketers understand that success can’t be 100% sales-based, then we need to as well.)

So, then, how should we measure success?

This is going to vary based on your goals as a writer. For a long time I struggled with doing something with my writing beyond keeping it locked up on my hard drive for no one but me and a select few victims, er, friends, to read. I wanted to be publish – it was definitely a dream. But I didn’t make it a goal until I understood the whys behind that dream. As a romance writer, my major waffle was: did I write Christian romances or secular? If my goal was money, then the easy answer was secular. Sex sells. And I’m pretty sure that if I wanted to, I could put some steamy scenes together on paper.

But that’s the kicker. I don’t want to. But then we enter the arena of Christian fiction and…I don’t really write what’s going to sell here, either (at least it’s not going to sell in droves.) I don’t write Pollyanna stories where Christians never do really bad things or have a struggle that a few quick prayers won’t fix. Not everyone ends up walking the aisle during or, at least, at the end of my stories. And while sure, there’s a subtle shift in the CBA market away from that, there’s still definitely a stigma against fictional Christians who knowingly sin. I get that people want escapism, and so as long as there are readers searching for that perfect world as an escape from their lives, those books will sell. And I have no problem with that or any of the people who write it. But for me, writing those stories, no matter how well they sold, wouldn’t be a success – because that’s not what I feel called to write.

Considering yourself  a success is hard under the best of circumstances. It’s easy to get depressed when your sales aren’t what you were hoping for. Or when others create a situation where you’re forced to define success in monetary terms and you’re forced to choose between trying to play that game and remaining true to a more Biblical definition of success.

See, about six months ago, ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), a professional organization for Christian fiction writers, changed their rules for being a recognized publisher. Many professional writing organizations keep a list of publishers who meet certain criteria – essentially designed to help their members avoid the pitfalls of signing a contract with a vanity press (someone who asks you to contribute financially to the publication of your book.) Generally speaking, this is a lovely and helpful thing for members. But ACFW, for whatever reason, decided to make their recognized publisher list less about protection from predators and more about sales. Rather than simply making sure publishers agree to a statement of faith and are publishing books from multiple non-related authors (in other words, not just a family press) – which is what it used to be – they’ve now added a requirement that small presses have to show proof of $5,000 in sales on a minimum of TWO titles.

And because of this, my publisher is, very likely, going to lose the ACFW recognized status. Would they love to be able to show that much in sales for two titles? Of course. Are they doing everything they can to promote their books? Again, absolutely. Are their authors doing everything they can? Generally speaking, yes (because really, there’s probably always more we could be doing.) But at the end of the day, no one can force someone else to buy a book. So ACFW has defined the success of a publishing company in monetary terms. They don’t care that the small press I’m with (along with many others like it) are trying to broaden the sphere of Christian publishing with books that aren’t the same old, same old. They’re willing to take a chance on a debut author who has no agent.  But those very tenets of their mission are what’s causing them to be deemed failures in the eyes of ACFW. But that trickles down – because if the publisher isn’t successful, then the author isn’t either. So the implication is, very clearly, that if you’re not generating sales then you aren’t successful as an author. Regardless of your writing goals or how we as Christians in all walks of life are called to view our success.

And there we get to the heart of the matter. Are we running the race set out before us, or are we looking for a seemingly more profitable route?

Success needs to be defined in terms of being faithful to our calling. Regardless of how many dollar signs are at the end of it.[Tweet “Success needs to be defined in terms of being faithful to our calling. Not dollar signs.”]