Okay my writer friends... How do you gauge your success as an author?Two years ago, before my first book was contracted or released, I'd have to say I gauged my success on selling my story to a publisher... Before that all I wanted to do was finish a book and have someone I know read it and like it. LOL
But now I find myself surfing the net, following other published writers, and changing my views on what I now need to use to gauge my success.
As a small press published author, I spend an awful lot of time online, yakking, and tagging, and making comments on blogs and forums. I love talking with other writers and readers and plan to always put aside time to do these things. Yet sometimes, when I'm looking at a blank screen, I realize that I really do need to put more hours behind a WIP in order to make it a submittable manuscript and hopefully the next best seller.
I'm looking forward to the day where I don't have to worry about how I'm going to make next banner, and go crazy about where I'm going to spend promotional dollars to reach new readers. I'm hoping one day to have the money to hire someone to design my website and blog and take the worry out of it for me.
When I sign on the dotted line for an agent, they will know what the publisher is looking for, and I won't have to stress about what to send... a query? a synopsis? a partial? WHAT? Ya, know what I mean?
I suppose if one were to create a Success O' Meter for the romance author, it would have someone like Nora Roberts or Christina Dodd one one end and the unpublished author on the other. I'd be inching the gage toward the middle of said fictitious meter, but still have a long way to go to reach the status of the previously mentioned authors.
For now, I'm quite happy to have the fans I do... The contracts I've signed... and the releases that are out or coming. More than that... I'm happy to have a sea of ideas still swimming in my head that I've yet to put on paper or hard drive.
How do you gauge your success as an author?
