Gauging
Success
By Your Own Standards
Lazette Gifford, Managing Editor
©2001, Lazette Gifford
Issue # 3: 04/01/01
What
Matters
Gauging
Success
Deeper
People
Otherwhens:
A Theory of Alternate History
By J. S. Burke
Blunting
the Knife
By Alison Sinclair
Reporting
for Fiction
By Katherine Derbyshire
Making
Dreams into Reality
By Jennifer St. Clair Bush
Fear
and Crisis
By Michael E. Norman
Fantasy:
A
Triad of Religious Articles
By Sarah Jane Elliott
Peggy Kurilla
Bryn Neuenschwander
Horror:
Classic
Structure in the Horror Novel
By Ron Brown
Poetry:
Poetry
Revival
By Lazette Gifford
Romance:
E-Books
and the Romance Field
By Anne M. Marble
Science Fiction:
Eureka!
By Bob Billing
Suspense & Mystery:
Preparing
for Your First Mystery
By Lazette Gifford
Young Adult & Children:
Turn
Personal Struggles into Books for Children
By Laura Backes
Young Writer's Scene:
Write
What You Know -- Or What You Want?
By Beth Adele Long
Book Reviews
Screenplay:
The Foundations
of Screen Writing
Reviewed by Shane P. Carr
Web Site Reviews
AImovie.Com,
Tangent Online
By Beth Adele Long
So
What's New?
By Jim Mills
From the Writers' Board
News from Forward Motion
My
first published story appeared in
Jackhammer Ezine on July 19, 1999.
Since then I've sold another seventeen short stories and two
novels, and resold that first publication in a 'Best of' anthology.
That should be success by anyone's standards.
However, even I found myself saying to people, "It's (just)
another Internet sale" with a silent 'just' implied in my tone. Odd statement for someone who is actively promoting the
Internet as a young, but growing, medium for writers. Did I think I
hadn't been successful?
I
would love to make a paper print sale -- novel or short story.
But that doesn't discount the fact that I've sold well, made a
little money, and exchanged emails with several people who have enjoyed
what I wrote. I've even had
a couple very nice review mentions, and was Ideomancer E-Zine's Author
of the Month for April, 2001.
If
that wasn't success, would I be any happier with a print sale -- just
because it was more money? Because
there might be more readers? Granted,
both of those reasons have some appeal.
However, I finally realized that my longing to be in paper print
was based more on the hope
I would then be counted as successful by those who still do not believe
in the Internet as a market for fiction.
I
am not going to be a best-selling New York Times List writer.
Some people will always believe that I have failed to reach an
important goal by never making the list.
Should I still allow that to affect how I feel about what I have
done? I will not be a top
selling SF/Fantasy author either. Not
every author in the genre is, after all. That doesn't mean I'm not
writing an occasional good story that some people enjoy.
So,
here are my 'words of wisdom' for this issue: Don't let others decide
your goals and successes. If
you try to sell something anywhere, and you do, that is a success.
You may have greater successes later, but that doesn't make any
sale unimportant. Decide your goals, and don't be embarrassed when you
make them.
I
enjoy selling material on the Internet.
I'm happy with my sales. There
are several good reasons to
keep trying for paper publications, including more money and larger
readership. And, yes,
prestige. Besides, any new
market a writer breaks into is good for his career.
But for measuring success -- well, I stepped back and looked at
those twenty sales I've made in the last year and nine months.
You
know, it looked remarkably like success to me.
