Raine blogged on Friday about luck or a lack of it and publishing. In the comments, Dennie wrote about some authors selling their first book and some selling their tenth and it sparked the idea for today’s blog post.

Why? Why do some authors sell their first book and some their tenth? Why can’t some authors seem to sell after years of writing, placing in contests, placing in big contests, landing agents, etc? What is it that tips the scale? I don’t have any definitive answers, but I did come up with a couple important points I’d like to share. If you think of some throw them out there.

1. You forgot one of the most important things a writer needs to know. You forgot to push yourself. You forgot that writing is an ongoing learning process. You reached a certain point in your writing process/skills/learning and decided that it was good enough, regardless of what any editor or agent or contest judge might say. Here’s a newflash for you. YOUR SHIT STINKS!

Please don’t misunderstand me, dear writer. I’m not saying your writing sucks. I’m saying GET OVER YOURSELF.

Which leads me to….

2. Get over yourself. Everything you write is not gold. Your wonderful, fabulous, splendiferous idea is completely and wholely unmarketable except maybe in a very tiny epublishing niche. Sell it to them or shove it under your bed. MOVE ON. Rip those cobwebs from your eyes, wake up and smell the white powdery stuff. This ain’t art baby, it’s a business. Your baby ain’t no squawling infant, it’s a product. It’s Tide, or Downy, or Cheerios or Starbucks…..

So what do you do when the business side wars with the creative side? What do you do after you wake up and smell the reality? I think I’ll save that for next Monday. In the mean time, any other reasons you can think of that the average writer might not be able to tip the scales in their favor?

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I’m almost at the LSB Authors blog if you’re interested in another chance at a Total Bitch Kit (and some socks and an autographed coverflat of Hands On).