Should you write your first novel?
Should you write your first novel?
No. Don’t.
That’s the truthful answer.
Enough with the fabled myths of “Someone needs to hear the story you have to write.” They probably don’t. Even if they did, they can find the message elsewhere. In 2010, Google estimated there were 130 million books in the world.1
The odds of them seeing your novel are almost zero anyway.
Forbes estimates 600k to 1 million new novels are traditionally published each year.2 Add on the ever-growing market for self-publishing, and anything you write will be a minnow in the ocean.
Even though more books continue to reach the market, the market size hasn’t expanded, perhaps thanks to the technological society we now live in.3
It’s estimated a publisher will only accept 1-2% of books submitted to it, and that’s the books that actually make it to a publisher.2 After that, the longstanding view is that only 30% of those authors make back their advances. Even then, the market is owned by the big names.
So good luck…
And self-publishing?
You can skip all the hoops and do it yourself. There’s no gatekeeper. The royalties are better as are your odds of making money.4 So just go that route.
Except, to do it right and do it well, you better be willing to fork over at minimum a few grand up front. You’re responsible for it all yourself: the editing (developmental, copy, proofreading), the publishing company (if you start an LLC/imprint), the cover design, the interior design, etc. And you better do it right, lest your reputation be ruined by typos on the first page or a cover designed in Microsoft Paint.
Oh, and the marketing? That’s up to you too. You better be investing in those author social media pages and grow a dedicated audience.
That’s just the publishing logistics. What about actually writing the novel?
Say you write 1k words an hour (lol), for an 80k-word novel; that’s 80 hours. Add in 20 for brainstorming, 40 for editing (My, aren’t these generous estimates?), and 10 for writer’s block, and you’re at 150 hours. If you spend four hours a day on it, that’s just under forty days. In reality, that’s a delusional expectation reserved for the psychotic among us. Even six months is a fast pace. And that’s solely for the writing.
And that doesn’t include the emotional turmoil, the imposter’s syndrome, the stress and anxiety, and all of that.
Survive it, and voila, you have a book. But is it any good? If it’s your first one, the odds aren’t high, so you’ll take everything you’ve learned and write a second, hopefully better one.
So now you’re two books in, broke, tragic, and contemplating life. If you’re lucky, you’ll encounter an existential crisis that can rival Kafka or Dostoevsky and serve as inspiration for the next novel.
Because you’ve got nothing to show for your efforts outside of a few hundred pages printed on copy paper that you might not even let your mom read…but you’re a writer.
And man, does it feel good to be a writer, to craft a story from nothing.
Isn’t that enough?
If you don’t enjoy writing, then you shouldn’t write at all. If the beautiful tragedy of the author, if the suffering of the artist, does not cause you to smile, then please put down the pen. But if you are one of the rare ones who grins as you untangle your naked soul, shattering it into pieces just to find a single shard from which you can construct something beautiful, then please carry on.
So should you write your first novel? No. It’s insensible, really.
But to heck with all that. The hopes of publishing, of making a living as a writer…To hold out hope, to write for such a sake, is pointless…So we laugh.
And for that one reader whose life might be changed by your story? To heck with them, too, for I am already that reader.
So let me be selfish. Let me write for myself to untangle my own soul. Let me create a story that I need to hear because if I need to hear it, then maybe someone else does too.
Let me write because my hands scratch at my eyes like a ghoul if I do not. If my pen does not scar the page, my mind becomes an asylum for words that drive me insane.
So if you want to write your first novel, you probably shouldn’t. Still, do it. Because it’s not really so much about the novel, is it? It’s about you.
And if you write even so much as that first sentence, then you’re a writer. And if you’re a writer, then you write.
It’s that simple.
~ A.J.
P.S. – Check out Charles Bukowski’s poem, “So You Want to Be a Writer?”
Sources:
1 https://isbndb.com/blog/how-many-books-are-in-the-world/
2 https://aspiringauthor.com/statistics-odds-of-getting-published/
3 https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing
4 https://blog.reedsy.com/how-much-do-authors-make/