How to measure success in self-publishing?

This is a good set of questions to ask: What sails one’s boat when it comes to writing? What makes a writer jump for joy? Is it the money? Solely the money? Or could it be something else? Anything else?

ALLi (The Alliance of Independent Authors) asked this simple question today: “How do you judge self-publishing success?” The question is a pertinent one, because it invites reflection on a fundamental aspect of the profession of writing: is happiness to be found in numbers? One is tempted to answer with a loud Yes. At the end of the day, self-publishing has emerged as an alternative for those who are ignored by traditional publishers and editors: those who have been rejected again and again from the banquet of the ‘chosen ones,’ where they eat the caviar of celebrity and get drunk on the sparkling wine of public recognition.

The business of writing

Because of this rejection, because of being pushed to the margin and regarded with scorn, self-publishing is first and foremost a business. Not that the other type isn’t, to be frank. At the end of the day, success of any type, is measured in numbers. It does come down to thinking with the mind of an accountant, who calculates success in a money-earned-per-time-spent manner. But here’s the point of difference between the two: in the case of self-publishing, the money aspect is at the forefront; in the case of traditional publishing, the money is hidden behind protective discourses of quality, of pride, of respectability, of worth. Take a look at these nouns, and you’ll see how abstract all of them are. So abstract, in fact, one would wonder: does this writer live on pride on toast, on macaroni and quality, on roasted respectability? If people are honest enough, they will easily admit that behind all these abstract notions there’s a paycheque to be cashed. What’s more, ‘respectable writers’ also benefit from the patronage of official bodies. There are governmental grants, politically-backed prizes, institutional commendations, fellowships to die for – all for the sake of the writer who has been growing in the shade of this institutional jungle.

Source: The Minimalists

What of all this is available to the indie author? Nothing, or almost nothing. So the thing about making money is not, as one is often tempted to say, a deceitful scheme, a self-centred, egotistic practice – it is a matter of necessity. Whenever I say this I like to think about Knut Hamsun’s novel, Hunger. That’s the exact place where writing is perceived as a survival technique, as one man’s way from one meal to the next, by means of text production.

Success may be elsewhere

But the question still remains: if making money is what matters, what about the book itself? The three answers published on the ALLi’s blog give an indication that the object we call ‘book’ may have a lot more under its name than just financial joy. Of course, a book doesn’t have the same practicality as a pair of shoes. One doesn’t wear books, doesn’t eat words, doesn’t protect oneself with the spine of a bound volume.

Source: Alexis Grant

The worth of books is in the way they are read. They turn out to be valuable when they change one’s mind, one’s perspective on life, one’s state of happiness. These things, of course, are not quantifiable in money. The book we’re talking about may be a candidate for the Noble Prize; or it may be a poor exercise in the writing profession. But there’s one sentence in this underling that strikes – one word after another word after another: the right sequence, the perfect concoction for the healing of one troubled soul, the mover of one spirit, the inspiration of one mind. And that is enough to change everything. Everything. Kids in one school start drawing the characters in your book; fans send you messages from all over the world. The book (self-published or not) has reached another dimension, where financial gain is only a pretext. It has reached the place where writing is universal. And nothing can beat that thing – we know it; nothing in the whole wide world.