Literary Agent Erin Murphy: Success Is Like A Snowflake, Too

[I am very excited to share with you the wisdom and perspective of my agent, Erin Murphy in today's guest post!]

Success is Like a Snowflake, Too

It’s not just writing careers that are like snowflakes—it’s equally true that the success that each writer experiences is unique.

This is something my clients and I talk about a lot as we look at the big picture of their careers. Some big quantifiable measures of success out there in the publishing world for all to see: Bestseller lists; deals that Publishers Marketplace calls “very nice,” “good,” “significant,” or “major”; star treatment at conventions like ALA; special placement in chain bookstores; starred reviews and awards; Amazon rankings.

And those measures are even more visible today than they were just five years ago, thanks to the many authors and industry professionals who talk about their experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Sometimes I think it must feel impossible to believe anything else is important when you’re a writer.

These seemingly quantifiable measures are simply not as concrete as you might expect. There are many articles out there about the myth of the bestseller list and the Amazon ranking, and about the negatives of large advances. And the major chains (perhaps soon to be the singular “chain,” although I certainly hope not) carry such a small percentage of new books on the bricks and mortar shelves that I believe our entire industry needs to stop using a buy-in from the chains as any kind of requirement for satisfaction.

However, these things are not the only measures of success in publishing. It might appear that way, but it’s just not true.

In Robin’s case, it was tremendously helpful for us to realize that she had reached a benchmark point in her career: her publisher values her steady contribution to their catalogs and sees her as a lifetime author, someone whose work is valuable on their backlist and continues to grow in value as she continues to publish and grow creatively. While her sales figures aren’t bestseller-level, they are steady, and most importantly, her publisher is happy with them.

There are many authors out there that don’t know or understand that their publishers are happy with their sales, or aren’t sure their publisher will want the next thing they write. So having achieved this is huge, but it isn’t quantifiable. And it certainly isn’t as sexy as a significant deal or NYT Bestseller designation.

The danger of the most obvious benchmarks is that it’s too easy to fall into the comparison game, stacking up your own career against someone else’s. You can’t compare apples to oranges, and you can’t compare one snowflake to another and declare one prettier or better.

The author whose books have never been carried by the chains is jealous of the one who has a presence there. The author who has never had a starred review is envious of others who have. The authors who are unhappy with their advances are jealous of having never cracked the elusive “very nice deal” ceiling. But oftentimes there is a darker side to each of those scenarios. A huge buy in from the chains can mean equally high returns. The stress of earning out big advances can rob writers of their joy in creating the next book—or even block then entirely. Or that NYT bestseller might suddenly find themselves pigeonholed by their publisher for a type of book they’re not compelled to write anymore.

If each one would note the success she has achieved instead of what she hasn’t, the writing world would be a happier place. How many times have I pointed out to a client that she’s so fortunate that her books always get carried by the chains, for example, only to have her say, “But that always happens! I never get ___!” Yes! It always happens! And many other writers long for it to happen. Appreciate your successes; don’t downplay them.


This is not to say that it’s not okay to have goals to reach new kinds of success—but you will stay much more sane if those are goals you have some measure of control over. Most of the high visibility measures of success are completely out of your control—and therefore crazy-making.

Here are some other ways to measure a successful writing career. They don’t get nearly as much attention and buzz as their higher profile cousins, but they can be vital in solidly anchoring a writer’s success:

• Passionate hand-selling by independent booksellers.
• Inclusion on state library lists.
• A happy, nurturing, and fruitful editorial relationship.
• A happy, nurturing, and fruitful relationship with the entire team at the publishing house.
• Acceptance of the author for inclusion on panels at state and national conferences for teachers and librarians.
• Regular publication of new books.
• Sale of subsidiary rights (audio, foreign, etc.).
• Regular requests for school visits.
• Generally positive reviews of each new book from the major publishing review media.
• Featured placement in book club catalogs, teacher resource guides, and the like.
• Inclusion of a book or body of work in the national or international discussion of an important or issue, indicating the book has helped raise awareness.
• Fan mail—especially deeply personal fan mail that shows a writer has reached readers at crucial moments or has turned non-readers into readers.

I could go on and on, and still just be talking about outward signs of success—we haven’t even touched on the writer’s joy in the process, satisfaction with pushing herself creatively, or engaging with readers directly, which are also valid, but very different, measures of success.

One of the many things that stood out for me when I read about Sarah Zarr’s much-talked-about speech at the 2011 SCBWI New York conference was what she called “the commodification of creativity”: valuing your creative work “only in the context of the marketplace.” Don’t let that happen to you. Each individual success is worth noting, celebrating—and claiming for your own.

# # #

Erin Murphy founded EMLA in Flagstaff in 1999. She works with publishers of all sizes all over the U.S., and has placed clients' books with every major children's house in New York and Boston, but she cut her teeth in regional publishing. Erin represents writers and writer-illustrators of picture books, novels for middle-graders and young adults, and select nonfiction. She is especially drawn to strong characters and heart-centered stories.

How Writing Careers Are Like Snowflakes

And no, it’s not because they melt away into nothingness two seconds after hitting the ground. Don’t even let such a negative thought taint your mind!

It’s because no two are ever exactly alike. Pretty simple, huh? But one of the hardest concepts for us authors to grasp. Hell, even publishing professionals have a hard time accepting it, although they are aware of it more than the individual author since they have access to data for all their books.

Someone on Twitter last week (and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was—if it was you, let me know so I can properly credit you!) linked to this year old post by Christina Dodd. The whole post is definitely worth reading, a twenty year’s veteran’s look at the biz, but this nugget in particular really struck me:

9. From my vantage point, everyone in publishing is doing better than I am. From everyone else’s vantage point, I’m doing better than they are. The truth is somewhere in between — and an author who’s published is not going to get any sympathy at all from an unpublished author who’s written for ten years, finished three manuscripts and has twenty-five rejection letters. Believe me. I know. I was that author.

The fear of failure nips at our heels no matter what stage of our career we're in. It is so, so easy to sit from the outside looking in and be certain--absolutely certain--that Author A is a raging success and has it all and their books are selling like hotcakes. But the truth is rarely that simple. The really hilarious thing is I’ve had people say that of me, and I can never hold back a snort of wild disbelief. (See previous paragraph.)

A couple of weekends ago I attended ALA. While there I became convinced of two things.

1. Twitter does help buzz books. I can’t tell you how many times I heard people standing in lines for arcs saying, I heard about this book on Twitter. (Which will be the subject of a future post)

2. A big web presence or Twitter following does not guarantee actual book sales. Standing in line for free ARCs is a very different thing from plunking down cold hard cash for the book

I cannot tell you how many people I’ve talked to over the last month or heard talking on blogs, bemoaning their lack of sales, and yet these people DO have really big followings. These are people who are worried about earning out their advances, whose sales are far below expectations, or who are worried about their next contract. Every single one of them has what I consider to be a pretty healthy--if not downright BIG--web presence.

Which proves precisely what I’ve suspected all along: Big blog/Twitter followings propel a teensy percentage of people to publishing success, but no more and perhaps even less than a greatly written book, an award nomination, or the full force of the publisher’s marketing department behind the book.

It is ONE way in a myriad of ways to achieve success.

And the important thing to remember is that no one really, truly understands how one book becomes a success and the other one does not. Sure, there are certain things that must be in place: good storytelling (notice I did not say brilliant writing), publisher support, usually co-op of some kind, but not always. But any given publisher can have two books that should by all intents and purposes appeal to the same audience, and yet the marketing efforts that work so spectacularly on one, fail to have any effect on the other.

Even with Penguin’s big bestsellers, each book had slightly different ways it was marketed to its audience: NIGHTSHADE had an extensive and elaborate interactive Facebook presence and ACROSS THE UNIVERSE had a first chapter sent out through PW. Different approaches for different books.

This is especially important to keep in mind as you keep hearing that the midlist is dead. You’ll hear that on Twitter, in blog posts, at conferences. (Go here for a most excellent description of midlist. Actually take the time to read the whole series. It is the best, most comprehensive explanation I have ever read of the publishing business and the pressures it faces.)

The truth is, a majority of books that become successful do so in their own unique and individual way. This year’s Newberry Awards are a HUGE illustration of that. Most of those books were sleeper books that did not get a significant push from their publisher. Indeed, true midlist books, all.

Some get a surprising number of starred reviews, causing the publisher to take a second look at its vision of the book, some gather huge in-house support and enthusiasm as the book moves through editing and production, and that in-house enthusiasm helps propel the book. Others get state list nominations, or actual award recognition. Or the Junior Library Guild gets behind it. Others build more slowly over time with great word of mouth from teacher to teacher or kid to kid. Sometimes a big chain falls in love with a book and their enthusiasm helps propel the book. Or it gets picked up through the book clubs or book fairs. Or Target takes a buy in.

Or any combination therein.

And a lot of those things don’t even happen the first year out. In fact, looking at my own books, when any of those things have happened to one of them, it happened after it had been out for a year.

And absolutely NONE of them happened because of my online activity.

What has happened from my being online is that I’ve met a lot of great, like-minded people, connected with my readers (although 90% of this has been through the contact page at my author website or the Theodosia blog—not social media.) I have also been tapped for blog tours and guest blogs, book giveaways, and interviews. All of those have helped, but I’d be HUGELY surprised, I mean gobsmacked, if I sold more than 300 books through my online involvement. (Part of this might be because I write middle grade and my end reader is not actually online in a big way. I am going to be really curious to see how this differs—if at all—when my YA comes out.)

So as introverts, we need to really pay attention to the fact that there are SO MANY different paths to success. We need to question the pressure we’re feeling to be online and involved in social media and understand who is pressuring us and why. If it is just because other people are doing it and think you should do it, too, or it’s because Online Guru #43 says you should, then ppfffft. Ignore that. If it’s because your publisher is pressuring you, well that’s a little different. Perhaps a heart to heart conversation with your editor is in order so you can understand precisely what they are hoping your social media presence to achieve, then you can see if there is another way to achieve that.

If you look at the authors who seem to have hugely influenced their sales through their online presence (at least as best as we can tell, although some of them are very open about it) they are most often extraverts. If they ARE introverts, they are very enthusiastic, expressive, gregarious, and energetic introverts.

And maybe you’re not. And you know what? That’s okay because there are lots of different ways your book can find its way to success. Your career is like a snowflake. It will be uniquely yours and have its own sets of ups and downs, highs and lows, discouragement and reward. The best thing you can do for yourself personally, and your career, is find a way to not only accept that, but savor it.

# # #

And now, for the winner of last week's contest! The winning number is 15! Kenda, that's YOU. Please email me and I will get the SIGNED copy of Sarah Stevenson's THE LATTE REBELLION out to you!