"Are You a Genius or Are You Patient?" The Reality of Success in the Publishing Business

Writing a book is a long process, but publishing a successful book can be an even longer one.

"You can either be a genius or you can be patient."

This quote from James Clear comes from one of his 3-2-1 emails, and while I’ve yet to read his title Atomic Habits (it is on my TBR!), I thoroughly enjoy his weekly thoughts. His full quote is:

"I rarely have good ideas.​ To overcome this limitation, I think about one topic (like habits) for an unreasonable amount of time. Then, I revise, revise, revise until only the best stuff remains. It’s slow, but it works.​ You can either be a genius or you can be patient."

While James is not specifically talking about writing or publishing, he certainly could have been.

Skipping over the obvious connection to writing and editing in general, let’s talk about publishing.

So many authors become discouraged when they aren't met with immediate success. And that frustration is understandable—you've spent months, sometimes years, on a project and it was met with rejection after rejection.  Or it had minimum sales. Or maybe you are still waiting for that first sale.

So then the questions start—Am I a good writer? Is this truly my path? Should I really keep writing?

“You can either be a genius or you can be patient.”

I’ll amend this quote slightly for publishing and say, you can either be a genius, be lucky, or be patient.

There are many books out there that I would argue are not the work of genius or patience, but have sold phenomenally well. We won’t name names, but I’m sure you have a few in your mind as well. So, with publishing, luck and timing are a part of it. Right place, right time.

But that isn’t something in your control. Being active in the publishing business (agent, editor, author) is, in some ways, akin to being a weatherman.

You can read the signs. You can have all the data at your fingertips (algorithms, reviews, trends), but when that day comes, it is still anyone’s guess if you are going to have the perfect storm, a light rain, or be stuck looking up at the sky, no clouds in sight.

So putting aside luck for now, you need to ask yourself as an author: are you a genius or can you be patient?

I know very few people that would lay claim to the genius portion (and most that do probably shouldn’t). So you’re left with being patient. 

And the reality of that is painful. It might mean it just isn’t the right time, market-wise, for your story and you have to wait for the trend to come back around (as they almost always do). Or maybe your book didn’t find the right audience. Or—the harshest reality yet—maybe your writing isn’t there yet. There are so many “what ifs” that can go into a failed book.

But while you should evaluate all those questions, the biggest deciding factor in your journey is how badly do you want to be a successful author? Badly enough to deal with the long road? Badly enough to be patient?

Badly enough to find success your way—not measured by anyone else’s terms or timelines?

V.E. Schwab wrote a blog post about her success that perfectly demonstrates the beauty and frustration of this process—the reality of being touted as an “overnight success” when people were unaware she had published 9 books beforehand (including those that didn’t sell, being let go from a publisher, and other ups and downs). The fact that an average author becomes an “overnight success” after an average of 10 published novels.

I encourage you to go read her post. It is a few years old now, but still so powerful. I’ve linked to it here.

So many authors look at the long road to publishing success with despair—if only I’d stared 10 years ago, if only there were a faster way, if only I could know it was all going to end in an NYT bestseller.

Instead, I encourage you to see the beauty in this journey. Especially in this time of the ever-growing self-publishing market. Whether you go traditional or indie, you now have infinite resources and communities at your fingertips to learn from and help you along the way. You are going to meet some phenomenal people and probably make some lifelong friends. You are going fail, and it is going to be devastating and hard, but your support system will have your back to get you ready for the next book. You have the ability to control, now more than ever, every aspect of the process.

And you can make the journey your own until you reach whatever you define as the next step in success.

So again, I ask you: Are you a genius or are you patient?