It has been three years since I published Advent 9.
Some of you will remember that, in the months before its release, I did a Kickstarter for the book. This was done at the advice of my editor and mentor, David Farland.
And that Kickstarter…was a disaster. Dave had died in the interim, and I was forced to launch it myself. I had no experience. I had to put together the best presentation I could. And I did receive a few compliments on the Kickstarter video.
But it was still a disaster. We did not reach our modest funding goal. Hardly anyone even saw me. I was lost among the countless other projects.
However, I did make several important preparations for the Kickstarter. I had only pledged to two or three Kickstarters before, and the number of Kickstarters you’ve supported is clearly displayed when you launch your own Kickstarter. I wanted to kick that number up a notch, to make myself a better member of the crowdfunding community.
I pledged money to dozens of projects. For some, I gave only token amounts, but for others–particularly book projects–I pledged enough to guarantee myself at least a paperback copy of the final product.
And, over the months that followed, I received a large number of packages in the mail. They piled up at varying rates, but eventually, every one of them found their way to my doorstep.
Every one of them…except one.
The Missing Book
One of the Kickstarted books has continued to send me updates for years. Granted, the author hadn’t written it yet when the Kickstarter started (always a mistake), but he kept sending updates, talking about his process, his challenges, and all the reasons why he was running so late.
The most recent update came this morning, announcing that the book was all but finished, and that he was aiming for a Spring 2026 release date.
And I…felt something, reading that announcement. Something like a heavy obligation. Because I know what it’s like to be where this author is right now. Because I know things he doesn’t know about this publishing experience he is about to undertake. And because of the incredible length of time it took him to produce this book.
My advice was…harsh. But I stand by it. And it’s important enough for me to make that advice available to more than one author. For that purpose, I will reproduce my remarks here.
To An Author Who has Struggled
I have published two novels in the time you have taken to get here.
Four, if you count audiobooks. And I am not the fastest writer in the world.
I don’t mean to discourage you. Writing a book in ANY amount of time is an achievement. But I need you to understand something: one book is never enough to establish yourself as an author. Ten books? Maybe. Twenty books? Almost certainly. But never one. People will only discover your first one after they read your twelfth or fifteenth book.
Now consider how many years of life you have left. You don’t know this number, but you can approximate it using the ages of your parents or grandparents when they died. From this, you can guess how many years remain to you.
From what I can tell, it will have taken you five years to launch this book following its Kickstarter. Five years to produce one book. So I want you to divide your remaining years of life by five.
The number you get after that division? That’s how many books you can realistically produce. And I know you have reasons for taking so long. I know depression is a bitch. A plurality of writers have experienced it.
But at the pace you are writing, it will take you fifty years to write ten books. And ONE HUNDRED years to write twenty. I want you to know I am saying this out of love, but the math is mathing, and you are not mathing with it.
I guarantee that your first book will not be the success you want it to be. No author’s first book ever is. Only after finishing multiple books and at least one book series does that success start to manifest. And for many of the lower-talent authors, it doesn’t show up even then.
So, as an author, editor, and professional-shoulder-to-cry-on who has served a number of writer clients over the years, I must ask: is this something you actually want to do? Because you’re not going to do it at your current pace. And it’s possible that there is something else you can do with your life—some other passion that you could pursue and get fulfillment from—which you might be better suited to and would be far more rewarding.
The world has plenty of failed authors. I would hate to see you become one. But one book every five years just isn’t going to cut it. And even if your first book is a masterpiece, no one will read it unless you have a backlist of other books to offer alongside it.
Yes, you have excuses, but they won’t score you any pity points with readers. Books are a business. You can either do the work, or you can’t. If you want to be an author, think long and hard about whether you want to pay the price that comes with it.
Yes, I’m being mean. Yes, I “don’t know [your] personal experience and hardships”. Yes, I’m being an asshole on the internet.
But if I don’t tell you when you’re about to fall into a pit, then I have wronged you.
You don’t have to answer right away. You still have time to make a decision. But I can tell you that what you’re doing RIGHT NOW isn’t working. And if you keep doing it, you will have wasted your life chasing a paper airplane over the side of a cliff.
Best of wishes.
What I Would Like Everyone to Know
Far too many people refuse to take writing seriously. Publishing books is not a hobby, like birdwatching. It’s not something you should do as a way of passing time or making yourself more interesting to your bridge club. It is a competitive, ruthless, and lifeguard-free pursuit of excellence. People who would use book writing as a merit badge—something they can add to a list of accomplishments and then forget about as they move on to the next windmill for tilting at—are setting themselves up for hurt at the same time that they are doing damage to the art form.
And I have a vested interest in defending and sustaining that art form. For me, it’s not some macrame project that I can show off to my knitting circle and get polite applause for. For me, it is a craft—in the same way that Renaissance sculpture or composing symphonies were once considered crafts. It is my calling and my legacy.
And when tourists show up to imitate it, excreting word-diarrhea onto the pages which they then toss onto Amazon KDP for brownie points, it is an assault on that craft.
But tourists aren’t the only problem: sincere seekers, who nevertheless cannot produce output worthy of being celebrated, are as innumerable as the stars in the sky. Though they might produce better work than the tourists, they set themselves up for failure. For, as I said in my comments above, it is never enough to have just one book, no matter how well constructed that book may be. And if the striver finds that they cannot put up with the pressures of producing books regularly, all they do is hurt themselves. It would be better for them to pursue other life goals that are within their reach, which take less of a toll.
If you want to do this, you have to do it with your whole soul. If you’re not willing to make that sacrifice, then move on to greener pastures.
I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear. But somebody has to say it.
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