Are sales success?

The story is written.

The book is published.

The debate within begins.

Does producing a story in and off itself mean success? Or does the story need to reach a certain number of people before it can be considered a worthwhile endeavor?

Ideally, a writer would rather not have to ponder this. We would all like to write our story as well as possible and immediately sell so many copies that its success is undeniable.

That's not reality.

It is more likely that an author will see success in some of these areas but failure in others. This was the case when The Jewelry of Grace went on sale last week.

I honestly can't think of anything I would have done differently with the story itself, or with the phycial appearance of the book. But while The Jewelry of Grace did make some impact in its opening weekend, it was well behind the pace of the opening days of my first book, The Pride of Central.

But are sales the definition of success? And even if one were to say that they are, can that success be measured by the opening week?

I would say "no" to both of those questions. Others may disagree. But everyone can have different definitions of success. We need look no further than the current NFL playoffs to see examples of this.

Tom Brady already has six Super Bowl rings, more than any other quarterback ever. He is in the Super Bowl again this month, but if his Tampa Bay Buccaneers don't win, he will most likely see this season as a failure.

Elsewhere, the Buffalo Bills came up one game short of the Super Bowl, but almost everyone in the "Bills Mafia" (their term, not mine) considered this season a tremendous success because they had not made it this far since 1994.

Success means different things to different people. I would consider the greatest success for either The Jewelry of Grace or The Pride of Central to be making a positive impact in someone's life. But crafting a story well or selling enough to at least meet expenses has a value, too.

Other writers would value reaching as many people as possible over any of those factors. They would rather reach a million people for free than sell one-hundred.

To others, they would agree that sales mean success, but that my goal is too low. They see success as selling enough to make a living on writing alone, or to become a household name.

I suppose there are some books that are successes in all of these aspects, and books that are failures in all of them, but I suspect that most have a mixture of both.

That being the case, the key for an author is not finding success everywhere, nor fearing failure everywhere.

Take a step back. Find where each story succeeded, and where it failed. Look back over your process: the creation, the drafting, the editing, the promotions. Make note of what worked and carry it into your next project. Make note of what did not work and consider ways to change it.

I don't know if sales really equal success or not.

But the entire process of writing does lead to learning.

Next week: Love in the pages