One Indie Author's Guide to Measuring Success

I'm approaching the one year anniversary of my debut novel's big splash onto the horror scene and I can't help but try to quantify my success as an author.  Trust me – it's just not as easy as it sounds.

While writing Asylum Lake I had grand illusions of publishers competing for the rights to bring my dark tale to the masses (Yeah, it's obvious that I write fiction with this kind of vivid imagination). Then reality set in – or should I say reality was delivered to my mailbox via a string of rejection letters. I could have very easily folded up shop and shut everything down. Hell, part of me was just happy to have the story out of my head and onto the neatly typed pages with it's spiral binding sitting on the corner of my desk.  I would point to it while meeting with clients and refer to it as, "My first novel – still shopping it."

And for a short while that was enough; knowing that I had actually written my own horror story. And not just a short story either – in it's first draft Asylum Lake was a crushing 84,000 words. That's not Stephen King territory, but definitely in the Dean Koontz ballpark.

Eventually, however, I felt compelled to share it – and not just with family and friends. So I did what any aspiring novelist with an internet connection would do – I put it up on the internet!   Exactly one year ago today I started releasing one chapter a week for six weeks on the official Asylum Lake website. In fact, you can still visit www.asylumlake.com and read the first six chapters in their original form. That's when an odd thing started happening – people started noticing. At the end of those six weeks I had nearly 10,000 hits to my website and dozens of emails from complete strangers asking me where they could purchase the complete story. That is when I knew I was a success.

Well, that feeling of success was fleeting. I needed to see Asylum Lake in all it's glory on the shelf at local bookstores and libraries. That's when I made the decision to self-publish. I hadn't yet fully accepted the whole e-book trend as something with staying power.  I'm old-school. It took me another two months, but on July 30th, 2010 the first copy of Asylum Lake rolled off the digital press. By then I had more than 500 pre-paid orders for the book – from as far away as South Africa and Japan. I thought for sure I had finally arrived.

Yet the feeling of success still eluded me. Although I had the validation from hundreds of readers I was consumed with finding a traditional publisher and had convinced myself that only then would I feel successful as an author. Those rejection letters were still trickling in. On the same day library system from Portland, Oregon purchased six copies of Asylum Lake for their shelves I received three rejection letters from literary agents informing me that they just didn't see an audience for my story. That was the day I decided to embrace my indie-ness and prove them wrong.

So on the one-year anniversary of the first six chapters of Asylum Lake appearing on the web I finally can say that I feel like this maiden voyage has been a success. A good friend, and fellow author, reminded me just yesterday that I'm no longer a debut author. Of course, it's an obvious statement but it still took me by surprise. The friend was right – I have one book on the shelves with reasonable sales and its sequel soon to be released. I may not be supporting my family with these dark tales but they've paid for a trip to Disney World and some major home improvements.

I've grown tired of chasing sales numbers to validate my success as an author. Don't get me wrong, I check my Amazon rankings and daily sales figures as much as the next guy, but in many ways I'm living a dream. I'm writing and people are reading. What more do I really need?