Maintaining Quality

Wednesday's Writing on Writing

When I agree to do a piece of writing, even a column for a free newsletter, I give it my all, the same as I do for a book with a seven-figure advance. Regardless the payment, my name will appear on the piece, and I don't want the reader to see a difference in quality between a piece I was paid highly for and a piece I did for less.

Don't let success or pressure change you. If you become a success, stick with what got you there. When a baseball team gets to the World Series there's a tendency to do things differently, to raise the bar, push to new heights. The players in the lineup are juggled, a surprise starting pitcher is thrown in. The team feels pressured to improve, as if throwing harder or swinging faster will bring victory. The real key, however, is to keep doing what they did to get there.

The same can happen to a writer. You have a bestseller and you start thinking you have to succeed with the next one too so you aren't embarrassed or seen as a fluke. You try to blow the doors off to stay on the bestseller charts. But what does that mean? Imitating the elements you think made the difference? Can you write faster, harder, more enthusiastically? Should you write standing up?

Publishers face the same temptation. With more advance and promotion dollars committed to a bestselling author's new book, they sometimes feel the pressure to have more spoons in the soup, more people from more departments with more input into the content.

What we all need is a deep breath and a decision to keep doing what we've been doing, assuming it will work again.

The fact is, the market makes or breaks sales. Neither author nor publisher has much say or control over how many books sell. What you can control is how you write your next book. Work to your potential and let the results go. The best you can be may not put you on the critics' short list.

If you try to write with a certain sales goal in mind, that is pure presumption. Who could ever have foreseen the success of the Left Behind books? It would have been pointless for me to have attempted to forecast sales based on the past. And doing so wouldn't have helped me write the books I needed to write. "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).