No. 1 Trait of Successful Writers

This headline popped up in my inbox today. My immediate reaction was:

They write.

My second thought was:

they’re marketing machines.

But mostly, they write. At the end of the day, you can’t sell a book you don’t write. You can’t revise it, send it to your editor, or get a cover for a book you do not write. You cannot market it. Writing is more than art, it’s creating a product worth selling.

Perhaps this is a snarky reaction to the email. I’ll admit I didn’t click through to see what it’s about. At this moment, to me, being a successful writer means keeping my fanny in the chair and my fingers pounding away on the keyboard until the book is finished. And when the book is finished, I deliver a story that my readers enjoy.

What do you think? What makes a writer successful? Is it subjective? Are their different levels of success? Can you be successful in one genre vs. another?