Hey writer friends,
Something you may not know about me, something I did not know about myself, is I often feel like I don’t pick books to read; they pick me. If I’m reading a book, regardless of whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, I’m convinced there’s something between those pages that I need to hear or know.
We have an excellent library here in Brighton with the best book selection I’ve ever seen, and with such an abundance of choices, my very sophisticated method of picking books every few weeks is to see which ones jump out at me. I’m frequently surprised by what I bring home.
Mentor to Millions by Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm was one such surprise.
Harrington is an American entrepreneur widely known as the inventor of the infomercial and also an investor on Shark Tank. He’s taken 21 products to more than $100 million in sales.
But here’s the part in the book that caught my attention: he’s launched more than 500.
In the book, Harrington tells a room full of students, “I’d be willing to bet that I have failed more times than everyone in this entire room. That for all the success we’ve been talking about and celebrating here, not only have I failed more than all of you here, I’d be willing to go on record and say I’ve failed more times than anyone you’ve ever met.”
He launched 500 products. 21 were noteworthy. 479 were not.
It took me a minute to let that truly sink in. And, you know, it’s not that different in any creative venture, be it freelance writing or publishing books. It’s just that, in the writing industry, we’re not always so willing to share the failures.
I know this. I talk to writers all day long. And I can tell you for certain that behind every published book are stories of unfinished works, finished works that couldn’t land an agent, agented works that didn’t sell, contracts that were cancelled, books that were published but had no marketing support, books that didn’t do well and led to the author being dumped by their publisher, books that became bestsellers only to have the agent or publisher not believe in the author’s next one. Self-published authors experience similar highs and lows.
That’s the nature of creativity. It’s also the nature of business. And we’re in both, so we’re doubly screwed. Just kidding. 😉
But through all of it, there is one thing in our control. The thing we most wanted to do when we chose this as a career: Write.
So, write. Write more. Create more. Produce more work.
Fail, and often. Aspire, in fact, to be the biggest failure in the room.
Just like Kevin Harrington.
Cheers,
Natasha