The sister of a famous website’s founder has a new book out*, and I want to go on the record about it. I do not in the least begrudge her her success. Why would I begrudge her? Because the book is only doing well because she’s famous. I write books, and I am not famous, and my books are not successful. But seriously, I don’t for a second feel as if her success is undeserved in the slightest.
This is not irony or sarcasm or anything of the like. This maybe a touch of cynicism, or would be if I was trying to suggest her success is undeserved. I have not read this book. I might—I know people who are close to people who are… well, there’s a degrees of separation here, but few enough that this book will be in my social circle.
But I haven’t read the book yet. But I have been in the world of words for a long time. I have logged my Gladwellian 10,000 hours. I have learned from professors, I have taught to students, and I can assure you—most people can write. So I have no doubt that this book was written by someone who can write.
Writing requires desire, writing well requires practice, and writing success requires luck. And on that last one, I do mean random luck. Of course, that luck could be either a publisher happened to read and like your manuscript out of the thousands she sees each year, and then when it was published it happened to catch the eye of a few people, one of who was influential enough to suggest it to more people… none of that will occur by hard work. I don’t care how much sweat you put into it—you will not be able to work harder than the people Oprah “discovers” are lucky.
Or in the case of the book I’m talking about, you lucky enough to be related to someone who was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to ride a social phenomenon right up to the stratosphere.
I need to make this point: none of this is sour grapes. I call myself a writer not because I hope to get lucky, or because of my years and years of practice, but because of that desire. That desire exists in every single other person who writes. And to say one book is better than another is to say one person is better than another. I refuse to say such a thing. Shakespeare was not a better person than Stephenie Mayer. If you like one book more than another, that’s all good, but that’s you.
So why say any of this? Like I said, I want to go on the record. I won’t be the only one pointing out that the book’s only successful because of who she is, not what she wrote. And I want to remind everyone: this is a how it is FOR ALL BOOKS.
Just read it, or don’t. Provenance isn’t really that interesting.
*yes, I know the book is only one part of a larger entity, namely her own website and all it has to offer. My thesis stands: value doesn’t guarantee success.
