Are All Successful Authors One Hit Wonders?

In my last blog, I discussed the paradox that, despite the fact that lists of the most successful novels of all time rarely include anything written in the 21^st century (Harry Potter being the notable exception), bookshop and book publishers’ advertising focusses exclusively on the most recent publications. This raises a couple of interesting questions.

The first is how do people choose which book to buy? The vast majority of bookshop stock is in the racks of ‘old literature’, not the table by the door which features this month’s new releases. How many people, I do wonder, would wander amongst the book cases and choose an ‘old’ title by lesser or little known authors, just to try? When borrowing from a public library, it is an essentially risk free option, but when laying out £10 or £12 for a paperback I am sure it is a different matter. Then I find myself thinking that many of the titles on the new publications table, near the door, will be by lesser or little known authors. Are people more likely to take a chance simply because something new is inherently more exciting? I think they are because of the opportunity to ‘discover’ a bright new talent. I remember taking a chance, several years ago, with Kate Atkinson’s first novel, ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’. Though, with hindsight, I am not sure I did take a chance. Perhaps it had already won the Whitbread (Costa) book of the year award, perhaps it had simple generated a lot of interest, or perhaps I was just seduced by the bookshop’s promotion. I did get hooked on Kate Atkinson but in general, however, I tend to be disappointed with books that win the ‘big’ prizes or are lauded as bestsellers.

Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’ drove me nuts; Cromwell was always referred to as ‘he’ which causes great confusion trying, in sections featuring more than one male character, to work out which ‘he’ was actually speaking. In that sense, Hilary Mantel was a one hit wonder for me as I have not been enthused to read any more of her works. There is one author who didn’t even make it that far. The only book I have given up and not bothered finishing, Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Lapvona’ was lauded as a Sunday Times ‘bestseller’ and featured in The Observer’s books of the year. I found it gratuitously crude. Earlier this summer, I read Elizabeth Strout’s ‘The Things We Never Say’. It left me flat. Was there a plot? Was there a message, other than you stumble along with everyday life and one day you die? Quite how it has managed to make this year’s Booker Prize shortlist is completely beyond me. Like most rules there are exceptions. Jane Gardam was a successful author before I read any of her books. The truth is, though, that I didn’t read her books because she was an award winning writer, but because we both lived in the same small town. I starting with ‘Old Filth’, and now, she is one of my favourite authors.

It may seem like I have digressed from the point, but there is a message in my encounters with these books. When you read an author for the first time, be it the latest, hot off the press publication, or something from the back catalogue, if you don’t like it, you don’t read another. You give them just the one chance.

The second of my questions about successful novelists is just how does a new author establish a readership and build a base upon which further success can be built?

Publishing a first novel is exciting, and not just for the author. It gives both the publisher and the bookseller something to attract potential readers. If you want to draw customers into a bookshop, what better than a book signing with an ‘exciting’ new author. Established authors too, I have no doubt, are good for attracting customers into a bookshop. Not so much, though, for the author who has published before, but with only limited acclaim, essentially an unknown whose previous work failed to set the literary world alight. I am sure much the same goes for magazine or radio interviews, though with radio there can be the additional enticer of new local author.

It all comes down, I think, to the fact that your best shot, and perhaps your only shot at staking a place as a recognised author is that first book. My own experience was that with, my first novel, ‘The Death of a Smoker’, there was an encouraging amount of interest with a book signing, a couple of radio interviews as well as some magazine articles. Both the local newspaper of the town in which I was born and spent my first 18 or so years, and the student newspaper of my undergraduate university (which I left in 1973!) were happy to carry articles, based on a historic connection. With novel number two, my local bookshop was, once again, happy to host a book signing, and there was a podcast interview and I think a magazine feature. With the third book in the trilogy, by far the best in my somewhat what biased opinion, there was no bookshop launch, there was no radio interview, though one Instagram reviewer, fatguyreading, wrote a positive 4 star review. Much the same trend can be seen in the number of readers who took the time and trouble to post reviews on Amazon.

Needless to say, the ‘Tufton Street Saga’ trilogy did not smash its way into the headlines or the best seller lists, the limited success of ‘The Death of a Smoker’ had a consequential knock on effect on books two and three. This leaves the author with a dilemma, how do you attract attention to subsequent publications if the first does not reach some kind of threshold that brings a brigade of faithful leaders? You can’t really play the ‘locally born author’, or ‘former student’, or even just ‘local author’ cards a second time, somehow you have become old hat. I have donated copies of all three books to my local library, but library users borrow books, rather than go out and buy them. I have donated them as raffle prizes, but essentially all that does is target an audience of one. You cannot rely on the odd lost soul wandering the racks at the back of the bookshop for someone new, partly because there are an awful lot of other books competing with you, and partly because if you did not set the world alight with your first novel, you are unlikely to be in the bookshop’s racks at all. It had occurred to me that potential readers might by more willing to risk £1.99 or £2.49 on an ebook than £10 or £12 on a paperback, but the problem is that the ebook stores are enormous – there are, quite literally, millions of titles available on Amazon Kindle, for example. Unless you are part of an official Kindle 99p deal, you are never going to be found by browsing. Unfortunately, rather like ‘best seller’ lists and national magazine book reviews, I get the impression that Kindle promotions rarely stray far from the big publishing houses.

All of which brings me to the conclusion that if you are a successful author, you almost certainly started out as a one hit wonder with your very first book. As for the rest of us, well, if we had done our homework we knew there are 200,000 new titles published in the UK each year, of which perhaps 10% are novels. Even if that figure were 1%, then more than 150 other novels were published in the same month as yours! More novels than can ever be successful. For those who did succeed, the one hit wonders who became established authors, well done! Success may have been a little bit of a lottery, but you can’t win the lottery unless you buy a ticket. So here’s to the hundreds of hopefuls who try every year, good luck to you and keep on trying.