There’s a saying popular amongst writers: “Do not anger a novelist; he will put you in his book and kill you.” The saying carries a sense of truth to it, as many works of fiction are inspired by real events and people. However, putting down a truth on paper can bring liabilities. Or, worse, the novelist can be accused of becoming a journalist. The journalist knows well what he is dealing with. The novelist rarely does; he is at the mercy of the characters he created as well as the audience he writes to. 

The author’s characters can come to full-blown life, even if only in the minds of the readers. One prominent example is Sherlock Holmes. There have been many reports of his receiving letters requesting his help in solving crimes, long after his creator, Dr. Watson (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), left this world. A novel’s popularity has always been dependent on loyal readers, and it is reader reception that has been the standard for measuring a novel’s success.

Success can be measured

Decades ago, there was a real-life teacher who claimed he could teach anything to his high school students. He was well educated and very methodical, and he would add written justifications to each grade he issued. In this teacher’s mind, there were pre-set measurements. If the student’s answer was too short, one would expect to find the comment: “This is a telegram.” The recipient would have no illusions about the result he earned. If, by any chance, the examinee would write a detailed essay, the response was invariably: “This is a novel.” Neither was the answer to his question the teacher was expecting. Pity.

Now, the teacher can be any person and not even in a school setting. The CEO of a corporation will, in most likelihood, choose his subordinates in a very similar fashion. In that case, the grade is not issued as a letter on a paper but by new titles and substantially increased compensation packages. 

Going through that experience teaches a student or a worker a couple of solid lessons. First, grading is a very subjective process. That is true regardless of the subject, setting or origins. Second, the grade is not based on how well the examinee knows her topic. There have been occasions when the teacher may have a certain dislike and the student may be a personification of that. His hair may be too long or short; her fingernails may be a despised color, and so on. The reverse may also be the case: the student may have all the qualifications the teacher insists a student must have. That can easily bring up the grade even if the student is average. The most interesting aspect of all this is the fact that the teacher may not even be aware of her own biases. 

There are too many variables to measure the novelist’s success

Then, how does a novelist get graded? There is no shortage of awards available for novelists. Some writers aim to gain one of them as a means of achieving success. Quite a few of them died of hunger because the award did not bring fame or fortune. The reasons for the awards earned by certain novelists and book titles are not easily understood. They are not always given to high-selling authors, or the best use of language, their plots, etc. Some can be on entirely political objectives of the awarder; others purely on material gain; few, on ideological grounds. There are too many variables to count. 

Perhaps success is measured by a favorable reaction of critics, but a second look tells us this is not the case. When Samuel Clemens wrote his volume down, the shrieks of his critics were deafening. But what he wrote down was so “fresh” that the readers ignored the critics wholesale. The entertainer Liberache is credited with the statement: “[the critic’s words hurt me so much,] I cried all the way to the bank.” Apparently, Liberache had a hefty check he was depositing and the critic’s words did not matter. Let us then leave the critic alone; he is exercising his First Amendment rights enshrined in the US Constitution. 

If critics don’t matter, how else can a novel’s success be read? If the public buys the novel at “satisfactory” numbers, the novelist may decide she is graded favorably. Then there is the small matter of royalties. To be a “novelist,” one must be able to earn a living by the fruits of his labor. If making money is the objective of the novelist, then she has reached her objective. 

However, for a vast percentage of writers, that is not the case. Most novelists are considered lucky if a publisher agrees to spend the money to print and distribute the work. Nowadays, that luck has run dry; publishers usually look for an already famous writer before they would do that. It’s a paradox: a novelist cannot be famous without printed novels circulating. 

During the Napoleonic wars, a British author defended Napoleon to the effect that Napoleon had to be congratulated. The author was about to be lynched by the community until he shouted: “Napoleon shot a publisher.” The resentment of the authors toward the publishers was so intense that the author was set free. Essentially, it all boils down to advertisement. If one is not read, one cannot be read.

Success lies in the audience

This raises the question of how to be widely read. In the past, some authors would supplicate to members of the royalty. The advance permission to dedicate the proposed book to his or her Highness was seen, in today’s terms, as a celebrity endorsement. It was generally assumed that the presence of such a name would ensure good sales figures. According to some reports, historian Edward Gibbon did so to the Duke of Gloucester, the King of England’s brother. Upon the presentation of the second volume of Gibbon’s monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the Prince stated: “Another damned thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?” 

In the end, the reading and comprehension of the readers make the difference between success and failure. The novelist can be adored by his readers or despised by them. Especially the latter category is comprised of jealous individuals; their dislike is based on some reason or other. And that category of readers does not seethe in silence; they make their venom clear in writing. In the novel Fork Therapy, one of the characters looks at the title page torn from a book and handed him. The said character puts his finger on the handwritten inscription: “Frank looked at the page…swallowed hard. At the bottom of the torn leaf, there was a statement, written in a different color ink which read: ‘the value is in the reader, not what is written in the book, Ms. Carol.’” Right underneath, the words “the author” were scribbled.

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.