Successful Writer, my arse!

I spoke to an old friend recently. Our friendship dates back to the time I still used my real name. I’ve used many names over the years, well over a hundred, and very few know me well enough to know all there is to know. Make that most of what there is to know. Only one person knows everything and she’s not saying anything.

My friend knows I write and have had some commercial success. Again, very few real-life friends know this. ‘You must be rolling in it,’ she said. Well, not exactly ‘rolling in it,’ but I did pick up the tab for lunch.

The next day she emailed me an article from Amazon which revealed the frightening statistic that, overall, 95% of all fiction writers earn less than £5,000 per annum. Yes, those at the very top of the tree are doing very well, but here’s another statistic: of that 5% who earn in excess of £5,000 pa, less than 3% earn in excess of £12,000 per annum, the point at which the author of the article set out as marking a ‘successful’ writer.

Wow! This makes me a successful writer then. It’s official. I shall expect a little more deference from the disreputable riffraff with whom I engage on certain Social Media sites in future. I’m in the top 3% and don’t you forget it. I’m (pause for drum-roll) successful.

There’s rather more to this, of course. There had to be a catch. 2011 has been a good year for me, as far as actual book sales are concerned, and I’ve had a book in the Amazon top ten, but what’s the future hold for this particular ‘successful writer?’

Reading the report and its conclusions it became evident that just being in the top 10 isn’t enough to become wealthy; the secret lies in having longevity as a writer. A good run of books and a back catalogue; that’s what turns a ‘successful’ writer into a rich writer.

No hope for me then. Yes, I’ve written four books, all out there in the marketplace, and have three other projects under way. The problem is me. Me and my contrary nature. Three unfinished projects isn’t the way forward. Completing a book, then following it with a succession of books; that’s what I should be doing.

So, what am I doing? Apart from faffing about, thinking mainly about travelling through the High Atlas, the Sahara, heading for Timbuktu and the deep South.  Timbuktu has been in my head for a while now. Timbuktu (there are many different spellings; I’m using the one favoured by the men of the desert) was founded by the Tuareg leader Imashagan in the 11th century and has changed remarkably little since. It’s in Mali, one of the poorest countries on Earth and the very name alone has engaged my imagination for many years. Travel fascinates me. Not tourism, but the exercise of random wandering, without a plan, seeing what’s around the next corner. The old camper-van’s in fine fettle and the desert awaits.

Where does this leave that ‘successful writer’ I mentioned earlier?

Who?

Other priorities have taken precedence. Writing may have to take a back seat for a while. I don’t possess an ego. Making money has never been important to me. I have plans, you see. A new novel. A very different novel. The book I really want to write. This trip could be research for a novel more suited to my interests than yet another crime novel packed with murder and mayhem. What I really want to write is a Historical Novel set in one of the most tumultuous eras in all history, the so-called Moorish invasion and subsequent conquest of Europe.

In April 711, the Arab governor of Tangiers, Tariq ibn-Ziyad, crossed the narrow strait of water between what are now Morocco and Spain with an army of nine thousand Berbers and began a process that was to see the Arabic influence extend to food, agriculture, architecture and just about very single detail of life on the European continent until they were finally driven back from whence they came in 1492. With Columbus ‘discovering’ America, 1492 was quite some year! As someone who lived for many years in ‘El-Andalus’, now Andalusia in Southern Spain, I can certainly vouch for the impact made by these sophisticated invaders.

So, that’s the plan. Write the novel I really want to write. The novel where research is the main attraction. Does this project sound as if it will attract thousands of buyers? Er, no. Will it form part of a series of novels, following the others at regular intervals to keep the buyers interested? That’s another no.

The exact opposite of what any sensible writer who’s achieved a degree of success would do to maintain the impact of his previous books then? Exactly.

It won’t make me rich. I may never again be able to call myself a ‘successful writer,’ not that I’m likely to make any serious claim to that status.

What this alleged plan entails is commercial suicide. Well, so what? I never wanted to be famous anyway. I’m off doing what I want to do. Sounds pretty good to me.