What makes them different?

[CupcakeNinja]

First, I would like to make it clear, that the published authors have struggled a lot to get the book deals and so on that they have. I respect them, and this is by no means a case of: Waaaah, why is he picked on the cool kids' table, and not me?

What do you think makes the published authors different from those who can't make money out of their writing? Because hobby authors can produce good books as well, and I have seen it happen on this site. I remember Fleabag, an evolution story which brought me to tears. And also a dungeon core story I read on RR which was unfortunately dropped, but had an interesting context, and the author made a point of making tea into something that was important to the story.

So, my question is: What do the published authors have, that a hobby author doesn't have?

The difference is effort. Hobby writers dont do much to advertise or do much of anything else to get money. Other factors are involved but its mainly that

Someone who is doing as a passtime isnt gonna putnin the same effort who needs to write to eat

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Personally, it means that they produced a product that was seen by the right people at the right time. I'll keep on until that happens or my hard work pays off.

 

[Agentt]

So, my question is: What do the published authors have, that a hobby author doesn't have?

Well, I have talked to @Queen a bit, and from what I have learnt, its the ability to write long. Flesh out your world, keep on changing based on what feedback you get.

 

[LuoirM]

Rain man

 

[NineHeadHeavenDevouringSerpent]

A lot of factors. First talent, but there's nothing that says online writers are worse than book published authors. Second is connections, getting an agent to mediate a deal with "the" good publishing house is the big make or break, you could have the next cult classic saga but if you don't have the right agent and the right publishing house, forget it. Third is reach, published novels are more "globally" accepted and readily available. It's a market that's grown over hundreds of years, books are seen more "legitimate" and "professional" than online works.

Give few more decades, when online works turn into classics and the niche group has spread across more generations we should be more "legitimate" than we are now. The recent adaptations of online works into visual media (live action, anime, etc..) is pushing our content to the mainstream slowly and steadily. I don't remember any hugely successful ones from the original english works (I'm not sure if there is any) but atleast the Asian ones getting the attention should trickle down to this side at some point.

did it at a better time to do so

This is so true lmao. Amazon has ruined the book culture thoroughly. Getting published in the traditional hardcover books as a new writer is like 17 yr old playing in the major league, you'll inevitably get crushed cause there's no space to fit you in to the tight market right now. You are better off scraping for an Amazon deal.

Seeing some of my favourites and very well known local book stores closing down was horrible.

The market for physical books will probably shift to local niche genres, non-fiction and educational ones are probably the only ones that will thrive for a while longer.

 

[georgelee5786]

Willpower and a publisher or agent, who help with the deals and stuff. Realistically speaking, most web novels simply aren't fit to become published novels and I doubt many web authors would be willing to change their works to make them suitable to be published

 

[Kamelingil]

I'm just an author for fun but I can definitely see when a published author gets successful, their skills are professional and experienced, to be able to create stories that readers wanted reading it more. But a hobby author is the beginning of the path of being a successful published author, if you just want to be a published author with no experience, only 1 people is reading it because the story sucks.

So the main point is that if an author has good story telling, they will be successful.

 

[melchi]

So @Agentt is who decides which fictions become mass market O_o

 

[Story_Marc]

I'd argue a lot, but from my heavily biased perspective, obsession is a big difference-maker. I don't mean that in a "it's all that is one's life" type of way, but it involves pushing further beyond where most people are motivated to go.

This has been the difference maker I've seen in many fields between hobbyists and the top pros.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

I will say it's simple: Right time, right audience. If you manage to hit a nerve at the right moment, you can make it. That's mostly up to luck.
Of course, there's more to it. Lord of the Rings was one of it's kind around the time it was written; Harry Potter was special because of the way it was set up and portrayed. Most highly popular works have something either unique to them or unique to their genre.
Harry Potter was turned down so many times because people didn't believe it would do well, but they were wrong. Twilight and some stuff that managed to become popular through Wattpad just went and found their audience at the right time and place. It's just that simple.
As for books that are regularly popular, it can also come down to something simple, like an editing process. Most people have no idea how much a professionell editor and correction costs. A normal person can't afford that. You have to have money. And even if you can afford it, nobody will see your book if it's overrun by countless other online. The place where books are displayed in a controlled and limited area is a bookstore. I also a nameless author who went back to basically being a hobby author. My self published books are somewhere online. The one that a publisher took up as well. It was a small publishing house, so they couldn't win over the space in book shelves of physical stores. So none of my books were ever presented at an actual book store. Like that, they are basically invisible.
Now, I know someone who has a friend with their own book store. She put up her books in her store. Others managed to get a regular store to put it up. It happens rarely, but if it's a private store, not a chain, that might happen. Similarly, the author of Eragon had his books published because his parents owned the publishing house (or was it the printing company?) so he got a head start from there - connections.

If you can't pinpoint why something is popular while another isn't, it is mostly due to things like this. It's sad, but that's how it is. Sometime, you just have to be at the right place, at the right time, with the right people looking at you.

 

[Story_Marc]

I hate to say this, but... there's a bit more to Twilight's success that made it the right time. There are layers that are deeper than just luck, which I think is the easy, surface-level explanation. For instance, there's... something Twilight does that many others have done that works well with its target audience. It's something I've been holding off going into more detail on as I need to complete my research.

Plus, I've heard a lot of people just say "luck," so... hmm... Ugh... I'll discuss luck in greater detail in a future video and how one makes one's own luck. It's something I became obsessive about studying, and blah blah blah.

 

[SailusGebel]

I hate to say this, but... there's a bit more to Twilight's success that made it the right time. There are layers that are deeper than just luck, which I think is the easy, surface-level explanation. For instance, there's... something Twilight does that many others have done that works well with its target audience. It's something I've been holding off going into more detail on as I need to complete my research.

Plus, I've heard a lot of people just say "luck," so... hmm... Ugh... I'll discuss luck in greater detail in a future video and how one makes one's own luck. It's something I became obsessive about studying, and blah blah blah.

I use luck as an umbrella term.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

Just keep writing and looking into how you can do better and you'll soon get there!

I agree with most of the things you were saying and improving your writing is always a good thing, but I understood it would help in finding a publisher. If I got that wrong, I apologize in advance.
But well, publishers don't actually care about how good your writing is. I'm not talking out of my ass here, I actually know a thing or two about that, at least in my country (there might be a difference there, I don't know, not gonna lie). While being asked by the publisher on their initiative can come down to how well you write - because they will likely know about your story for its popularity among the common readers, which kind of means it has to be written well - that doesn't mean it's an important criteria. No book is published without an editor going through it. And they will change things. How much depends on how much of a doormat you are as an author or conversely how much gall you have, but most finished novels are extremely different from what they were before editing. That doesn't mean you didn't write it, but they care about the story only, because everything else can be "cleaned up" after it has been written. The minimum standard of an Exposé is usually that they have to be able to decipher what was written without getting a stroke.

 

[Story_Marc]

I use luck as an umbrella term.

That's fair! I think part of why I care to go into it is because I know so many don't know what makes up luck and might feel discouraged. Hence what I'll do in... um... a week or two from now, maybe.

 

[Daitengu]

Money.

Exactly, pretty much the whole best seller list is full of authors who bought atleast 100k of their own books then dumped them in Ollie's.

Nothing quite like the best seller clout to get more sales.

 

[Premier]

Niche.

I can’t imagine a dungeon core story doing well on the shelves. It’s too niche an idea, if you don’t understand specific computer games it’s a bit incomprehensible.

 

[Vnator]

I agree with most of the things you were saying and improving your writing is always a good thing, but I understood it would help in finding a publisher. If I got that wrong, I apologize in advance.
But well, publishers don't actually care about how good your writing is. I'm not talking out of my ass here, I actually know a thing or two about that, at least in my country (there might be a difference there, I don't know, not gonna lie). While being asked by the publisher on their initiative can come down to how well you write - because they will likely know about your story for its popularity among the common readers, which kind of means it has to be written well - that doesn't mean it's an important criteria. No book is published without an editor going through it. And they will change things. How much depends on how much of a doormat you are as an author or conversely how much gall you have, but most finished novels are extremely different from what they were before editing. That doesn't mean you didn't write it, but they care about the story only, because everything else can be "cleaned up" after it has been written. The minimum standard of an Exposé is usually that they have to be able to decipher what was written without getting a stroke.

Thanks for the reply! I was mostly talking about my own writing journey and what eventually led to me being noticed by a publisher. I got my writing up to a much higher level than what I started with, and then I wrote a very popular story that fit cleanly into the mold of "monster evolution litrpg" (while still doing my own thing with it, like not having any isekai or an ex-human protag), and finally I got super lucky and it was noticed by Podium.

What you're saying about how publishers work is definitely true in how what they care about is popularity, and that's probably how Podium found me in the first place. However it depends on the publisher whether you have to change core aspects of your story based on what they want. For one of the really big traditional publishers? Definitely. But smaller indie ones are just going to want your story looked over by a professional, not necessarily have the story itself changed to fit a mold they want.

And to get noticed by them in the first place, write a story that gets to the front page of one of the big writing websites like here or RR, then reach out to them to see if they're interested in picking it up or hope you get noticed.

Money.

Nah, they don't have money either. I've heard most of them struggle in paying the bills sadly

 

[K5Rakitan]

Infodumps were the number one reason I rejected novels. You need a strong hook, and you can't have a strong hook with an infodump.

 

[BlackKnightX]

A desire to make a living out of writing. I mean that's what separates amateurs/hobbyists from professionals in the first place.

Oh, and those stories you've mentioned are likely being monetized as well, whether it's through Patreon or anywhere else.

 

[ArchlordZero]

Good job on writing 5 novels. Are they finished? Neat covers!

I have written 9 novels actually, 2 are not uploaded in this site, and 2 are discontinued. All novels in my signature, except VP: Lysander of the Regression (ongoing), are complete.