What makes them different?

[Agentt]

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

It's really a roulette, trends change all the time. Market it like raid shadow legends.

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.

That's also true yeah, us hobbyist people basically never go out of our comfort zone. We write what we want to write, professional authors write what makes money.

 

[Hopper]

Me, seeing the dumped information still hasn't been able to be comprehended by my morning brain, and starts getting headaches:

 

[GlassRose]

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?

Marketability; the kind of story, genre, style, structure, etc, that the publishers have decided will sell well based on past sales, which generally means that stuff that's too unique or new is considered too risky and swept aside in favor of more standard story patterns.

Possibly a related college diploma.

A high level of polish; professional editing, for typos, prose, characterization, and story structure. Like, an editing process that takes basically the same amount of time as the actual writing process, making adjustments and moving things around, cutting or adding parts to make the overall narrative stronger, sometimes requiring re-writing large sections of the novel.

 

[greyliliy]

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

Luck and perseverance, mostly.

It's hitting that one lucky moment where your manuscript hits the right genre at the right publisher at the right time to be accepted--which requires constant rejections and constant submissions.

Personally, I find the entire thing more trouble than it's worth which is why I self-publish. Lol. I barely have any sales because I never promote or advertise, but they're available for purchase on the shelf. XD

 

[doravg]

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.

Nothing like writing the ending, right?
So, from what I read from the comments:

Writing is work, not fun.
Write what sells.
Market to sell.
Suffer for the craft.
Grow a thick skin.

Funnily enough, these points are why I left RR. My pride has always been a problem. In school, when I got 3rd place on a competition, I didn't smile, but grimaced. As a contrast, I remember that a fellow student from my class didn't make the cut for a poetry competition, but got a consolation prize. She smiled, and I with my third place was like:

Not again, goddamn it. Am I under a curse or something?

And back then I was just 10-11.

I have no idea why I want to be the best at everything, even though I know that I am not. Why do I do it to myself? And can this way of thinking be changed?

 

[ArchlordZero]

Nothing like writing the ending, right?
So, from what I read from the comments:

Writing is work, not fun.
Write what sells.
Market to sell.
Suffer for the craft.
Grow a thick skin.

Funnily enough, these points are why I left RR. My pride has always been a problem. In school, when I got 3rd place on a competition, I didn't smile, but grimaced. As a contrast, I remember that a fellow student from my class didn't make the cut for a poetry competition, but got a consolation prize. She smiled, and I with my third place was like:

Not again, goddamn it. Am I under a curse or something?

And back then I was just 10-11.

I have no idea why I want to be the best at everything, even though I know that I am not. Why do I do it to myself? And can this way of thinking be changed?

You are the author of your books and your life, and you can write whatever the fuck you want.

I don't write for work. I write for fun.
All books that I've written didn't sell well.
A good novel will often market itself.
I write to relieve myself from suffering depression.
I haven't grown a thick skin, I still get hurt if somebody critiques my work.

These are the reasons why my works are at the bottom tier, but hell, I still love writing as a hobby.
I have tried monetizing my work and also being hired as a story writer from a gaming company, and I hated it.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

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.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if you were linking those two things, that's why I threw that in.
I disagree on the small publishers a bit. While, yes, they won't change core subjects to fit a mold, editors will stil do their thing. For example: When my editor went through my book, she really liked it. She still changed almost every second sentence - in a way that it still read like my own work, but sentences were shortened or just slightly tweaked. This is literally what it looks like for everyone and I have never talked to an author - indie or not - that said otherwise. It might have been because it's a small publisher, that they just liked the story and because I don't usually have logical errors in my books, she said she would leave it as is.
But the "everything marked red" is basically what I meant by "They will change it" and that they might leave the story itself be is what I meant with "how much gall you have", because as an author, you hold the rights of your book. If you revoke their right to work with your source material, that's it. So depending on how much they liked it, you might just put your foot down. And yes, that is way harder with bigger publishing houses than it is with really small ones. Or you have to be the Goliath yourself.
The rest I agree with, as I said. Especially in the US. Over here in Germany, it's a bit of a 50/50: You would have to be very immensely popular, which is a thin chance, even if your writing is great, because a story has to hit a nerve at the right time, otherwise it will go under, even if its written well. And in Germany, they are stricter than that, so if it isn't breaking any walls, they likely won't touch a book that had already been published online. Sad facts.

 

[HungrySheep]

Luck and connections. If a literary agent likes your work and pushes it to an established publisher, your chances of being successful skyrocket. You have to remember that a publishing company does not care about your work. They do not care if your story is good. They care if it is profitable and literary agents are people who have established reputations in the industry. They are telling the publishing company that your book is likely to be profitable.

What does this do? It incentivizes the publishing company to do what you can't: leverage their resources to market. And boom. Success. It's a matter of numbers.

Think of it this way: a Hololiver writes a light novel and it objectively sucks. Will it have haters? Most definitely. But the vast majority of their fanbase will say things like "Wow! [x] is so talented! A singer, streamer, AND a writer!" and other similar comments. The novel will sell regardless of quality. Publicity does wonders.

I will ask you a couple of simple questions. First question. How many hours we have in a day. Second, is there any person in this world who has more hours than other. Third. Do you really think Stepehn King is the only super productive author who writes a lot? For every author that got popular, there are so many authors who did not, yet they worked just as hard.

Why is Song of Ice and Fire is super popular, but the Earthsea cycle is mostly unknown to people who are not fan of reading? Is Ursula a worse author than Martin? I didn't even mention a noname author. Ursula is still fairly popular. How many authors are there who are as good as Martin, or Ursula, or King, or Rowling, yet no one heard of them?

Rowling massively lucked out, honestly. The founder of Bloomsbury Publishing's daughter enjoyed the book which was the primary driving factor in getting her book picked up.