The Novelist as Entrepreneur?
When I think about people like John Grisham, J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, it’s easy to focus on the glamour of their lives and completely forget about all the work that goes into writing a novel, bestseller or not. In fact, a novelist is an entrepreneur of sorts. It probably sounds silly but there really are a lot of similarities between novelists – who are essentially freelance writers – and entrepreneurs.
The biggest difference between novelists and entrepreneurs is that novelists are trying to sell an experience whereas entrepreneurs are trying to sell a product or service. “I want to take readers to places they’ve never imagined and make them feel things they haven’t felt before,” says novelist, N.M. Kelby, in her article for the January 2010 issue of Writer’s Digest, Taming the Beast.
Like anyone else who works from home, a novelist has to set boundaries that will allow him to work quietly, fully focused on his work for several hours each day. But there’s more to writing a novel – or article – than just choosing a topic and writing about it. No, a novelist has to think like an entrepreneur if he wants to be successful.
Know your audience
Just as an entrepreneur has to know his chosen market and how it works and what products or services are most successful, so does a novelist have to understand what kind of books in his chosen genre are most successful. This will give him an idea what readers will expect him to include in his book. For example, mystery readers like to be surprised and romance readers want to get caught up in the experience of falling in love.
Satisfy your audience’s desires
Just as an entrepreneur has to know what consumers in his chosen market want to buy, so does a novelist need to know what readers of his chosen genre want to read. Once the novelist knows what his audience expects, he must figure out how to satisfy them in a way that’s at least entertaining, if not completely fresh. By the same token, if the entrepreneur can’t produce a completely new product, he should be able to put a certain spin on an existing product that will make consumers want to buy his version more than any other. In her article, Kelby uses the difference between the books the “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and “Wicked” as an example. The children’s classic, by L. Frank Baum, was told from Dorothy’s point of view, the more mature work by Gregory Maguire, which explores the nature of good and evil, is told from the Wicked Witch of West’s perspective. By just changing the point of view, a completely new story was created. Imagine the story of “Othello” told from Iago’s point of view.
Don’t fear failure
Being a novelist, like being an entrepreneur, involves a great deal of risk. But without taking a chance on a radical idea, a novelist can never achieve the level of success achieved by John Grisham or J.K. Rowling. And how can anyone learn from his mistakes if he goes out of his way to avoid making them?
