Cultivate Luck For Yourself

A short post today, as it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and everyone is focused upon green beer.  As I’m allergic to alcohol, I focused upon the four leaf clover, instead.

When commercial fiction was controlled by the traditional publishers, it was pretty much accepted that breaking into the business required a large slab of luck.  You had to submit to the right agent, who just happened to be in a receptive mood when they read your proposal, and the editor who bought the book also had to be just in the right place to accept the book.

Indie publishing removes a lot of the rolling-the-dice element in publishing.  You don’t have to jag it just right to publish a book.  You simply publish it. 

There is so much within your control as an indie author that gives you the power to make or break your writing career all on your own, luck not required.

But just in case you’d like Lady Luck to enhance your efforts, there’s a book I read several years ago that might help you engineer that. 

Peter Hollins’ The Science of Being Lucky* takes a sober look at how luck works.  There’s a lot to unpack in this book, but one of the takeaways for Indie authors is that luck can’t find you if you’re sitting at home behind your computer screen, not interacting with the world at large.  (Social media doesn’t quite cut it, although it helps.)

You have to develop a sense of openness to new things, and to connecting with people.  I realize this is a dire direction for us introverts, but just think of one or two times in your life when luck broke right for you.  Were you mixing with people?  Out there doing things?  There’s a good chance you were.

If you really want to woo Lady Luck, getting out there where she can find you will help.  And now that most COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, you have no more excuses left.  Conference season is but a few weeks away.

Tracy

[*the title is only available on Amazon as it is in the Kindle Unlimited program.  I usually avoid recommending books in KU, but this one is worth tackling the Big River to acquire it.]

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