What If I Fail?

Here's your daily motivational punch in the face. You're welcome.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Artisan Author, from a leftover-questions section toward the end called “What If?”

I wrote this particular “What If” because I hate bullshit promises and believe that being real is more helpful to people than feel-good lies. (I also think I was channeling Edgy 2011 Johnny, ala this kick in the teeth. Welcome back, Edgy 2011 Johnny!)

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You might fail from time to time in your self-publishing career. Sorry. I can’t sugar-coat that. But how is that any different from anything else worth doing?

Failure is inevitable. Even the people who succeed fail over and over again before they do. Tony Robbins describes a successful entrepreneur (and have no illusions, self-published authors are entrepreneurs) as “a person who manages to earn enough money to make up for all their failures.” I’ve also heard entrepreneurs described as people who’ve succeeded at least one more time than they’ve failed.

As I write this, I’m about to turn fifty. I’ve reached the place where there’s more life behind me than ahead of me, and realizing it has made me intolerant of the pollyanna bullshit our world spreads around like truth. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a power-user optimist. I believe there’s hope in everything, and that even the most dire situations will turn out okay. But optimism is different from delusion … and you and me, we’ve been fed a lot of delusional horseshit by a lot of people in this world.

No business is guaranteed. Never ever ever.

The world does not owe you anything.

Great work isn’t automatically rewarded. If you’ve ever complained that crap is succeeding while your great work languishes — and I know I have — knock it off. Saying “this is unfair” changes nothing. It took me most of my life to truly get that one.

You have to work hard to succeed. You hear me? HARD. It’s so much harder than people think. In my transition to full-on Artisan Author, I worked harder — and continue to work harder — than I’ve ever worked in my life. The good news is, it’s joyous work. I love it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll love it, too.

I’m throwing the bad news about success in your face because nobody else does. Look around the self-publishing world and you’ll see nothing but success stories. Everyone’s a six figure author or can tell you how to become one. Everyone’s got a new technique that will blow up your sales. Everyone on YouTube is smiling and telling you all about the good times. Read between the lines, though, and you’ll see it’s not the whole story.

So if you’re asking, “What if I fail,” I’m not going to pat you on the head and kiss your boo-boo. I’m not going to tell you you’ll do fine. Because nobody has easy answers. Nobody does well all the time. When you see success in the world, you’re only seeing the glorious now — or, often, someone’s false-faced attempt to project a glorious now.

I failed to get through grad school. Had panic attacks, thought I was dying.

I invested in real estate right before the market bust. Lost my shirt. Went bankrupt.

My copywriting business collapsed.

More than once, I’ve been informed without notice that the paycheck I usually counted on wouldn’t be coming anymore.

I’ve borrowed money. Lots of money. Plenty of it, I haven’t yet paid back.

I’ve felt I was worthless. An abject and total failure. That I should quit. That I’d led my family on a fool’s errand. I’ve made so, so many dumb choices.

Embarrassed myself. Looked like an ass. Banked on so many failed ventures. I’ve gotten my hopes up on a sure thing more times than I can count. How many worked out? I don’t know; what’s your definition of “worked out”? Some of those ventures got me to the next thing — the next noose to slip around my neck and hope this time it wouldn’t hang me. Is it working out if all it did was lead me from the current failure to a new one?

Almost nobody talks about their failures. I’m doing it to make one point: that you will fail sometimes. More often than you succeed, you will fail.

But then you’ll get back up, undaunted, and you’ll try again.

It’s trite, but it’s true: All you need to do is to stand up one more time than you’re knocked down. That’s it. That’s all there is to success. Success isn’t about avoiding life’s punches. It’s about taking them, dusting yourself off, and trying again while everyone else calls you a fool.

Things are great for me right now. I’ve never been happier. But the road to it was long and very hard. So I say to you: You might fail. Even if you don’t, you’re more likely than not to fall short of your goal. But what else are you going to do? Give up on your dream?

Of course not.

Because eventually something’s going to work … and because dreams are worth fighting for.

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If you’d like more honesty about self-publishing and less of the usual pollyanna bullshit, check out my book The Artisan Author. Keeping it real since 2011!

The Artisan Author debuts on July 15th on Kickstarter, and that campaign will include all sorts of additional education and behind-the-scenes-with-me stuff beyond just the book. If, however, you ONLY care about the book and aren’t into Kickstarter, The Artisan Author comes out on the usual bookstores on November 4th. Yes, there will be a paperback and audiobook, but I haven’t posted them for pre-order yet. (They’ll be part of the Kickstarter, too.)