Failure to be published traditionally or unsuccessful self-publishing often results from writing what you want, rather than what readers want, to read.

This is common in book publishing, where the market’s randomness and subjectivity create a disconnect between authors, publishers, and readers.

Every step along the publishing process attempts to predict the desires of the next step. More often than not, it’s a miss. The eventual reader is impossible to predict with 100% certainty.

Years ago, I recall watching an interview with a newly installed CEO of a large publishing company. The person previously worked in the general-consumer product industry and was good at running a business, but quickly confronted the hard truths about publishing compared to a company selling a consumer product, like toothpaste.

In the interview, he mentions going to a longtime editor who had seen it all from their time at the company, asking something along the line of, “So, we use our best guess what customers want, we publish something with no market research, add a little bit of marketing, and if it doesn’t work, we just move on to the next project using the same process?”

The longtime editor’s response was, “Yes, that’s it.”

Okay, got it.

Three things are true at the same time:

• Authors write what they want.
• Publishers have a general idea of what they want but have only an educated guess of what readers want.
• Readers know what they want when they see it.

It’s not firm ground on which to build a writing career. Even if you eliminate the publisher step, authors and readers are rarely on the same page.

I am sure there are some examples of an author or publishing company conducting a research study that showed a need for a particular type of book. Still, publishing is much more of a trial-and-error industry, with a certain amount of failure present in every step.

Even readers find authors and books they like and others they don’t by trial and error.

So, what’s an author to do?

Adjust your mindset. Understand that this is not a science with predictable laws and outcomes.

Be open to input. Keep your eyes and ears open to learning something new about what people want to read. You can improve your chance of success a bit.

Try things and be willing to fail. If you haven’t found a measure of success yet, you likely haven’t failed enough.

This is where some level of an author platform is helpful. Compared to the work going into writing a book, platforms are a low-risk way to test content to see what resonates with readers.

Embrace the tension between the art and business of publishing, where art desires new and different perspectives and science pushes publishers and readers to find what is familiar and has worked well in the past.

Publishing combines historians and scientists in constant tension with explorers, adventurers, and artists. If you fight it, you will be disappointed. Writing a book is too time-consuming to ignore the indicators.

This can be fun and challenging if you embrace it, especially if you are okay living with a certain amount of “win some, lose some.”