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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Failure

Failure

The Most Important Word Every Writer Should Know

By Steve Laubeon June 2, 2025
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Failure.

It is a word every writer learns to appreciate with time. In the beginning, it is frustrating and angry-making. Along the way it becomes “meh” to the point of quitting completely. Eventually, there comes the realization that it is normal and part of the business.

Michael Jordan, basketball icon, said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

A Writer’s Guarantee

At some point in your writing journey, you will face the question of whether or not it is worth all the work, disappointment, and minuscule dollars. I suspect every writer hits this place. It is embedded in the fabric of the creative gift.

That is because the marketplace is capricious. Your writing is good sometimes and great at other times. Your ideas connect with one set of readers and maybe not the second time around.

But if the big bad ugly traditional publishers don’t want the book, you can always indie-publish and reap amazing success! Guaranteed!

Do you want guarantees? You better talk with your tax accountant or your mortician.

Avoiding Failure

The only guarantee to avoid failure is to stop writing and stop showing your work to anyone. I’ve known many writers who have ended up in this dark and lonely place. The most unusual was a writer who had never experienced rejection. Not once. The author’s first proposal was accepted; another book became a national bestseller, and for years, everything (fiction or nonfiction) created was published … until one day, it all stopped. Suddenly, no one wanted the next book proposal. I talked to this writer at length, trying to figure out what happened. This author solved the problem by never submitting a new proposal. No more failure. But no more writing either. In my opinion, that was not the right answer.

I have failed more than I care to admit.

As a bookseller, I spent thousands of dollars on a big, local promotional event only to have only about 50 people show up–and none of them bought anythin,g.

As an editor, I acquired books that no one wanted to buy. I also passed on books that became wild bestsellers.

As an agent, I signed projects that received 100% rejections from various publishers. I invested time and effort that was for naught.

But none of those failures will be my last one.

Overcoming Failure

A few thoughts on overcoming failure.

(1) Define success. Then you have a goal or a threshold to achieve. But be realistic. I once received a proposal where the writer claimed the idea was bigger than Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings … combined. It may be that your “failure” really wasn’t a failure but was simply a poor definition of expectations.

(2) Remember again why you are writing in the first place. Some fall into the idea of writing because it seemed a fun thing to do. Others have the pull from a young age. Others can do nothing else because the call to write is so very strong. Failure can blind or deafen you to remember what brought you to this place where failure confronts you.

(3) Embrace your failure. And I mean truly grasp that smelly, prickly, burning, bitter, and nightmarish thing in your arms and pull it close. The sensation can be overwhelming. But it also can reveal itself to be the size of a small stuffed animal and not the scary beast from the forest of your mind. Once you have embraced the failure for what it is …

(4) Go out and do it again. The rewards for sticking with it outweigh all the rest. And whether you publish traditionally, indie, or hybrid, the words you write will not be void.

As Winston Churchill said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

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Category: The Writing LifeTag: Failure, The Writing Life

Failure

By Dan Balowon May 13, 2021
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Last week I wrote about being successful and fruitful and how those qualities direct our paths more than our education, training, experience, or plans. I believe when God allows us to be fruitful in a certain way, He is illuminating a road before us that might have been dark and mysterious. Today, I am flipping this situation around to explore failure. I am not referring to moral failure or …

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Category: The Writing LifeTag: Failure

Fail Better

By Bob Hostetleron September 20, 2017
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Writing is hard. Writing for publication is even harder. And writing to be read and re-read is a Sisyphean task (go ahead, look it up; I’ll wait). So it is no wonder that Samuel Beckett’s line from his novel, Worstward Ho, has been adopted not only by athletes (they are tattooed on Stanislas Wawrinka’s arm) and billionaires (Richard Branson cited the quote in an article about his airline’s future) …

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Category: Inspiration, The Writing LifeTag: Failure, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Amnesia: The Key to Success

By Dan Balowon February 28, 2017
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At some point, anyone involved in motivational or inspirational communication will touch on the necessity of leaving the past behind and moving on from a painful experience or time of life in order to grow personally or professionally. Millions of people spend billions of dollars each year on counselors helping them overcome past issues in their lives. For Christians, leaving a past behind through …

Read moreAmnesia: The Key to Success
Category: Encouragement, Faith, Inspiration, The Writing Life, TheologyTag: Failure, Inspiration, Success, The Writing Life

Author Seven Deadly Sins

By Dan Balowon November 15, 2016
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Every profession has its list of “sins” which can forever taint a person, group or organization guilty of committing one or more of them. Singers who are revealed to lip-sync to someone else’s vocalization are never taken seriously again. Athletes found to be taking performance-enhancing drugs are forever flagged with an asterisk next to their accomplishments. A political leader who violates the …

Read moreAuthor Seven Deadly Sins
Category: Book Business, Career, Writing CraftTag: Career, Failure, plagiarism

When Your Book Doesn’t Sell

By Steve Laubeon November 14, 2016
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You have spent years writing your book and now it has been published by a traditional publisher. It took a while for the publisher to bring it to market. But it is finally out there. Dreams have been realized. You. Are. A. Published. Author. But then the sales reports begin to appear. Sales have floundered. There isn’t any buzz. No one is even commenting on your Facebook page. It’s a …

Read moreWhen Your Book Doesn’t Sell
Category: Agents, Book Business, Book Sales, Career, Economics, Editing, PlatformTag: Book Marketing, Book Sales, Failure

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