Only Write Hits

In the foreword to Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, he talks about how poorly the book did upon publication. First published in 1998, Coelho said of it, "By the end of the year, it was clear to everyone that The Alchemist wasn't working" because "a bookseller in the northeast corner of the country told me that only one person purchased a copy." But decades later, the book became a hit. (In 2015, one source reported that the book sold 150 million copies.)

I have a firm belief in this one idea: Nobody knows what will be a hit. And, really, nobody really knows what they're doing. If experts knew what would be a hit, then authors would only write hits. Your favorite band would release only hits. And your favorite director wouldn't come out with that horrible movie that tanked at theaters.

But the solution is not to avoid trying. Since nobody knows what will land or what will stick, it's my job to keep making things. I need to keep developing ideas and bringing more value to the conversation. My job is to help people and encourage them along the way.

I need to write the entire album and see what happens. There's a Bohemian Rhapsody in there somewhere.

It's a copout to have that thought. You know the thought: "Well unless I can write a hit, I'm just not going to write." The world doesn't work that way.

We don't know how people are going to hear the song or how they're going to receive that short novel about Santiago crossing the desert to find his treasure and reveal his "personal legend." (As in The Alchemist.)

I gotta write. I can't only write hits.

_________

By the way, you gotta read The Alchemist. It’s a hit.