One of my favorite quotes regarding the movie making business, and one which I have mentioned before, is by noted screenwriter William Goldman.  Mr. Goldman wrote the screenplay for such classic films as Harper, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men, and Princess Bride, among many others.

In his 1982 book Adventures In The Screen Trade and referring to making a “successful” film, Mr. Goldman famously wrote:

Nobody knows anything.

He elaborated:

Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for certain what’s going to work.  Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.

This applies, to my mind, to almost all forms of art.  David Bowie had a spectacular music career.  He first hit it big with the release of the single “Space Oddity” in 1969, which happened to coincide with NASA getting the first man on the Moon.

However, his subsequent albums didn’t do all that much and there was the thought that he was a “one hit wonder”.  He would release a full album that year, Space Oddity, which included the single but other than that one song didn’t do all that much.  The next year and in 1970 he would release what I consider his first great album, The Man Who Sold the World, and that album went absolutely nowhere.  His next album, Hunky Dory, was released in 1971 and to many this is the first “real” David Bowie album.  The album featured the successful song “Changes” but it too wasn’t as huge of a success as what came next: 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars.

It was that album which made David Bowie a superstar and, over the years, people realized both The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory were indeed pretty damn good albums as well.

However… what if Mr. Bowie hadn’t released Ziggy Stardust?  What if the record company gave up on him following the so-so success of his first three full albums?

Moving into literature, what makes a successful novel?

Why, for example, have the Harry Potter novels become a literary mega-success while other young adult novels featuring magic -there are plenty to choose from!- haven’t?

Why did Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s incredibly successful third novel, hit a nerve in readers and sell like crazy and result in a successful movie adaptation while her previous book, Dark Places, didn’t do quite as well?  Sure, the success of Gone Girl resulted in an uptick sales for Dark Places and a movie was eventually made of it starring Charlize Theron and yet… when one thinks of Gillian Flynn, one doesn’t think of Dark Places, one thinks of Gone Girl.

Looking more broadly, why did Fifty Shades of Gray succeed so wildly while so many other works of erotica have not?  Why are the works of H. P. Lovecraft today looked upon as horror classics yet during his lifetime Mr. Lovecraft barely made enough money on them to survive?  Why did Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo become such a huge worldwide hit?  Was the novel really that great or was the tragedy behind the novel’s creation -the fact that the author died before it was released- what made people curious to buy it and its two sequels?

The answer is… unknown.

Nobody knows anything.

You can write a truly great novel and find people really, really love it.  You can write something people hate.  You can get plenty of positive reviews and ratings or be slammed with negative ratings.  Worse than that, your book might engender indifferent reactions.

Your novel does well.  Or decently.  Or poorly.

You may wonder why, but its pointless to do so.  There is no explanation for a success.  Hopefully, it is because your book was well written but it could be because it featured an intriguing topic presented at the right time.

There are plenty of famous authors out there who have sold a ton of books and who many view as poor writers.  I could mention a few right here and right now but what’s the point?  They succeeded and, you know what?  Good for them.  Anything that gets people looking around for books has to be a good thing for every other author, does it not?

Yet you still wonder: Why did these works succeed?  Why did others that you feel deserved better did not?

Nobody knows anything.

Least of all me.

The bottom line is this: As a writer, write what you like.  Write about things you as a reader would like to read.  Hope for the best but, if the work doesn’t succeed, don’t feel all is lost.  Perhaps your second book… or your third… or your tenth… will finally get you the audiences you long for.

Even if it doesn’t, be proud of what you leave behind.  Do the best you can with the tools you have and don’t worry about the success.

Leave behind a legacy.  Leave behind something you’ll be proud of.

In the end, there is no magic formula for success.  If there were, the world would be an awfully boring place.