The Price of a Million Books: Misha Herwin
Yesterday I went to the launch of “Hush Hush” by Mel
Sherratt. Mel is a local author, born and bred in the Potteries who has had a
huge success with her thrillers.
For many of us this is the height of achievement, to
be able to spend your time writing and not only to make a good living out of
your passion but also to be recognised and feted for what you not only love,
but are driven to do, must be the best thing in the world.
It comes, however, at a price. In the early days Mel
worked full time, came home, blogged, which is how she built up her readership
and wrote. She got up early, she worked every evening and weekend, often late
into the night.
And it paid off. She is a full time writer, and a
great commercial success.
Working as she does, she follows the footsteps of
writers like Antony Horowitz who writes every single day of the year, including
holidays with his children and Christmas. This is how Dickens worked and
Trollope too, while Lee Childs dedicates a complete six months of every year to
writing his next best-seller.
I am full of admiration for her, but am I willing, or
indeed able to pay that price?
For me, writing is a passion, is something that I have
done since childhood, something that I am driven to do. I would write even if I
knew there was no one out there to read it. However, I simply could not
dedicate the hours to it that she does.
I like to spend time with my family and my friends. To
be out there in the garden, or go for long walks along the canal. To give
myself time to chill.
And all this feeds into my writing. It’s often on a
walk that I get an idea for a book or a story, the same is true of talking with
people, looking at paintings, listening to music, or doing something I haven’t
done before.
So maybe, I will never be able to post proudly on
Facebook that I have achieved a million sales, but as Mel said, we can all choose
our level of success, for some it’s commercial and financial, for others just
the joy of having produced a book that others will enjoy.
Ultimately, as writers and people, we make our own
choice. What matters is that is the right one for us.
PS my children’s book “City of Secrets” is out at the
end of October.
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