Are You Competing with Your Fellow Authors?

Writers definitely compete with each other. If you and I bid for an editing job on a freelancer website like Upwork, only one of us can get the job. That’s the purest form of competition there is. Simply put, you compete with other writers if you also make a living. But that does not automatically make all other writers your enemies. Most writers get and give work to each other, especially if they get word of a job for which a friend’s skills are better suited. Even writers with identical skill sets sometimes job out work to each other because schedules can get tight.

That brings me to authors. Writers are generally people writing for money, but authors are usually creators of fiction (who may or may not have yet been paid for their work). I’ve not always been good about making the distinction between writers and authors, using the terms interchangeably when I should not have. You could, however, argue that many writers — and most authors — hate each other. They’re all jealous of each other’s success, and deep down, they’re all convinced that if one person gets a lucrative contract, this has somehow subtracted from the finite total of contracts and work available to the rest of the publishing and bookselling world. Thus, authors tend to believe that one author’s success comes at another author’s expense, even indirectly. This can create animosity and anxiety where there doesn’t need to be any.

Remember that, unless you’re a working writer bidding against other writers for specific jobs, you are not in direct competition with your fellow authors. There is no barrier to you being published. If your work is good, you can publish it yourself. You may never reach many people, but you’ll reach some, and if what you do is great, word will get around. The fact that some author got a million-dollar contract with a major publisher doesn’t stop you from publishing your book, no matter how much you like or dislike that other guy. And it’s not as if the audience is finite, either. Ask a reader if he’d rather have two great books to read or only one; rare is the individual who does not want more options.

None of this becomes a problem, in fact, until you become the sort of author who obsesses over his or her “competition.” I know of at least a couple of “independent” authors who go out of their way to attack their peers. They believe the heat and light of flaming another author mean higher hit counts on their blogs and thus greater attention for their work. Ultimately, though, these antics don’t serve you. They make you look immature and worse. They make you look horribly insecure.

Sadly, personal dislikes and politics enter these conflicts, as the notorious “Sad Puppies” row over the Hugo Awards demonstrated. There are definitely authors in the market who believe other authors don’t deserve to be known, bought, or read. People who think this way are usually not very helpful to other authors. They may or may not also be good writers.

The lesson is this: If you are an author, focus on the quality of your work. No amount of attacking other authors will improve your writing. If you are a working writer, focus on the service you provide for your clients. There’s enough for everybody, and it’s always worth working with your peers. In all cases, try not to make enemies you don’t need to make. Most authors aren’t exactly dangerous people, but a few of them are individuals you don’t want to run into at a convention after you’ve spent several blog posts running them down. They might just come to take the matter up with you directly.

All in all, ask yourself what kind of author you want to be. Do you want to be the sort of person that others are happy to help or come to for help? Or do you want to be the sort of author whom others whisper about behind your back? The choice is yours, but one of them will help you grow and develop as an author, while the other will not.