When you write in the small gaps around your day job, you must use yout time wisely. But that’s easier said than done when there are so many stories to write (and edit) and countless more ways to market yourself online. Business coaches often cite the 80/20 rule – also known as Pareto Principle – to help entrepreneurs achieve success. Which begs the question: can Pareto Principle help authors get better results? As always, this blog blunders about in a ham-fisted way to find out.
What is Pareto Principle?
For the uninitiated, Pareto Principle claims that roughly 80% of results come from 20% of your total actions. Various business owners and leaders have adopted the idea, and it’s been broadly found to work. Generally speaking:
- 20% of the sales reps generate 80% of the total number of sales,
- 20% of customers account for 80% of a company’s total profits,
- 20% of a site’s blog posts account for 80% of the traffic,
- 20% of people in a person’s life generate 80% of their total stress.
OK, that last one is a bit of fun on my part, but you get the gist. 20% of any activity generates 80% of the desired outcome, and the principle can be applied across the board. So, as far as fiction authors are concerned, what is our desired outcome?
Everyone is different in this respect, as are their circumstances. Still, most authors have three desired outcomes, all of which are usually met in sequential stages. Therefore, to identify that critical activity outlined by the Pareto Principle, we first need to know our desired outcome.
The three desired outcomes for authors
It might sound obvious, but the first stage is to write great stories. At least, you would hope so. All the authors I know want to write a story about which their readers will rave. After all, stories fulfil a great human need, and it’s one of life’s pleasures to tell a story in a way that people find worth sharing. However, reaching this stage (and being aware of the countless pitfalls) takes time and dedication. In some cases, it’s a lifelong pursuit.
The second stage for authors is finding a willing audience to read their work. This sounds self-explanatory, but many talented storytellers complete the first stage without having the foggiest idea of how to get their stories into print.
They try with the various magazines and publishers, but the complex and lengthy submission process can feel arcane and dispiriting. Many give up, while others try to publicise their work before mastering stage one. Their work isn’t of the required quality, so even if it does get into print, it’s like a shop selling half-baked biscuits. No one likes the taste, so they get no referrals or repeat business.
The third and final stage (whisper it quietly) is for an author to generate income from their work. Oh, and in an ideal world, win some kind of award. You’d like to think the two go hand in hand, but it’s not always the case. Anyway, judging from recent reports, earnings for authors are less than they’ve ever been. If the trend continues, novels (reading and writing) could become the curious pastimes Will Self once predicted.
Of course, I’d like to think otherwise. Where will the big production companies go other than novels for their next big franchise or idea, if not stories in books? And please don’t tell me they’ll just reboot the previous franchise. I know we live in a fallen and corrupted timeline, but surely we can do better than that?
But I digress. Now that we have identified our desired outcome, it’s time to do the same for the activity.
Pareto Principle in its simplest form
Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Gary Keller called ‘The One Thing’. It advises that your journey to being successful at anything comprises a series of steps (the steps for fiction authors are above). To complete each stage successfully, then, you must first ask yourself:
What is the one thing I could do right now that, by doing it, all the other steps would be made easier or irrelevant?
Gary Keller, The One Thing
Contrary to what people tell you, multi-tasking is neither productive nor effective. Let’s suppose you spread your time and attention across various projects. In that case, you’ll lack the momentum and focus to complete each task effectively and on time.
However, by assessing the next step on your journey to be successful, you give that one step or ‘thing’ your complete focus.
That’s not to say the various other tasks you could do are unimportant. They still matter. But by concentrating on what action will bring better results within a shorter timeframe, you increase your chances of overall success.
The time and attention problem authors face
Being an author of any description isn’t easy. Let’s face it, the role is lonely and time-consuming, and that’s before we face endless rounds of rejection, indifference, and crappy pay. Compounding matters further are the vagaries of the publishing industry and how – published or self-published – we all need to do our own marketing if we want our work to reach an audience.
This is enough of a challenge if you do it full-time. But what if you write while holding down a day job? If you’re anything like me, you can suffer from analysis paralysis as you identify where best to spend your time. For example, everyone keeps saying you should spend time posting content on social media. But on which platform? There are so many these days. And how do you find the time to post content, let alone engage and interact with everyone else?
Plus, there’s the small matter of all those novels you want to write. Then all the short stories, which you must keep sending to magazines and editors. With edits and redrafts, this alone could take up every minute of your day.
But the chicken and egg scenario is that when you have something ready, will anyone read it? Publishers will want to see you’ve got an audience you can engage through social media through tweets, videos and blogs. Or an email list where you can update your fans directly.
And so it goes. It’s quite a task for anyone to manage successfully. Especially when you only have an hour or so free each day. Or even less once you’ve finished work, done the commute, fixed dinner, and put your boisterous child to bed.
Progress is possible. Other authors have managed it, although, to be fair, they didn’t have to contend with social media in quite the same way. What I’m thinking of trying, however, is using Pareto Principle to identify the 20 per cent of tasks that will have the most significant impact on my career.
Feel like joining me? If so, you need to ask yourself the following question…
What stage are you at?
If you’re at stage one, you must write great stories. This means studying the craft, learning from peers and established writers, knuckling down on story dynamics, and writing, drafting, and redrafting until you finally have something you feel proud of. Ignore everything else. And yes, that includes computer games and Netflix. Don’t cut down on sleep (I’ve tried this, and it’s counter-productive). But do try and stay sober. And limit social media and avoid networking events. It might sound harsh, but you need something worth sharing first.
If you are at the second or third stage (building an audience and income, respectively), this is when you look at content marketing. I plan to explore this subject more in time. Still, this is when you start spending time on social media, posting blogs, circulating newsletters and meeting your fellow authors at events.
By all means, do this anyway. But suppose you haven’t yet mastered stage one. And you only have one free hour a day and no story to share. In that case, you won’t succeed at building an audience or generating any kind of income from your writing. So you’ll still only have one hour (or less) to write each day until you sort stage one out.
Can Pareto Principle help authors: a case study
So, how does this work in practice? As far as myself is concerned, I want to share my progress on social media. And yes, I am that author with around one hour spare a day. As a result, this subject will likely form the basis of a series of blogs as I tell you how focusing on stage one is working out.
Progress is slow, so it’s impossible (at least at this stage) to try my hand at everything I’d like to. This is why Pareto Principle is so attractive to me. I’ve spent over a decade spreading myself too thinly, and unsurprisingly, it hasn’t got me far. I want to choose one main thing – or activity – to make all the other steps easier. But which stage am I at to determine the activity?
To be honest, reaching stage three isn’t one I expect to achieve. Of course, I’d love it to happen; who wouldn’t? But making a sustainable income from writing is hard even for established authors. Writing great stories to share with people who want to read them will be enough of an achievement. Therefore, the priority at this stage is putting great stories out there. But there are none at the time of writing, so this is an essential first step to achieve.
However, there’s a twist in the tail. Reducing matters to ‘one thing’ means another more critical step (stage zero?) has presented itself. Namely, protecting and increasing the amount of time available to write. Because if you can stop all those distractions and demands on your time, you will write more quality work faster.
Naturally, creating more time isn’t easy. Still, I have a plan scribbled down on the back of a cigarette packet to try and sort it out. So, if I’m even quieter than usual, please trust that I’m trying to get this rate-determining step sorted out. Until next time…
Are you an author looking for writing and marketing advice? Or interested in reading more about my hapless attempts to get published? Either way, you can read more on both these subjects on my blog page here. And please feel free to leave a comment and let me know where I’m going wrong (or right). Cheers.