How do you know when you’ve made it? How do you know when you have succeeded? What is your definition of success?

This can be with anything in your life: your marriage, your full-time job, your tennis game, whatever! But, of course, what I’m talking about right now is your author career.

What is your definition of being a successful author?

You might not think it, but not everyone has the goal when they decide to become a professional author. Yes, many do go into it thinking that they would like to earn a lot of money and become famous like Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, David Baldacci, or Nora Roberts. But there are some who go into this business for other reasons.

Grace Burrows famously says that her definition of success includes being happy while she’s writing. I have to say I’m with her on this one.

If writing (or, as Dorothy Parker would say, having written) makes you happy, does it matter if you earn a six-figure income from your books?

I can just hear some of you saying, “Yes, yes it does!” And that’s fine! That’s wonderful. Now, how are you going to do that? (Or if you are already doing it, can you maintain it? For how long must you do so to remain successful?)

Or, perhaps you don’t necessarily need the money to feel successful, but you want to hit the top of the New York Times list. Or rate #1 on Amazon. Think about what it might take to do that. (Hint: to be at the top of the NYT list, you have to be traditionally published.)

And the wonderful thing about deciding what success looks like for you is that it doesn’t need to always stay the same. You can go into your writing career thinking that you want to be famous and earn a lot, but then you realize that your chances of doing that are pretty slim. You can change your goal.

I have a client who began writing as a way to stay in touch with his closest friend after he had to move for his job. So he “co-authors” his books with his friend. In truth, the friend doesn’t do any writing, but he reads each chapter as it’s written, makes comments and gives my client ideas on what should happen next. The entire point of my client writing is to speak with his friend every few days, even if all they speak about is their writing.

For some—especially authors of memoirs—writing can be cathartic. It can be a way to get through or over some difficult event in their life.

Many writers of romance write in order to escape from this harsh world we live in. Instead of worrying about what the president is doing—or not doing—they escape into a world where they know for certain that there’s going to be a happily ever after. I would imagine that many fantasy and scifi writers do the same thing.

Do mystery authors write in order to create a puzzle and then have to solve it?

Do horror authors write to give themselves a good scare as well as their readers?

For me, personally, I write to be happy and escape to another time and place and I hope that I give my readers those same feelings when they read my books. With each word I write, I try to imbue my sense of joy and my happiness in writing. With each story I tell, I want to provide an escape, a journey to my readers. That is why I write.

Why is it that you write? What is your definition of success?