Recently a friend who is just starting out in writing (as far as publishing, but she has been a writer for as long as I have) said something about not wanting to compete with me.

I do understand how some of you could get that idea.

After all thousands of people write novels, but only a few hundred make a living at it, and only a handful can ever make it to well, the level that people who’ve never looked at the back of the business think every writer gets: Upper Middle Class.

After that there are the rarefied heights, the ones that are known for a generation. Say Agatha Christie who bought houses for a hobby. Or J. K. Rowling. (Maybe you have to be British. Ah, well.)

So it stands to reason, if there are many entrants and only a few winners, it’s a competition, right? And people are competing with each other, fighting for the good results.

It’s not like that. No, seriously. It’s not like that.

I mean, theoretically there’s a limit to how many books someone can read, even super-readers. Sure. But that’s not really how it works, is it? Not really?

I don’t know how many of you are super-readers. I am, though not as much as I used to be. I used to be able to read seven books a day while doing everything else and looking after the kids.

Then I hit my head, really hard. It’s not my thinking that slowed down, but my seeing, particularly my peripheral vision. It’s weird how that affects reading speed. No, I’m serious. you think it’s all in the brain, but no. You need your body in good working order. Who knew? It’s like I use my fingers to type or something.

Anyway–

Let me tell you how super-readers read…

We read everything. I mean we have preferences, but in a pinch we’ve been known to read instructions for appliances we’ve never owned, and medicines we never intend to take. The internet has been a boon to us, because if all else fails we can do a search on one of our secondary subjects of interest and be entertained by our phone for hours.

But we prefer stories, and stories in written form. (Though a lot of you are also gamers.) And the truth is there are are never enough stories. Particularly never enough stories of our preferred type that are well written enough.

And part of this is that we all have our particular quirks and interests. … If I could find more of Space Station Noir, I’d probably read nothing else for a few months, till I got sick of space opera, and then I’d pivot to mysteries, and if I got a series or a multi-series author I loved, I’d run on that for months, and then…. In fact that’s exactly how I work. (I’ve been stuck in Jane Austen fanfic only because I’ve been sick for six months. It happens when I’m sick or depressed.)

The thing is even in JAFF I don’t read everything. I read “clean” stories, and I have some I despise with a burning passion. Present tense drives me nuts, for instance. Other things that drive me insane: injecting present day politics and obsessions, including feminism. When a regency young woman who is not known as a blue stocking is going on about how much she loves books and hates needlework, the book goes back.

So, if you started writing JAFF would you be competing with everyone who writes JAFF for my dollar? Well no. Only with those writing to my particular tastes.

So, who are you competing with? You.

Your biggest problem is not everyone else writing, it’s reaching your ideal readers. They exist. In the vast digital world, there are numbers enough of people enough who’d love your writing to make you rich.

Most of the get rich suddenly events of indie authors hinged on someone writing something absolutely unique and a lot of people tripped on it and found they loved it.

Some of those things were to my mind goofy — portal fantasies, really? — but other people found in them what they’d been looking for their whole lives.

And there’s probably a couple of other such books out there just waiting to be discovered.

Now, can I tell you that if you write the best you can and what you really feel a need to write you’ll be a winner in the lottery?

No. There is a factor of luck in the readers finding you right now. (This will probably change over time.) And the right readers finding you.

But I can tell you that if you bring your A game and compete with yourself, and are writing the absolutely most gripping story you can, when your readers find you (either all at once or through slow accretion (cries.)) you’ll be ready.

So, no, you’re not competing for readers with anyone else. You’re competing with yourself. With being the best writer and doing the best work you can.

Because if the type of reader for whom you are catnip finds you, you want them to fall into your world and never come out. So you have to be as excellent as you can be.

Now go race.