The Ninety Percent Rule, Applied

Let's consider your writing career through the lens of The Ninety Percent Rule.

• Ninety percent of writers do not even finish their novel.

From the numbers on the NaNoWriMo FAQ, around 15% of Nano's actually finish the first draft of their 175-page novella. But that's a flawed sample - participation in NaNoWriMo implies you think you're capable of writing high five figures of garbage in 30 days. Apparently 85% of people who think they can do this, discover they can't.

• Ninety percent of (finished) writers are unpublished.

Estimates of the number of slushpile manuscripts that survive to publication are usually less than 1 in 1000 (0.1%). Even allowing for the possibility most unpublished writers submit more than one novel in their lifetime, more than 99% will never make it.

• Ninety percent of (published) writers never earn out their advance.

"Earning out" is when royalties due on the number of copies sold exceeds the advance payment. You may already know this, but it doesn't matter because it will almost certainly never happen to you. Which sucks every which way, because according to one unscientific survey, the average fiction advance is (still) around $5-10,000.

One writer in a thousand makes enough money to pay for their printer ink.

Axiom #1: The Ninety Percent Rule

Sturgeon's Revelation: "Ninety percent of everything is crud."

Think about this, and remember it. We'll refer to this frequently during our discussion.

"Ninety percent of everything is crud." Originally formulated through an observation of science fiction. Applicable to everything.

(Yes, it does mean that 90.9 of my 101 Reasons will also be crud. But you won't know which ones until we're done.)