Why don’t good works always become hits, while obscure works get overlooked?Leafing through works cleared out by a book rental shop, Utsudo found that many obscure works are actually just as good as famous ones. She believes that when quality is similar, the difference lies in the author’s influence, buzz, commercial appeal, current events, and the luck of right time, right place and right people. Long-term cultivation is also something bestsellers have in common.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

My perspective after going from reader to creator

　　Actually, I’m still searching for the answer to this question.

　　Since childhood I’ve loved books, manga, anime and other creative works. I can’t compare to people who spend huge amounts of time studying them, but I’ve come across quite a few.

　　Back then, I checked out a work purely because I was interested in it, or because friends and family recommended it. While reading, I simply enjoyed the feelings it gave me and had favorite characters, but I’d easily drop works that later stopped appealing to me.

　　Back then, all I had to care about was whether a work was fun to me — whether it was appealing was the only thing that mattered.

　　But now that I’ve become a creator myself, I see works from a different angle.

　　There are still works I read purely because I like them, but most of the time it’s far more about commercial research and considerations: “this premise seems interesting,” “I want to know what makes this hit so appealing,” “I want to study this super popular character,” “I want to know why this work sold so well,” and so on.

　　People always say “insiders see the craft; outsiders see the spectacle.” Maybe I should proudly say I’ve become an “insider” now, but sometimes I still miss the pure enjoyment of being an “outsider.”

Why aren’t obscure works popular?

　　After looking at works that people pay attention to and trying to explore the secrets of their success, I noticed a question I’d never paid attention to before — one most people never notice: “Why are so many more works so unpopular?”

　　Once I realized this, I sometimes started browsing clearance works — like at the rental shop I mentioned before, where I bought twenty-some manga.

　　No matter how obscure, these are works that creators labored over and that publishers (commerce) picked out — their existence must have value.

　　After reading them, I was surprised to find that, from my own point of view, some works that never became huge hits really won my heart. Clever plots, art style, pacing and so on — they’re remarkable works that honestly hold their own against famous titles.

Seventy percent hard work, thirty percent luck

　　In that case, why is there still such a huge difference?
　　Personally, I think if you put works at roughly the same level of quality, besides a combination of factors like the author’s influence, buzz, commercial appeal and current events, there’s one more pretty important one — luck. The so-called right time, right place and right people: you can’t do without any of them.

　　P.S. Bestselling works are usually quite long, so long-term cultivation may be one of the reasons too.

　　People often say success is seventy percent hard work and thirty percent luck, and there’s real truth to it. Some people do succeed inexplicably, but whether that success lasts still depends on later effort. As for most people, they only get a chance to be seen after working hard for quite a while.

　　It all comes back to luck. When a certain YouTuber once said the biggest difference between rich people and ordinary people is luck, I laughed and thought, what nonsense is this guy spouting XDD

　　Now, having been in this business for years, I look back and feel deeply —

　　that line is spot on XD

　　The world is unfair to begin with. Should you keep working hard to seek luck yourself, or passively wait for luck to arrive? I think the former is a little more reliable.

　　SO, I’m going on strike today to burn incense and rack up good karma (X

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Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #48 (in Chinese)
• Next: #50 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.

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