Low Kay Hwa | Singapore Novelist » Blog Archive

January 30, 2012

Overnight Success

Author: lowkayhwa

A few bloggers, some who have read my books before, were kind enough teach me how to write a blog well. Therefore, from this entry onwards, I’m going to follow their advice!

Recently, I was in a cruise ship’s casino. I saw one woman sitting in front of a jackpot machine for hours. Someone told me that some people believe that they can strike a fortune there; in other words, an overnight success. In reality, we’ve seen stories about people achieving “overnight success”. Is there really one?

Okay, I admit I was focusing on other things, so I just took this picture in my handphone during the trip. And this picture is here because bloggers told me to insert more pictures -_-

I believe there is no overnight success. The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg seems to achieve that: creating Facebook, garnering massive popularity and becoming a billionaire. However, if you’ve watched The Social Network, a movie about Facebook, you’ll know he spent a lot of effort in Facebook. Not only that, when he was younger, he had immersed himself totally in programming. We only see how Facebook grows rapidly, but not the countless hours he spent learning how to programme before creating Facebook. Is it overnight success? Could he have achieved this if he had not been crazily passionate about programming, and learning it?

Picture from www.time.com

When my book reached bestsellers lists, several of my friends told me that if they were to write a book, their book would be a bestseller too. Initially, I was defensive, telling them how much effort I had put into my book. Soon, I get used to it. After all, before I was published, I had the same thinking!

Why is believing in overnight success so tempting? When we are faced with a problem, we believe in overnight success as it provides an easiest solution in the shortest time—sometimes, literally overnight. And so, we don’t do anything to solve the problem, choosing to believe in that. This belief is so destructive that anyone who has really achieved overnight success failed overnight as well. Stories of lottery winners going bankrupt are everywhere!

I’ve got several bloggers to review my latest book, and some of them agree on this: their readerships do not come overnight. They spent years building a base of readers, and now, they’re still working hard to provide good content. Are they overnight successes? No! Anyway, here’re some of the reviews:

http://www.lukeyishandsome.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story-low-kay-hwa-review.html
http://pxdkitty.blogspot.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story.html
http://www.rynaque.com/2012/01/qreviews-singapore-love-story-by-low.html
http://mintleong.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-giveaway-autographed-singapore.html
http://itsthylife.blogspot.com/2012/01/sponsored-review-singapore-love-story.html
http://araphoenix.com/2012-01/a-singapore-love-story

One of the bloggers, Rachell, with her boyfriend. She relates the story with her relationship—it works well, as people are touched by their relationship in that post about A Singapore Love Story!

To conclude, I solely believe that if success is achieved without any long and hard work, then failure will also be short and easy. After all, we tend not to cherish something that can be obtained so easily.

I realize, too, that in order to garner more publicity for my books, I need to work with various non-profit organizations that have been VERY supportive. It is going to be a long journey—from long meetings and planning, but if it occurs overnight, then I won’t cherish it!

My first collaboration is with Singapore Book Council and The Arts House. We are going to have a book launch for A Singapore Love Story (yes, despite it being out since October 2011) in The Arts House on 7 February 2012. To make the event more interesting, we have contests for my readers! Just send us a picture and you may win eight books. Go to http://www.goodybooks.com/booklaunch.htm for more info.