How do you know if you have what it takes to be a successful author?

Answer 1

Here is what you should know before you even try. I give this to every person who wants to write. Persiphone has given some great topics here, so I don't want to make it look like I'm trying to deflate here here.

Writing a book takes more than just sitting down and putting your idea into words. There are a lot of things that you have to consider.

You need a good grasp of the English language. Spelling and Grammar. You will also need to check and recheck your work. Editors are very expensive these days.

You need to know how to write an effective ‘query letter’ to a literary agent.

Can you write a synopsis that will hold the interest of the agent, and want to make him or her ask for the first three chapters of your work?

Do you know how to outline?

You’ll need to know how to format your manuscript. This includes the fonts that
most agents, editors, and publishers want.

Do you know what Point of View is? (POV) Do you know how to write in First Person Point of View? The can’s and can not’s?

Do you know how to write dialogue? How to format dialogue?

It’s a good idea to know some of the publishing laws. The use of names and places.

These include
o Delivery Of Satisfactory Copy
o Permission for Copyrighted Material
o Grant Of Rights
o Proofreading and Author's Corrections
o Advances and Royalties
o Author's Warranties and Indemnities
o Copies to Author
o Option Clause
Do you know how to get a ‘word count?

Do you know what a prologue is? An epilogue? Do you know how both of them are used and why?

Do you know what the word ‘genre’ means?

You’ll need to know how to use the proper ‘page set up’ for your work. Margins, indents, paragraphs.

Are you prepared to do a lot of ‘research’ involving your work? Many professionals such as, doctors, lawyers, nurses, public accountants, judges, architects, bricklayers, engineers, and police officers read, too.

Do you know what a plot is? A sub-plot?

Can you take rejection and constructive criticism? If you’re easily hurt in the feelings department, then this hobby is not meant for you. Critics will tear you apart or build you up. The best writers in the world “King, Patterson, Koontz, J.K. Rowling, and many others” have been torn up one side and down the other. You can’t please everyone.

If you decide to hire an editor, remember: Your manuscript will be double spaced, which means there will be twice as many pages. A 600 page novel could cost you around $1800.00, some even more depending on what the editor charges a page.

These are the things you must know to work at your craft. But don’t let these things deter you from writing. There are books in libraries and bookstores that can teach you all of these things. Buying these books (if you want to be a serious writer) is the best thing to do. Why? Well, because you can use a yellow marker to highlight all the points of interest. Then you can use the front of the book to make page references to those markings in order to check back on them at a later date, when you need to.

You’ll need to get a copy of Writer’s Market for the current year. This has literary agents whom you can send out query letters to. Some of them allow email queries.

I wish you the best of luck!

Answer 2

If you're good identified like a star or baby-kisser which I'm certain your neither, so probabilities of that going down are narrow to none. You are not able to simply write a ebook get it released and anticipate it to be the New York Times #one million Best Seller. it takes time to your ebook to acquire that variety of exposure.

Answer 3

Depends on what your definition of 'successful' is! If you mean monetarily,it's when you can made a decent living off of your writing. If you mean when you write something that really satisfies you,then that's when that happens. Good luck!

Answer 4

When you can write a novel in your sleep without the need to blink first. :0)

Answer 5

Stop writing.

Cold turkey. Just stop. Write nothing creative at all.

Can you live with yourself?

If you CAN'T STOP, then you have what it takes.

Answer 6

I truly believe authors are born with that gift. You are one or you aren't. But if you are, you have to work very hard to hone and train that gift into a skill and talent. That can take years of work and a lot of rejection. The ones who don't give up are the true authors. They continue to train and learn - accept criticism, and work hard to improve.

If you were born with the ability to play the piano, would you play a concert and Carnegie Hall the first time you astat down to a piano? NO - you would spend years learning the subtleties of certain composers' work. You would improve your technique. You might even write music.

Well same goes for authors. As Stephen King said "You cannot be a great author until you have become a great reader." Become a voracious reader. Read everything - good and bad. You will learn from both. Analyze things you hate. When you learn why you hated it, you will know what to avoid in your own work. Learn to become a great observer of people. I could spend all day sitting on a bench at the mall writing character sketches of the crazies who walk by. Some of them show up in my books.

But above all, a great author has patience. They have thick hides and learn to deal with rejection. They keep writing.

Imagine getting letters like these ... They are all real.


"I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." Editor of the San Fransciso Examiner to Rudyard Kipling.

Mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark recently received a $60 plus million dollar advance on her next five books, but this is what happened when she was sending out her manuscript "Journey Back to Love" in the early 1960s: "We found the heroine as boring as her husband did."

Classic writer Colette was told in a letter of rejection: "I wouldn't be able to sell 10 copies."

A rejection letter to Pierre Boulle about his "Bridge Over River Kwai" said, "A very bad book."

Jean Auel, author of "The Clan of Cave Bear" was told, "We are very impressed with the depth and scope of your research and the quality of your prose. Nevertheless ... we don't think we could distribute enough copies to satisfy you or ourselves."

A letter rejecting "The Diary of Anne Frank" said, "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level."

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull will never make it as a paperback." From the publisher of a magazine refusing an offer to bid on the paperback rights to Richard Bach's best selling novel. Avon Books eventually bought those rights and sales totaled more than 7.25 million copies.

H.G. Wells had to endure the indignity of a rejection when he submitted his manuscript, "The War of the Worlds" that said, "An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would "take"...I think the verdict would be 'Oh don't read that horrid book'."

And when he tried to market "The Time Machine," it was said, "It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader."

Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls" received this response, "...she is a painfully dull, inept, clumsy, undisciplined, rambling and thoroughly amateurish writer whose every sentence, paragraph and scene cries for the hand of a pro. She wastes endless pages on utter trivia, writes wide-eyed romantic scenes ...hauls out every terrible show biz cliche in all the books, lets every good scene fall apart in endless talk and allows her book to ramble aimlessly ..."

When Irving Stone sent his manuscript, "Lust for Life," this is what came back in the mail: "A long, dull novel about an artist." I guess that meant "No thanks."

Even Dr. Seuss was not above the scathing rejection, "...too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling."

Before Ayn Rand became known as an intellectual and her books as classics, she had to get past this from one publisher: "It is badly written and the hero is unsympathetic." And this from another: "I wish there were an audience for a book of this kind. But there isn't. It won't sell." So much for "The Fountainhead." Fourteen years later she was sending "Atlas Shrugged" on its publishing rounds and reading in the return mail: "... the book is much too long. There are too many long speeches... I regret to say that the book is unsaleable and unpublishable."

To writer Samuel Johnson (though I don't know which book the editor was referring to): "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

Regarding "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" it was written "(this book has) no future ..."

Did you know that only seven of Emily Dickinson's poems were ever published during her lifetime? A rejection early in her career said, "(Your poems) are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities."

Edgar Allen Poe was told, "Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume."

Herman Melville, who had written a manuscript entitled "Moby Dick," was told, "We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenbile Market in (England). It is very long, rather old-fashioned..."

Jack London heard, "(Your book is) forbidding and depressing."

Ernest Hemingway, regarding his novel, "The Torrents of Spring" was rejected with, "It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it." Ouch!

William Faulkner may be a classic writer to this, as well as prior, generation, but back when he was trying to crack the publishing market, he had to read letters like this one, "If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don't think this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don't have any story to tell." This was kinder than the rejection he would receive just two years later, "Good God, I can't publish this!"

Good luck - Pax - C

Answer 7

You start writing.

Answer 8

when you sell a book

Answer 9

You don't (until you become one).