Could you write a bestseller?

If you’ve got a burning desire, and if you learn how to write a book, perhaps you could.

This article, Could you write a best seller with a great plot and become the next Philippa Gregory? | Mail Online, suggests that it’s unlikely you’ll hit the big time with your first book:

“Mark Le Fanu, general secretary of the Society of Authors, says talent is not enough to guarantee success. Budding authors must also have great self-belief to get through the financial hardships and likely initial failure.

‘You have to have a breakthrough  -  and this could take several books to achieve,’ he says. ‘You will probably need to be quite obsessive, show great patience and be dogged in your approach. It is unlikely your first book is going to get published, and even if it does it is unlikely to bring in lots of money.’ ”

It all depends on you. How hard are you willing to work?

Yes, hard work is essential. A book doesn’t write itself, nor does it acquire readers by itself.

Best advice: treat it like a job

Here’s my best advice to you, if you’re an aspiring author: treat writing your first book like a job. Then write your next book, and your next.

It’s very common for authors to write anywhere from three to seven books without a nibble from a publisher, and then to score multi-book contracts.

Remember too, that these days you have options. Electronic publishing has taken off. You just may discover that you don’t need anyone’s permission to publish your book — you may decide to go your own way and keep the profits for yourself.

Writing books isn’t glamorous. You get to sit in front of your computer every day, dreaming whole worlds into existence. If that’s your idea of heaven, go ahead and write. You never know what will happen until you do.

Wondering whether you can become a self-published author? A young author, Amanda Hocking, rejected by major publishing houses, has become a millionaire in less than a year, by taking her writing into her own hands.

She self-publishes ebooks, for the Amazon Kindle and other platforms.

She’s sold an amazing number of books, 100,000 last December alone.

Here’s her story…

These days, your writing career is in YOUR hands. You don’t need to wait for anyone to give you their permission.

Just start writing.

If you want to see what Amanda’s self publishing, do a search for “Amanda Hocking” on Amazon.

Could you become a millionaire by self-publishing? Try it…

If you’re new to the novelist’s art, chances are that you’ll give way too much information. You want your readers to understand your characters, so you dump information, to be sure that they do.

Stop doing that.

It’s fatal.

Writing a novel is teasing the reader.

Here’s how many first novels start out: someone’s lying in bed, and they wake up. They look at the time, remember something or other, and stumble into the bathroom. They have breakfast. Maybe they argue with someone over the toast and coffee. Then they go out to their car… And on, and on.

Think about it. WHO CARES about all this stuff?

No one, that’s who. That’s real life: your readers already live this life. They don’t want to read about it.

If you must have someone waking up at the start of your novel, at least make it interesting:

* He wakes up and he’s a cockroach (Kafka);

* He wakes up and he’s lying beside a dead body (this one has been done to death, pardon the pun, but it still works);

* He wakes up and he has no idea who he is or where he is (ditto the amnesia thing, it’s been done — but you can do it too.)

Keep the reader guessing

The more you can keep your reader guessing, the longer he’ll keep reading.

Go back and read your favorite novelists: they’re masters at the guessing game. They tease the reader, constantly arousing curiosity.

There are endless ways to tease readers.

I’m currently reading Robyn Young’s Brethren Trilogy. She’s brilliant at keeping her readers guessing. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. The following chapter switches point of view, so we’re living the life of another character, that chapter ends on a cliffhanger too.

She’s always teasing. She never tells everything she knows about the characters. She drops hints. We’re intrigued. We keep reading. She solves one puzzle for us — but she’s already created yet another for us to wonder about.

If you’re not teasing your reader, start today.

TEASE!

You may just end up writing a good book.

I’ve had several questions from readers this week asking for the “names of publishers that pay”.

The simple answer is: all of them.

However they don’t “pay” you in the sense of an employer paying you for a job (although some book packagers do operate this way…)

Publishers license rights to your book for a certain time. The book remains your intellectual property. You own the copyright to it. You can get rights back, and you should stipulate that if a book goes out of print, the rights revert to you.

Publishing contracts vary, and it’s sensible to look for an agent if you’ve been offered a contract.

You’ll get a better deal from a publisher when you use an agent, because agents know which of your rights to offer in a deal, and which to withhold.

Publishing is a business, and any publisher will aim to get the most rights for the lowest possible royalties.

Don’t try to negotiate a deal on your own, and always read the contract CAREFULLY several times before you sign, even if you do have an agent.

Publishers will try to get as much as they can.

I’ll never forget one memorable publisher who tried to claim the copyright to one of my books in the contract. I laughed, and slashed a red line though that clause. I know that other authors fell for that trick, because I found many of that publisher’s books which were copyrighted to them, rather than to the authors.

The moral is — never be too eager to sign a contract. I felt immensely sorry for those authors. I’ve no doubt that they found out eventually that they’d been tricked and were shattered.

Be careful out there.

The Write A Book Collection — the ultimate toolbox for writing and selling your books

These days it’s crazy to spend years writing a book, without having any idea as to whether or not you can make money from it. If you want to write, you can – you have a global market, which is hungry for information and entertainment. And YOU can provide it… even if you’re a brand new author.

As you may know, I write and sell many writing guides. I also sell information products in many other areas than writing.

I want to show you how you can do the same, if you wish. Your dreams of writing a book can be the spark which changes your life.

I’ve collected everything I know about writing and selling your books into my brand new Write A Book Collection: it’s the ultimate toolbox for anyone who wants to write and sell books in 2010 and beyond.

There’s a huge market for info products, so writing ebooks is the perfect home business. With the launch of the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad this market has exploded in the past year, and promises to be even bigger in 2011. The industry is set to grow even further as more and more people look to their digital devices for information and entertainment.

I’ve been selling information products for 10 years, so here are some tips which will help you to success.

Firstly, research your market before you write your ebook. I see many new writers creating ebooks on topics which interest them, but for which there is a very small market. You’ll be investing time and energy into your creation, so you need to be sure that people will buy it.

Decide whether you want to provide information, or whether the you want to entertain your audience.

If you want to provide information, look for people’s pain points – what do they need information on? Ebooks which sell information on topics like curing acne and losing weight are popular: the health area is a booming marketplace.

On the other hand, if you want to entertain you can do that too.

Novels are selling very well as the books, with one popular novelist earning $100,000 from his ebooks in 2010. He estimates that he’ll double his earnings in 2011. However, do realize that he’s been writing for over a decade, and has built a large audience. If you want to write novels you’ll need to build your audience too.

Secondly, create a schedule for developing new information products. Your products are your inventory, and your business will only be as strong as your inventory.

An easy way to build your inventory and increase your readership is to develop a series on a single topic. If your first information product is on weight loss, consider creating another dieting product, targeting a different segment of the weight loss audience.

If you’re writing novels, consider creating a series character. JK Rowling did this successfully. You can take your series character through several books.

2011 promises to be a huge year for ebooks, so if you want to write and sell them, now is the perfect time to start your home business.

Recession-proof your freelance writing career

“Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process” gives you all the tools you need for a thriving writing career, no matter what the economic climate.

Three weeks after completing the class one student wrote:

“Thanks Angela, for all your help and advice in class. I’m quitting my job next week. I printed out my letter of resignation tonight after landing a contract writing job that will pay me more for three months part-time work than I earned in from my day job in the whole of 2008! You were right – the great gigs are out there, and now I’ve got the skills to land them. Your class opened my eyes. Bless you…”

“Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process” shows you how to thrive as a freelance writer. Would you like to write five times more than you’re writing now, and sell to higher-paying markets? Take the class.

Image credit