A lot of people nowadays want to be authors because we have seen so many authors benefit from their published works. For instance, J.K. Rowling is still receiving royalties from her Harry Potter book series first published in 1997. Harry Potter fans, called Potterheads, have been keeping the Harry Potter world alive even until now. There are a lot of other great books and book series like the Lord Of The Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fault In Our Stars novel by John Green and many more. The best thing about publishing great books is that they could all possibly be turned into movies. All of the books I’ve mentioned in this paragraph have been made into movies, that’s just how good they are.
There are even movies based on e-books. They were recognized so much by their online readers that movie producers just had to produce them into films. For instance, Fifty Shades Of Grey was originally an e-book dedicated to Twilight. It was then published as a book and became a movie trilogy. Other than that, we have The Mortal Instruments. Made into a novel series and then adapted into a movie. However, this mystical love story was originally just an e-book dedicated to Harry Potter.
Before we get into the topic, let me issue a little disclaimer. Let me tell you about some of the disadvantages of becoming a writer that isn’t really talked about much. First and foremost, it will become tedious at some point. No matter how much you claim to enjoy writing, it will eventually get tedious. Especially when there’s a crowd to satisfy. Most people will write what the audience wants or asks for rather than what you planned to write. As a result, it becomes monotonous and boring. But if you are confident that it will be alright for you to handle it, by all means, give it a whack!
There are many ways a young author can make it big in this world. However, you have to be ready to accept anything that flies your way. For instance, there are going to be people giving unnecessary and rude criticism but that is just the world we live in. We live in a world where people will say what they want with no discretion whatsoever. Nonetheless, you have to remember that you cannot live to please every single person. Thus, do not let comments discourage you and here is a starting path for you to be a great author:
Start Small
Yes, do not rush into things, if you rush it would only hurt you. So, take things slow and start small. Maybe start posting blogs and see if people enjoy it and then branch out to other writing styles like articles or poems and fictional stories. Then after you’ve established an audience, it’ll be easier for you to transition to the world of writing novels and longer written works in general. Starting small will make it easier for you to grow bigger in the future, reach a larger audience and earn more profits as time passes. Thus, even in anything else that you do, be level-headed, take your time and build up your progress by starting small.
Find Your Niche
As mentioned earlier, as you start small with writing on smaller platforms, you get to explore writing styles and what niche fits you best. A niche is basically writing in a specific style of yours or of specific issues or genres. The thing about writing is that you will come up with the best content when you’re comfortable with what you’re writing. Hence, finding your niche. Once you’ve found it, your writing will just come naturally to you. However, this does not mean that you have to stick to one niche. As time passes, you can venture to different niches to see what else makes you feel happy while you’re writing. For some people, they stick to fictional stories of romance or conflict, others just love blog-type writing, which is more like personal writing where you can actually read how these people would speak. They are just that good at letting you imagine how they would sound with their personal writing.
Find The Best Platform
As mentioned in previous paragraphs, starting small will allow you to try out many different platforms too. There are many platforms you can post your written works on, some pay and some don’t but that’s how you start small and find out what your targeted audience wants. Once you actually find out and narrow down what your readers want to read, it’d be easier to write longer content and publish where it pays. There are platforms like Amazon and Wattpad that pay you as people read your written works. Then there are normal platforms like Instagram, Reddit and Tumblr where you can still publish your written works but for free. But here is where you see what people want to read and what kind of criticism will you get. Once you get the hang of that, you may start officially publishing on bigger platforms that will definitely pay your royalties.
Be Consistent
One trait of an author that I find a lot of people liking is consistency. Of course, along with your stories, you would want people to see sneak peeks and build up the excitement but don’t do that for too long or take too long of a break before you continue your writing. People nowadays are more impatient than they used to be and will get tired of waiting if you stretch the excitement too long. The key is to be consistent with what you publish. Once you’ve published one of your works, don’t wait 3 or 4 years to post another one. Yes, you can take your own time but if you don’t feed your audience, you’ll lose them.
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Thus, these are only a few tips on how to grow as a young author. Make sure you take things slow and follow your own pace. Most importantly, follow your heart.