So you want to be an author?

You have a wondrous idea, a book so fabulous you must write it down! It’s awesome and you’ve decided that you’re going to be an author! Someone out there is going to love your book and it will get published, you’ll sell millions of copies and be wealthy and famous! It’s perfect!

You’re so doing this! Time to quit your job and spend your days writing!

Okay, slow down, take a couple of deep breaths, take more than a few steps back, and face reality. I don’t want to be the bearer of devastating news, but the chances of your book being discovered are very small. A lot of it consists of being in the right place at the right time and meeting the correct person. Some people will remind you continuously how J.K Rowling nearly failed with Harry Potter, she shopped it out to dozens of agents and publishing houses and no one wanted it. She was on welfare, penniless, and on and on until she found the right home for it. Right time and right place for her. I’m certainly not telling you to give up hope, but don’t quit your day job with the belief that your novel is going to be an instant success. It’s a slim chance.

There’s self-publishing and there’s traditional publishing. Either way is a difficult path. There’s promotion, getting the word and your name out there. All of that costs money, money a lot of us don’t have. It becomes difficult to continuously promote yourself with limited resources. I celebrated a bit back when I received a .75 royalty check from Amazon. That’s the first check I received in months. Getting your name out there is hard no matter how you publish.

It’s hours of posting on social media, of having a presence so readers don’t forget you or your book. There are events, podcasts, and all sorts of groups all of it to help get the word out about you and your work. You don’t write your book and bam you’re finished and can sit back and wait for the mountains of cash to roll in. Once you write that first book people will begin asking when the next one is coming out. So be prepared.

If you truly want to write then I encourage you to follow that dream, just don’t go into it blindly. Know what your goals are and do what you can to accomplish them effectively. From start to finish, writing a book is hard work. It’s a long difficult road. There is so much involved (a lot of it cursing at things) but it’s worth it to hold that finished product in your hands. There’s the writing, the editing, formatting, cover design, and finally publishing. And yes, you will have to edit. An editor doesn’t get your manuscript until it’s nearly final, they are there to be certain your final draft is as polished as it can be. No editor wants to work on a first draft and if you can convince them to, they’ll likely charge you more than if it had been a final draft.

Get out there and write if that’s what you want to do, just be prepared for the work involved in making your dream a reality.