What advice do you have for a writer who wants to publish their first book?
I am doing some freelance work and adding writing experience to my portfolio. My background is primarily in finance although I graduated with both Finance and Journalism degrees. I wrote every day on the job as a financial underwriter, but I always wanted to publish something and be a true writer/author.
What are some ways to increase my experience as a writer to the point of being confident enough to publish a book?
Answers ( 1 )
My advice is to read - a lot - about all the things you need to know about publishing a book. There are dozens, if not hundreds of books on the topic and thousands of blogs and articles. Successful authors like Mercedes Lackey answer dozens of questions about this very thing on other Q&A sites, Jim C. Hines writes about it on his blog constantly.
And I can tell, by the fact that you asked this question here, a question which has been asked and answered tens of thousands of times, that you haven't read any of those posts, or articles, or books.Your going into an industry you know nothing about and want the bullet points so you think you know what your doing.
Okay here are the bullet points:
That's 99% of what you will do at first. You will either write more books, do some networking, and figure out how to get it published, or learn how to self-publish....or you will collapse under the pressure and go do something else.
Writing is hard work and only about 7% of published authors make enough to only write professionally, The other 93% of published authors have a day job, too.
So, here is my advice: Learn your craft, which includes writing and networking. That will help you to become a published author. Then, keep working on that craft and time an effort will help you become a successful author.