How to Become an Author and Build a Successful Career

I wanted to title this article “How to Become a Successful Author When There Are 44 Million Books on Amazon.” 

It was too long, but I think it reflects what most people will tell you you're up against. The market is saturated and only the geniuses succeed, right?

And yet, you're still here, trying to figure out how to make it happen. Which means you either know yourself to be a genius (good for you!) or you know the truth about successful authorship:

Non-prodigies—normies like us—succeed in this field all the time. In fact, most bestselling authors would snort at the idea that they are exceptionally gifted. What they are is passionate and committed. 

I can't promise that this article—or any article—will put a Pulitzer in your hands or even a full-time salary in your bank account. The work is tough, and not everyone makes it big. But I can promise you'll get a lot further than most people expect just by showing up and doing the work.

And if you genuinely love writing, the work itself will be well worth the journey. This is especially true when you join the free DabbleU Campus community or even take it a step further and become a member of DabbleU Academy.

Both communities come with the support of friendly fellow authors, shared writing challenges, and educational resources. DabbleU Academy also offers a vast library of courses and workshops, exclusive access to live events, great downloadable content, and more.

In fact, you can get a sneak peek at the resources available in DabbleU Academy by checking out our free course, Finally Finish Your First Draft. It's loaded with information to guide you through the most important step to becoming an author: actually writing a book. You'll learn how to stay motivated, overcome mental blocks and practical obstacles, strategize your own writing plan, and much more.

It's a great resource for anyone, but especially first-time authors.

Now let's give you the best possible odds in this gorgeous, messy literary world. We're going to take this step by step, from preparing to write a novel to marketing your novel once it's out there. 

How to Become an Author: FAQs

Before we outline the typical career path of a successful author, I'd like to knock out a few broad questions aspiring writers tend to ask.

Do I need a creative writing degree to succeed as an author?

Nope. If you can tell a great story, no one cares whether you studied literary theory at a reputable university. Agents don't care, publishers don't care, and readers definitely don't care.

Now, that doesn't mean you can get away with avoiding a writing education altogether. You can skip the formal training if it's not your style, but you still need to learn about the business of writing and build considerable writing skills.

Many writers get their education through a combination of mentorship, workshops, conferences, writers groups, in-person classes, and online courses. This is why I seriously recommend DabbleU Academy. It offers several different ways to build your expertise in both the business and craft of writing. And it's a lot cheaper than an MFA.

Can anybody become an author?

Technically, yes.

As we just established, you don't need a formal education to become an excellent writer or achieve writing success. You also don't need a traditional publisher to turn your manuscript into a real book available for purchase. It's now super easy and affordable for anyone with access to a computer and the internet to self-publish their book.

Plus, with the rise of print-on-demand technology, you don't have to shell out thousands for large print orders. You can invest zero dollars in publishing a book if you want (not that I'd recommend it).

That said, it takes a lot of time and hard work to put a book out there, no matter which publishing path you choose. So anyone who's not committed to the process won't be able to see it through.

What's the difference between an author and a professional writer?

An author is someone who has written an original work, like a novel, short story, or scholarly article. If you write a book, you're an author even if you never make a dime from it.

A professional writer is someone who gets paid to write. A professional writer could specialize in any area of writing, including technical writing, business writing, grant writing, ghostwriting, content writing, and yes, fiction writing. Their work might be their own original creation, or it could follow someone else's vision.

Do I need to be an experienced writer to land a publishing contract?

Literary agents and publishers don't necessarily need you to have published titles to your name in order to consider your query. They care much more about how well you write and whether you can tell a compelling story that's appropriate for the market. It also helps to have an established platform, as we'll discuss later.

So in terms of what shows up in your author bio, no. You can get a publishing contract without having contributed to literary magazines or completed an MFA.

But you do need experience in order to write something worthy of publishing. You learn to write by writing... and writing a lot. It's through your own attempts at storytelling that you discover what it means to develop engaging characters and immerse readers in your fictional universe and weed out the details no one needs.

How much will I get paid for my first published book?

There's no telling for sure. It depends entirely on what you write, how you publish, and, if you publish traditionally, the type of deal you negotiate. This article is a good introduction to all the variables impacting your potential earnings.

The main thing you need to know is that it probably won't be as much as you hope. Very few authors make bank on their first book. If you're looking to build a lucrative writing career, expect to write a lot of books.

When should I quit my day job to write full-time?

The lawyers say to tell you this information is purely educational and not career or financial advice. Or they probably would if I asked them.

Quitting your day job is a personal decision impacted by a range of factors. The most important thing to consider is what your safety net looks like. Author income can be unpredictable, especially for new authors, and if you want to start writing full-time early in your career, you need to know what the plan is if that income stream dries up. Very few authors live on book sales alone.

Even if you manage to score a healthy advance for your first novel, that money won't come all at once. It'll be paid in three or four installments, you'll have to give about 15% of it to an agent, and you'll have to pay income tax. If you're self-publishing, your royalties won't show up in your account until at least a couple months after the sale, and even if you have a strong launch, you don't want to assume every month will look like your first.

Finally, as strange as it sounds, having a day job provides freedom that some full-time authors say they miss. When you depend entirely on book sales for your income, the pressure increases and you feel less comfortable taking creative risks. Just another thing to keep in mind before you take the leap.

How do I become a bestselling author?

If your goal is to snag bestseller status for a day or two on Amazon so you can call your book a bestseller for marketing purposes, there are steps you can take to boost your odds, especially if you focus on ranking at number one in a niche category with limited competition.

But if you want to be a bestseller in a New York Times, millions-of-books-sold kind of way, that's a bit trickier. For one thing, there are many factors that are out of your control, including buying habits, competing titles, your publisher's marketing push, and how your book is positioned in bookstores. Some of these lists even have rules in place that make it notoriously difficult for indie authors to rank, regardless of sales numbers.

As for what you can control, that's exactly what we're about to get into. I can't guarantee you'll make millions with the advice that follows, but these are the best tips I have for becoming a successful writer.

Step One: Prepare for Greatness

Heads up: this is going to be a lot of learning and research.

The life of a successful author isn't all dreaming up stories and typing them out. If your goal is to make a real career for yourself, you have to cultivate a mindset, a craft, and a community, too.

Here's how to set yourself up for greatness.

Define Success

When you imagine your life as a “successful author,” what about that vision brings you joy?

Is it connecting with readers? Living a creative life? Are you in it for the money? (If so, I feel you have a right to know there are faster ways to get rich.)

If you don't have your own definition of success, other people will give you one. 

And most people don't know the industry well enough to realize that you can make a living off of books that Barnes and Noble doesn't carry. Or that you can supplement your royalties with other forms of income and still proudly call yourself a working writer. 

Or that sometimes all we really want is to write a novel that makes someone else feel less alone or cackle so abruptly it makes the other subway passengers nervous, and if we've done that, we've done enough.

Start Writing Immediately

You may not be ready to dive into your novel, but you need to start working on your craft right away. Write a short story about a character in your forthcoming book. Write a scene you've been thinking about and then look for ways to make it better. Try some writing exercises.

You master this craft by doing it. Like, a lot. So start right now. 

Read a Ton

And read actively. 

Choose books that are similar to the one you want to write. Note what you like and what you don't like. Pay attention to details like tropes, story structure, and character development. 

If something strikes you as brilliant, use one of your writing sessions to emulate it. Write a scene of your own in the narrator's voice or put a character you love in your own short story. The goal of exercises like these is not to steal, but to practice applying the techniques you admire.

If you start to feel like your life is 83% books, you're doing it right.

Do Your Research

Want to know how to be a successful author in the monetary sense?

Know. Your. Market.

Research everything. Haunt the forums frequented by fans of your genre. Know which authors are absolutely killing it and work to understand why. Learn as much as you can about your reader. What fantasies are they hoping a book will fulfill? Or are they looking to be devastated?

Finally, stay on top of industry developments. Follow podcasts and blogs that keep you up-to-date on effective marketing tactics, industry trends, and new self-publishing platforms and formats. 

Study the Craft

Research shows readers prefer books that are competently written. So take time to learn your craft. The world is full of endless resources for writers, including books, YouTube videos, and Do Your Research

Want to know how to be a successful author in the monetary sense?

Know. Your. Market.

Research everything. Haunt the forums frequented by fans of your genre. Know which authors are absolutely killing it and work to understand why. Learn as much as you can about your reader. What fantasies are they hoping a book will fulfill? Or are they looking to be devastated?

Finally, stay on top of industry developments. Follow podcasts and blogs that keep you up-to-date on effective marketing tactics, industry trends, and new self-publishing platforms and formats. 

Study the Craft

Research shows readers prefer books that are competently written. So take time to learn your craft. The world is full of endless resources for writers, including books, YouTube videos, creative writing classes, and the comprehensive Curriculums available through DabbleU Academy.

Study Your Genre

Even if you've spent the last ten years only reading books in the genre you plan to write in, it's still important to step back and examine your genre through the eyes of someone who plans to make it their business.

What emotional needs does this genre fulfill for its readers? What are the most beloved tropes? Which tropes are starting to feel a little tired and outdated? Are there any important story beats or elements readers have come to expect, like the red herrings in a mystery novel or the grand gesture in a romance?

You might have an instinct to subvert tropes or surprise your audience with a new twist on genre standards. That's great! But in order to do that successfully, you first have to understand what you're subverting and how your new version can deliver the emotional experience your audience expects.

Study Successful Authors

Each person's writing journey looks a little different, and we can learn a lot from studying the great writers who've come before us. And I'm not just talking about pulling lessons from their writing (as we'll discuss in a bit). I'm also talking about examining their career path.

From Octavia Butler, who carved out a space for herself when no one believed sci-fi author was a viable career for a Black woman, to John Grisham, who wrote his debut novel while working two jobs, most successful authors have a lot to teach us about what it takes to pursue a literary dream.

Learning about them is a great way to gain a deeper understanding of the publishing industry and find inspiration when you begin to doubt your odds.

Build Your Community

Behind every successful author is a bunch of other authors who weren't afraid to say, “The pacing is a little slow. Can I offer a suggestion?”

“Did you hear about this new publishing platform?”

“You get a ten-minute self-pity sob. Then I'm going to call you and I'd better hear those keys pounding.”

Start looking for your people. You can find them at writing conferences, Facebook groups, in-person writing groups, and in DabbleU Campus.

Establish a Platform

Your author platform is the online presence you create to connect with readers. This could be a website or blog, a social media presence, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a combination of a few of those, or all of the above. It must include an email list.

Stick with strategies you're actually going to do consistently. If you know you don't have time to write a novel and maintain a vlogging schedule, skip the vlog.

It may seem early in the process to start building your platform, but it's actually the perfect time. Building an audience now gives you a big boost when the time comes to publish your novel, as agents and publishers may look you up to get a sense of your influence and reach. If you've got a really big following, you can include those numbers in your query letter as a way to signal that there's already an audience eager to read your work.

As for indie authors, growing a robust platform now will certainly give you a sales boost on launch day.

Prep Your Mindset

Whatever your big vision of success is, enter the writing process with a much simpler goal: to write often and write better.

These are the things you must accomplish before you can fulfill any vision of author success. 

The great thing is, you can nail this goal over and over and over again throughout the writing process. This means you're constantly piling on victories, building up your motivation, and cruising in the right direction.

So let's get to it.

Step Two: Become a Better Writer

This is the heart of how to become a successful author. You've got to actually write something good. 

Here's how you make that happen.

Start

How is this even a writing tip? It's so obvious, right? 

Well, if you're like most writers, when starting time comes, you'll feel a powerful pull to unload the dishwasher. You'll remember that you meant to research what your protagonist would wear in a job like theirs. You'll have a sudden urge to call your grandma.

Getting started is the hardest part for a lot of us because first drafts are famously crappy. And writing a crappy draft is a super effective way to stir up a thousand doubts and insecurities. 

Starting is scary. It's also the step that separates successful authors from perpetual dreamers.

Write to Market

Hopefully, you already researched your genre within an inch of its life in step one. This means you're ready to serve your readers' expectations in step two.

Writing to market—that is, writing fiction with the goal of giving your readers exactly what they want—is one of the most effective strategies for writing a book that sells.

Of course, if success isn't about sales for you, feel free to put less emphasis on this step.

Establish a Routine

Continuing to write is the second hardest step after getting started. This is why you should establish a writing routine. Set a schedule and stick to it, whether you're feeling inspired or not.

If you can't write every day, that's fine. But most writers who have limited time find it easier to maintain their momentum with daily, short writing sessions than with fewer, longer writing sessions. If you're not most writers, you can skip this advice. The best writing schedule is the one that works for you. It may take some experimentation to figure out what “the best” looks like.

Treat your writing sessions like they're your job (that's the goal, anyway, right?). Don't reschedule them to make space for anything that isn't a funeral or birth. When you maintain your commitment, you turn your writing routine into a writing habit.

When you fall off of your schedule, you'll eventually return to the keyboard to find that your writing muscle is a lot weaker than it used to be. It's like starting all over again.

Set Goals and Deadlines

Whether you measure your progress by word count, page count, chapters, or time put in, give yourself goals and deadlines. This accomplishes two things.

One, it gives you a concrete reason to keep showing up.

Two, it makes this massive undertaking feel much more manageable.

Fun fact: Dabble has a cool goal-setting feature and it celebrates every time you meet an objective so you don't forget to.

That's important, by the way—the celebration. It keeps you motivated and helps you see that you're making progress. I also recommend planning little rewards for yourself when you reach certain milestones. Maybe once you finish outlining your novel, you get to spend an entire Saturday morning reading in bed. Or maybe you'll treat yourself to that new special edition of your favorite book once you've completed your first draft.

Forgive Your Humanity

You might slip up from time to time. You might miss a session or fall behind on a deadline because you overestimated your speed. You might spend three sessions in a row typing and deleting, “I don't know what I'm doing!” over and over again.

Everyone has been there. The successful authors are the ones who forgive themselves and keep going.

Also—and this is hard—resist the urge to bail when you feel that sneaking suspicion that your draft is trash. It doesn't matter if it's trash. That's why we edit.

Step Three: Edit Expertly

You already know editing is a key step to becoming a successful author. But you may not realize that editing is an opportunity to learn more about your reader, your craft, and yourself. 

You already know editing is a key step to becoming a successful author. But you may not realize that editing is an opportunity to learn more about your reader, your craft, and yourself. 

So try not to over-protect the ego or declare your manuscript a masterpiece after two rounds of editing. Be curious, diligent, and unafraid to break your own heart. 

This book will be better for it. So will every book that comes after.

Now, let's talk about what this editing process looks like.

Step Away

Get some distance from your work but keep hammering away at your craft while you take that distance. Start plotting your next novel, do some writing exercises, try your hand at essay writing or poetry. Do whatever you want—just keep writing.

Stepping away from your novel allows you to come back to it with fresh eyes, making it easier to notice when the story drags or if that big speech at the end of act two reads a little cheesy.

Six weeks is a good break for me. Long enough to forget exactly what I wrote, but not so long that I forget how excited I am about the story. My pal Doug likes taking four weeks.

Experiment and find what works for you.

Edit Yourself

Some writers like to edit themselves as they go. Others like to complete that first hot mess of a draft so they can see the big picture before tearing it all apart. Whichever category you fall into, you'll still have revising to do when you return to your first draft. 

If you feel a little overwhelmed by the wildly imperfect condition of your first draft, remember that it's supposed to be that way. You try a thing. The thing doesn't work the way you wanted it to. So you look closer to understand why.

Self-editing is the process of becoming a better writer. 

Seek Feedback

Once you've done all you know to do to improve your novel, show it to someone else. Preferably several someone elses. This includes other writers, your mentor, professional editors, sensitivity readers, and beta readers who love your genre.

If you want to know how to become a successful author, you have to know how to be open to feedback. You don't have to take every suggestion and all the writing tips that come your way, but you do have to be eager to learn.

Polish

Take all that helpful feedback and make your novel shine. Start with high-level issues, like reworking the climax or tracking your protagonist's motivation more clearly. 

Then you can dig into the nitty-gritty, like perfecting your dialogue or making sure your prose isn't rife with excessive adjectives. 

Once your style is as solid as your story structure and character development, you're ready to put your work out there. 

Step Four: Publish Strategically

If your goal is to become a commercially successful author, your approach to publishing and marketing is almost as important as your skills as a writer.

It might be exactly as important, but I refuse to say so because to say anything matters as much as the craft is to surrender my writerly soul. Just know that the business nonsense is crucial, and you should approach it with an actual strategy.

Part of that strategy should involve preparing yourself for rejection, because it's coming. Every single author must deal with rejection, no matter how exceptional their writing skills are. This is another reason it helps to study your favorite authors. Seeing how much rejection they faced can help you set realistic expectations for your own writing journey and remind you that a "no thank you" doesn't mean the endeavor is hopeless.

As a sensitive soul myself, I've collected my most effective tools for reframing rejection in this li'l article. Check it out if you expect to have a hard time with it, too.

For now, we'll talk about how to strategize your publishing journey, depending on whether you plan to publish traditionally or self-publish.

But before we get into those options, we need to establish one crucial rule:

Never Pay a Publisher

Publishers pay you. That's how it works. They make money selling books to readers, and then they share that money with you, because you created the product they're selling.

When you attempt to have your book published, you'll undoubtedly run into "publishers" who promise to do it for a fee. They'll probably also tell you they'll handle distribution and marketing, making it sound like an easier path to success than self-publishing would be.

It's not. These companies are called "vanity publishers" (though they sometimes refer to themselves as "hybrid"), and their distribution and marketing networks are crummy, because no one legitimate takes them seriously. This doesn't matter to them, because they don't make money selling books to readers; they make money selling publishing to authors.

Now, if you want to self-publish but need help with production and publicity, it's completely fine to hire legitimate services to cover those tasks. But if someone wants to charge you for those services and call themselves a publisher (especially if they plan to take a cut of the sales, too), run fast in the opposite direction.

Traditional Publishing

Traditionally published books are books that have been produced, distributed, and marketed by a publishing company, not by the author.

If this is what you want to do, your first order of business is to query agents. This means you reach out to literary agents who represent work like yours. Hopefully, you find a good fit, and that agent then shops your novel around to publishers.

Here are a few quick tips for nailing the query process:

• Research agents to find the best match for you. While it may seem efficient to blindly send a billion queries to a billion agents and see who bites, your odds of success are much higher when you can pitch your book as the perfect fit for specific agents.
• Workshop the living daylights out of your query letter. This is another time when it's useful to have a community like DabbleU Campus.
• Follow guidelines to the letter. If an agent responds with a request to see a one-page synopsis, send them exactly that.

Once you've found your agent, keep those business pants on. There's more work to do. But we'll get to that in a moment.

Self-Publishing

Most—if not all—of the books you see in a bookstore are traditionally published. For this reason, a lot of people assume self-publishing doesn't belong on a guide for how to become a successful author. 

But in fact, there are six-figure self-published authors. There are also seven-figure self-published authors. There are even self-published authors who left traditional publishing because they saw greater potential for success by doing it all themselves.

Of course, that doesn't mean self-publishing is a guaranteed path to success. You have to choose the option that's right for you. Self-publishing allows you to make much higher royalties, but it also comes with unique challenges.  

Most notably, you have to find readers and create a professional-looking product without the support of a big publisher. To accomplish those things:

• Hire a professional editor (or editors)
• Invest in quality cover design
• Keep building that author platform
• Price your book effectively
• Develop a marketing strategy
• Create a launch plan that incorporates all of the above 

Self-publishing demands a lot of time and energy. It requires you to learn a wider range of skills and think like an entrepreneur. You'll also need to invest some money into the process if you want to create a professional product.

On the plus side, self-publishing gives you more creative control, and you get much higher royalties than you would working with a traditional publisher. So while your sales volume might not be as high, you can earn a few dollars or even several dollars more for every book sold.

Having said all that, indie authorship will really only work out for you if you love the idea of being a publisher as well as an author. If your dream is to become a writer who gets to focus almost exclusively on the written word, traditional publishing is probably a better fit.

Hybrid Publishing

This is a confusing term because it means different things, but right now, we're talking about the version of hybrid publishing where you publish both traditionally and independently.

You might self-publish your romance series for the high royalties, then find a traditional publisher for your literary fiction novel because indie lit fic is harder to sell.

Or maybe you try to arrange a deal where you publish some formats of the same novel through a publisher and some independently. Or you self-publish your fantasy series in the U.S. and find a publisher to introduce your series to the German market.

While these are all fairly advanced strategies for first-time authors, it's helpful to keep these options in mind. Hybrid publishing is an increasingly popular model, and it tends to be more lucrative than simply choosing one path over another.

How to Become a Successful Author However You Publish

Even if you work with a big publisher who has a powerhouse marketing team, you can't assume your publisher will invest those resources on your book. Whether you're traditional or indie, your success depends on your own effort to connect with readers. 

Here are some smart steps you can take both before and after your book comes out:

Keep Marketing 

If you're self-published, this may include paid advertising. For both self-published and traditional authors, marketing also includes things like email newsletters, social media engagement, podcast appearances, and more.

Ask for Reviews 

Every business depends on reviews to succeed, and that includes the writing business. A healthy number of reviews tells readers your book is legit and not something someone just sneezed out and uploaded to the internet. And good reviews—heck, sometimes even bad reviews—can let other readers know that your book will give them the reading experience they've been looking for.

Build Reader Relationships 

Respond to social media comments, keep up your blog, set up readings and book signings, etc. It's not just about selling books now. It's about being on readers' radar when your next book comes out.

Pay Attention to Feedback 

What do readers love (or not love) about your book? What are you learning that you can apply to the next book? Successful authors seek to improve the writing quality of each subsequent book, so don't rest on your laurels just because you got one book deal.

Stay Informed About the Publishing Industry

What marketing efforts are the most successful? What new trends or opportunities can you tap into next time? Where are readers finding their next read?

The industry is constantly evolving. Pay attention, and you'll be able to pounce on new opportunities.

Honor Your Brand

Your author brand is who you are as the human being behind the book. It's defined by what you write, why you write it, and your whole vibe as a person.

Are you a vampire crime thriller author with a hilariously dark perspective? A glittery children's book author who dresses in bold colors and encourages readers to be themselves?

Your brand helps readers understand what they're getting when they pick up one of your books, and it encourages loyalty among fans who love what you stand for.

Even if you don't deliberately establish a brand, your readers will perceive you as having one, so you might as well cultivate one to control your image and build relationships with the readers who get you. You can learn how to do that here.

Now, you may have noticed that many of these tips are as much about the next book as they are about the one you're selling now. This brings me to the next phase of your author success strategy.

Step Five: Write Another Book

Then another. And another. 

Very few authors make it big from their first book.

If I were to sum up how to become a successful author in a single sentence, it would be this:

Keep going.

Keep writing, editing, learning, evolving, publishing, marketing, and starting new projects.

This diligence is the true indicator of success, more so than inherent genius. You don't have to be a prodigy. You just have to show up.

And at Dabble, our goal is to make showing up as easy as possible.The Dabble Writer app is designed to keep you on track with customizable Character Profiles, Story Notes, and Scene Cards all on hand as you draft your novel. 

Try these and all other features free for fourteen days by clicking this link—no credit card required! That free trial also gives you full access to DabbleU Academy for two weeks, so you might as well check out all the goodies in there, too.

Now get out there and get started on your own path to literary greatness.