How to Become a Best-Selling Author

Write about what you know. This is a good rule to follow regardless of the type of writer that you’d like to become or how many books you hope to sell. In fact, if you’re interested in becoming an author just to become rich and famous you would do well to adhere to this guideline in particular.

In order to be widely interesting to a variety of readers, a story must have topics and situations that readers can relate to. There must be some aspect of typical human reactions and solutions to various situations and challenges. But a truly interesting story doesn’t blatantly rehash ‘Macbeth’ or ‘Beowulf’; a story that’s hard to put down weaves various archetypes in wholly new ways that spark our curiosity.

Basically, a good book is one that makes us want to know what happens next and/or is particularly informative about something that interests us or we would like to learn more about. When it comes to best-selling books, quite often a winning combination is a story that deals with common popular topics, figures or archetypes; weaving well known topics into brand new constructs.

Some of the most well known authors are those that wrote books directly inspired by lesser known authors. In a sense, these types of authors are digesting various works already written on a group of topics and synthesizing a new uber-story. A best-selling author is one that is able to weave well known topics or situations into new perspectives or ways of dealing with previously encountered challenges.

Also, best-selling authors tend to be gifted when it comes to determining which topics or means of presentation will be most widely appealing. Obviously, any storyline that mirrors hot topics of current affairs or world events will make interesting reading material.

Have you ever read a book that just blew you away and really inspired your own creative juices? Do some more research about the topics covered and before you know it you’ll have ideas about how to reorder the various sub-topics to create your own best-selling book.

Also, take some time to consider what it is about your favorite books that made them so much fun to read. Think about the effect that you want to produce in your reader, While focusing on writing the story, you will need to see how various portions and characters meet or fail to satisfy the original vision.

Most books require looking at the book from various angles and level of detail. For example, many writers that have a complex or finely detailed story in mind may work on three main levels. There may be a timeline that outlines the major events and uber-story. Then closer in, a synopsis of individual portions or chapter and what will be addressed in each. Then there is the full text meat of the story. As writing progresses you may find it more useful to switch from one perspective to another in order to reassess how the story is satisfying your original goals and vision.

Don’t be surprised when the process of writing alters the original vision. As with other areas of invention, some of the best innovations came about by accident. Be prepared to roll with the punches and incorporate new plot ideas as they manifest. Never be worried about too much exploration or too much writing. This is what editing is for, after all. The trick is to decide which alterations of your original vision serve the project more than detract from other goals or key components of the story.

So, write about what you know, incorporate some common human themes or a new twist on familiar situations, but most importantly, write!

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.