Writing is hard work, but becoming known as a writer is even harder. It was my 125th.Īgain, you don’t have to aim for dozens and dozens of books to have a writing career. It’s ALL your expenses, including your pension, benefits, supplies, even your off days and vacations.Īnd my biggest breakout project, Left Behind, was hardly my first book, or even my 50th. Even then, the decision wasn’t easy.īecause it’s not just your salary that must be replaced. Only after I lined up enough book projects to pay me three times what I was making in salary did I feel in a position to quit my day job.
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Would you believe I didn’t become a full-time writer until after my 90th book was published? Until then, I worked full-time and wrote during my extremely limited free time.
You may dreamt of this for years, putting it off because you’re not sure you’re good enough. Beginning your writing career with a book is like enrolling in graduate school when you should be in kindergarten. Spend time writing-maybe even take a journalism class or online writing course.Read as many books on the craft as you can get your hands on, starting with with my favorites.So if you want a writing career, where do you start?Īmong the steps necessary to grow as a writer, you’ll want to: I wasn’t born a good writer, and VERY few are. But you do have to produce, and that takes knowledge and training. You don’t have to be overly prolific to enjoy a writing career. The bottom line? Dreamers talk about writing. I tell you all that not to brag but to say I’ve been in the game for decades and have enjoyed a career most people only dream of. Several of my novels have been made into movies, and I’ve written the first-person as-told-to autobiographies of countless superstar athletes (Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, Nolan Ryan, Meadowlark Lemon, et al). On the side I pursued book writing and became an author at 24, a novelist at 29, and decades later I’ve had nearly 200 books published, 21 of those New York Times bestsellers (including The Left Behind Series™), and more than 70 million copies sold. I became a sports writer before I was old enough to drive, sports editor of a daily newspaper at 19, a magazine editor at 22, a magazine publisher at 28, a book publisher at 31. It guaranteed only that I would not quit, could not be dissuaded, would never give up regardless. I’m one of the lucky ones, knowing I wanted to be a writer from my early teens and going at it with a passion I’d shown for nothing else.īut even that didn’t guarantee success. If you really want to make a career of it, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.įull-time writing is not a hobby, a diversion, an avocation. I urge you to immerse yourself in the craft. You’ve long loved to write, and people have told you you have a way with words.īut how do you know the time is right or whether you have what it takes? So, you want to become a full-time writer…
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