Everyone dreams of holding a book published under his or her name at least once in their lifetime. It might take years or decades of writing at least one page per day to finally write a novel worth reading by others. An aspiring best-selling author writes with passion, checks trends in culture and keeps writing until the story flows naturally in the reader’s mind like water from a spring well.
With these three tips you are on your way to become a best-selling author. Follow them and you will save yourself many hours of writer’s block and frustration.
Three most important tips for becoming a best-selling author
TIP 1. Write your best-selling book with passion
Passion is the key ingredient to writing that best seller. Write with your heart about things you like and are passionate about.
To write with passion has two major advantages.
Firstly, it helps you to put pen to paper and to generate the energy to share your thoughts. It helps you find the words to describe your ideas. It also carries you through those moments when you feel stuck. Just come back to what you are passionate about in your story, and with this in mind start writing again.
Secondly, passion is contagious. As you write with passion, your readers will feel this. The way you engage with your story will drip and spill over onto your audience. When they become passionate about your story, they will share it again with others. And voila, you’re book is on its way to reach a wider group of people. And this is just because of your passion.
TIP 2. Follow trends that interest you
There are probably already many books about the same topic that you want to write about. Changing themes and ideas to make your book different from the rest can become really hard. Still, you can interest and engage your potential audience by following trends, but only if you do this well and (again) with passion.
You can reach your readers with your story by linking it with what is already at the front of their mind. They often are focused on trends in the news, media and pop culture. By engaging with these trends you can pique their interest. After all, they were already interested! You only tapped into their interests.
However, to follow and engage with trends you have to do it well. The danger of doing it only half-heartedly is that your book will already be outdated by the time it is published. Or worse, your book is not sincere in engaging with what is on the reader’s mind. Sincerity about a topic is key, because without it, your reader will not feel understood or taken seriously.
In order to best follow and engage with your reader’s trends, you need to research and find the trends that also engage you. You can only write passionately about something if it also has your heart. If you are not interested, it will be hard to understand why your audience still is interested. You miss a point of connection.
Avoid those trends that are only short-lived. Not only might your story be in danger of becoming outdated prior to publication, you may lose your own interest along the way as well. And you don’t want to lose interest, because that will again undermine your passion.
Find the trends that seem to last for at least five years. Sometimes it is as easy as finding a common denominator between events. What is common to these individual occurrences in the news?
Here’s a number of examples that can help you
A certain celebrity’s relationship drama may only last for a few months, but the theme of relationship drama between celebrities is ongoing.
A certain crypto currency may quickly gain people’s interest and rapidly increase in value, but this may only last a couple of years. An ongoing trend is that people are now using technology and virtual value to try to become rich fast.
A war between countries usually only lasts for a few months to years. However, continued tensions leading up to the war usually last for decades after the war has already ended.
Research the trends. See which ones interest you and find the longer lasting common denominator. Use these trends to find your story’s hook and engage your audience.
TIP 3. Continue to rewrite until the story flows
Once you have found the above two ingredients, you are well on your way to become a best-selling author. However, there is still one final, very important ingredient, and that is the guts to rewrite your entire book.
You may have written your story with passion, using interesting and longer-term trends as a hook. However, this still does not make a story an immediate gem. At best, your story at this stage is a diamond in the rough.
Most best-selling authors write seven drafts before their work is good enough for publication! Okay, this includes editing by professional editors. Still, the reality is that you need to probably rewrite your story four times before you could submit it to an agent or publisher.
How come?
You wrote the original story, but that also means that only you know the story inside and out. You may make assumptions in your story that are in your head, but not necessarily in the head of your reader.
Another issue is that your story may have developed over time. As you changed directions, you may have left a few plot holes unplugged. Ot worse, you could have started to contradict yourself.
Sometimes, as you (or someone else you know) read over your story again, you may notice that it does not flow well on paper. Something is missing, the story may be jumpy or simply you don’t feel engaged in your own writing yourself.
All these issues you want to resolve before you even think about sending it to people that see quality stories on a daily basis. It is harder to wow them with a great story after you presented a mediocre manuscript a first times, than to wow them from the start.
BONUS TIP. Publish your best-seller with quality
The way your book looks and feels is just as important as the way it reads. Professional publishing services help your book stand out and appeal to your potential audience.
It would be heart-breaking if your powerfully written and moving story is never read. Only because, it never received the tender loving care of professional editors, designers and typesetters.
Your work needs the thorough scrutiny and excellent presentation that only a professional publisher can provide. Cardinia Ranges Publishing House can exactly do this for you. We are a traditional publisher but we also provide professional services for those who would like more control as self-publishing authors.
Click here to find out more how you can publish with quality.
Become a best-selling author by following these tips
Write with passion and share this passion with your reader.
Research and follow trends that interest you.
Continue to rewrite until the story flows well.
Publish your story with quality and excellence that only a professional publisher can give.
