by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: March 16, 2009

There can be little doubt that it is pipe dreams associated with the potential earnings from writing a novel that attract the vast majority of people to writing. They see the levels of success achieved by the likes of JK Rowling, Stephen King or Frederick Forsythe and think that they can be the one to write the next bestseller. What most of those people fail to realise is that for every author who achieves such levels of success, there are literally tens of thousands who achieve absolutely no success whatsoever in writing or so little that it is hardly worthwhile speaking of.

The potential earnings from writing a novel are of course measured nowadays in the tens of millions. These incredible sums of money come from a mixture of publishers' advances, royalty sales, public appearances and interviews given to the media, as well as of course the possibility of a future movie deal being secured. The wealth of the world's most successful novelists is therefore akin to that of the movie stars and super successful industrialists with whom they socialise and mix.

What anyone aspiring to success in the field of writing must not lose sight of, however, especially when considering writing novels, is the aforementioned chances of success in the field. Those who have achieved such astronomical levels of success usually did so only after a great many years struggling to perfect their craft, perhaps working late in to the night while holding down a regular day job. The super successful novelist JK Rowling - of Harry Potter fame - was virtually penniless at one stage, drafting and writing the first Harry Potter novel in an Edinburgh City Centre caf!

Although the potential earnings therefore of writing a novel are virtually limitless, we must bear in mind that our chances of realising such lofty ambitions are effectively almost nil. This is not an attempt to discourage anyone from attempting to achieve such levels of success on my part, merely an attempt at giving them a reality check. In order to achieve such success, the prospective novelist will have to come up with a truly unique idea, write to it in an extremely effective and innovative way, find a publisher willing to take a chance on publishing their work, and even if they clear all of those hurdles, will still have to know the most extraordinary amount of what can only be described as luck in order to "make it."

If we are considering writing, therefore, we must ensure that we do so for the right reasons and there can be no doubt that paramount among these is quite simply the love of writing. If we do not enjoy the creative process of fashioning words, sentences and paragraphs in to a form of prose which we hope others will be keen to read, our chances of ever achieving the success we dream of are nil. Success in writing is a by-product of the craft, and however desirable a by-product it may be, should never be our principal reason for becoming a writer.

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