by Lyn Dee

Created on: June 29, 2006   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

If you want to get rich quick put novel writing right at the bottom of your list of money-making schemes. (Unless you're a 'celebrity' who is commissioned by a publisher because they know they can make money from your name). If you want to make modest but regular money from writing it's best to stick to non-fiction and short stories.
Coming up with a brilliant idea, plotting the story in your head, dreaming about the fame and fortune it will bring is the exciting, fun part of novel writing. Disciplining yourself to sit at the keyboard and physically get perhaps 80,000 words on to paper is a bit harder. And that's just the first draft. You'll need to spend just as long editing and re-writing to get it to a publishable standard.

Then, the real work begins. Trying to find a publisher or agent who will even agree to look at a first novel by an unknown writer. Hopefully, if you're persistent and good enough, your novel will eventually be published. But then it has to compete with all those other books out there by well-known writers backed by their publisher's publicity machines. You have to do everything you can to promote yourself - and make sure that your second novel is even better.
The J.K. Rowlings of this world are very rare exceptions - which is why they hit the headlines and get even more publicity!
So why do people like me give up our social lives, rise before dawn or work late into the night creating something that perhaps no-one else will ever see? Because we can't help it. Because we need to write just as much as we need to breathe. Because it's an addiction we can't break even though we keep telling ourselves we'd be much better off if we just stuck to a 'proper' job!
If you want to join us - Welcome! And Good Luck!

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