How many of you think that all the great things are done by those who are naturally blessed and are genius enough? If you are a common person like me, you must have deemed all the great men as super lucky or super genius, right? Well, the answer to this question is both a yes and a no.
Yes, luck has its share in the success and achieving anything bigger, but only a little.
You cannot win sales, reviews, and fame only on luck. There involve some underlying principles that are inevitable for success. The genius of all times Albert Einstein once said, “Genius is 1 per cent talent and 99 per cent hard work”, which clearly shows success is not about luck but perspiration.
By the same token, highly successful authors do not achieve this status by relying on luck; rather, they cultivate effective habits which run on autopilot and reward them with success. History bear witness to the fact that many authors despite the potential and natural skills, did not achieve what ordinary writers did. The reason behind this is the extra amount of work and effort that these ordinary writers put and achieved what others did not.
The massive success of some authors and frustrations of others is all a result of habits. Below are some certain habits that set apart successful writers from unsuccessful ones.
Habits of Best-selling Authors
You must have the aim of becoming a best-seller author and a dream to make it big, right? But for this, you must adhere to below-mentioned habits as there is no short-cut. Only these habits, which every successful author followed, can make you a star of your field.
1- Write Daily
You must have heard this advice before whenever you told your peers about it. But the question is, do you still write daily? I know it is a big ask when your writing career is in infancy but let me tell you, this is the most crucial period for you to stick to this habit. Once you cultivate this habit,says says Ethan Ellingson of DYNASYS TECH, it will become an addiction and you will not be able to sleep unless you have written something.
All the professional writers and authors schedule their writing time and then stick to it no matter what. Write on the days when you do not feel writing at all. All the professionals write in these days and write it a lot. Remember, the more you invest your time in writing the greater your work will be. Do whatever it takes and never quit.
2- A Good Writer is a Good Reader
How many times have you heard this? Probably innumerable times, right? Reading and learning are a crucial part of every writer. You can only produce good content when you are consuming good, and that is possible only when you invest in yourself. By investing, I mean
here is to invest in own education by reading books, attending writer’s conferences and personal development seminars, and taking online courses. Learning is a continuous process, the more you learn the better you become and probably the more you earn.
When you study successful authors, you will find one thing common in all of them: The desire to learn more. In view of Steve Theunissen of Smart Fitness Results, great writers never consider themselves a man who knows everything; rather, seek to learn from everyone they come across. For this, you only need the willingness to learn.
3- Plan Your Writing
Binki Kids of Projector Help believes in planning before starting writing. This concept, in writing, is called making an outline and scenes. The investment of a few minutes ahead of writing can save your lot of time or even your writing life. What if you started writing without any plan, thinking that something will happen in the middle, and it does not happen? In the end, you will be left with no other option but to quit your work as you do not know what to write next.
Best-selling authors do not leave their work to chance. They plan and then execute it. This saves a lot of time and the write-up becomes meaningful too. So, before you start writing, always plan it in your head or on paper.
4- Publish Quickly and Do not Procrastinate
The difference between an unknown writer and a successful writer is the urge to publish quickly. Many writers, despite the good ideas and magic of words, do not get the fame and success, which the other writer with same ideas gets, only because they published their book quickly. We often fall prey to the fear of embarrassment or wait for the perfect occasion, and in this time, some other writer writes the same idea and accumulates all the fame.
The truth is, it does not matter how extra-ordinary you are as a writer, unless and until you do not publish your work. So, leave the response to your audience and never procrastinate in publishing your work.
5- Do not Hesitate to Edit and Rewrite
“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You cannot edit a blank page,” this was the advice that Jodi Picoult, author of seven New York Times bestseller books, gave in an interview. Mistakes are part of writing and you must fall in love with rewriting and editing if you want to be a successful writer.
It may seem difficult sometimes but with every page edited you will learn a lot of new things. All the professional writer understand that editing is the only route which can lead to something extraordinary.
To top it all, every bestseller has a set of common habits which they follow every day. The indispensable habit is to write every day. As E.B. White, the famous author of Charlotte’s
Web, puts it, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” So, consider every day as an opportunity and be ready to write.