Want to Be A Writer? Here’s How to Become an Author

Last updated: November 6, 2023

Sharing your thoughts, ideas, and opinions with the world can unlock your hidden potential and open new doors for you. If you love to write, the idea of becoming an author probably appeals to you. Maybe you dream of becoming a New York Times best-selling author, or you hope to start a blog with your name in the byline. Becoming a published author is an easy thing to do. The hardest part of it is just taking that first step into the unknown. But the unknown can be a wondrous experience, as you can finally achieve your dreams and go down a path you know your true heart desires. In this article, we will share how to become an author to set you up for the success you deserve.

1. Read a lot of books to see how authors write
2. Start creative writing daily
3. Test your author skills with different genres, styles, and more
4. Learn how to use writing tools to be more efficient
5. Choose your genre
6. Reach out to publications to become a published author
7. Reach out to an agent to learn how to become a bestselling author
8. Draft your first outline for your gig
9. Write your first piece of paid content
10. Get feedback from an editor, an author, or another writer
11. Hit publish
12. Never stop writing, even if the critics are harsh

How to Become an Author in 2024

1. Read a lot of books to see how authors write

Your creative writing skills will be influenced by the words you see written by published authors. Successful writers are always active readers. You don’t need to only read in the genre you hope to write in. There are so many brilliant stories, poems, blog posts, and more written in so many fields, from sci-fi to business. Before you understand the writing fundamentals, you’ll need to see different writing styles to understand the power of words. You might read a short story where you flip through the pages at lightning speed or read a piece of technical writing that you read painfully slowly. Understanding the moods and emotions a bunch of words on a screen can have will inspire you to pour your whole heart into everything you write. When a best-selling author has moved you, you’ll feel the urge to want to move others with your words, too. Becoming an author, a really great one, requires a lot of reading homework. But when you love words, you’ll find reading words hand-picked by others easy. So, step one: pick up any book, read any blog post or any written work, and see what journey it takes you on.

2. Start creative writing daily

Most people are afraid to take that first step as an author. They’ll daydream about it for months (or even years) and never take that first step. You might not be ready to take the full plunge yet, but you can experiment in a journal, notebook, or on your phone. Most writers have some document where they’ll scribble down catchphrases or sentences that pop up in their minds. Doing an activity like this can help you gain confidence in yourself. To develop the right skills, you need to write a lot. Most successful writers are prolific, meaning they write a lot, so get those creative juices flowing by writing short stories, poems, scribbled thoughts, or other words. They don’t have to be perfect. You might never publish these. Just challenge yourself to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard to get started on your creative writing. Careers in writing require a lot of practice. This is the best way to learn and get started.

3. Test your author skills with different genres, styles, and more

As you begin to fill your notebooks with ideas, it’s time to experiment. True mastery of any subject comes from failure. The more you fail, the more likely you are to succeed. To fail well, you’ll need to explore various genres, styles, and more to see what you’re really good at. You might find that what you naturally feel like doing is great, but when you explore something different, you’re like, “Wow, I really excel at this.” The best part about learning how to master the written word is that there are so many avenues you can take. Some authors prefer writing romance novels because they can always imagine a new way to tell a love story, or maybe they’re inspired by all the love stories they see in their daily lives. Other authors use writing as a tool for self-expression and pour out every little emotion they’ve ever felt and pinpoint it so precisely that people deeply connect with it. Before you share your work with others, you’ll want to push yourself to avoid getting stuck in a genre or niche until you’ve tested your writing skills in countless genres to see what makes your words pop.

4. Learn how to use writing tools to be more efficient

Depending on what kind of author you hope to be, you may need to use tools in your everyday work to take your writing to the next level. You might use AI tools to help you optimize blog posts for search or develop outline ideas. You might also use AI grammar tools to help ensure your work is edited for typos and minor grammatical errors before sending it off to an editor who will do a more enhanced check. Most writers use tools like Google Docs to write their best work. Content calendar tools help you keep track of tasks and upcoming deadlines to ensure you’re always on top of your work. And if you’re looking to learn how to create an author website, you might check out a tool like Payhip to help you master how to sell ebooks or sell digital downloads, such as reports, templates, or PDFs.

5. Choose your genre

After spending some time writing and playing around with tools, it’s time to choose your genre as a writer. Having a niche focus will allow you to become well-known for that content style. It’ll make it easier for people to hire you for projects, and you can build an audience around yourself. You’ll want to choose a niche that has a lot of open-ended ideas that you can write about and explore. And you’ll also want to select a genre that people are willing to buy books from. If you’re stuck on what to choose, you can explore some of these ebook ideas to get started. If you’re thinking of being a writer instead of a book author, you might choose industries that people do a lot of research about. For example, people often Google how to make money online, celebrity gossip, calculators, translation tools, and more. You can make a website selling digital products you write copy for, host a blog, and get your content out there while earning income from product sales, tools, and advertising.

6. Reach out to publications to become a published author

If you have a way with words, you’ll want to practice writing your own pitch to publications for a chance to have your work published on an actual website. There are millions of websites all over the internet that hire writers. You can reach out to publications on an individual level or apply to opportunities on freelance writing job board sites. You can also apply to writing, content marketing, content strategy, or copywriting roles to help you become a published writer or author. On most sites, authors will have their own byline that they can use to build a personal brand around themselves. It’ll give you experience as a published author in a niche. If you direct people back to your website or social media, you can build a loyal audience.

7. Reach out to an agent to learn how to become a bestselling author

Sending a letter, email, or social media message to an agent will help you build a relationship with someone who can help you achieve success as a published author. Agents have all the industry connections you’ll need to get signed as an author. Agents will help ensure you get paid a good royalty, will bridge the gap between you and your publisher, and will also be doing all your pitching for you. While you can do that yourself, you’ll be more at risk of getting a bad deal as you will have less experience than an agent. Hence, choosing a good agent can help you become an author faster, so instead of choosing an agent based on their fee, choose one based on their results.

8. Draft your first outline for your gig

Writing your first outline for a paid piece of content will help your publisher, agent, or editor know you’re on the right track. While you shouldn’t rely on AI tools to write a high-quality outline, you can use a generator to come up with ideas to make sure you’ve covered all your bases. However, most professional writers know a topic so well that AI tools usually only cover a topic on a surface level with minimal depth. How long an ebook is will depend on how many sections your outline for your ebook is. The more sections you create, the more you’ll be able to write.

9. Write your first piece of paid content

After speaking to an agent and working on your first outline, it’s time to write your manuscript or first piece of content. If you’re writing a nonfiction piece, you’ll want to have all your sources approved to ensure you’re writing accurate content. If you’re writing a fiction book, you’ll need to work on telling an engaging story from beginning to end. For those of you writing blog posts, you’ll need to have your content formatted with correct header tags, packed with helpful information, and attention-grabbing titles to ensure people read your content. The average writer only writes about 2,000 or 3,000 words per day. The steps to get there can be hard when first starting, but aiming for that as a daily word count will help you stay on top of deadlines.

10. Get feedback from an editor, an author, or another writer

Your author skills can further develop with the help of others. While it can be painful to see someone slash away countless words you thoughtfully put into your draft, it’s necessary to elevate your work. The world of publishing is a serious business. Publishers know how to elevate someone’s words to great heights. Experienced editors, authors, and writers can look at your content and take it to a whole new level. Don’t be married to anything you’ve written. The information they share with you is so that you achieve success. A successful author has to let go of the idea that their work is unchangeable. It is. Take all the advice you can get along every stage of feedback. Revise your work endlessly. As a writer, you don’t have a career in editing. Self-editing can be done, but it won’t be nearly as good as a publisher or editor who’s worked on countless best-sellers. Use the feedback as your opportunity to learn and gain an education in improving your skills. You don’t need a college degree to write, but there’s still going to be people looking over your work.

11. Hit publish

The moment you become an author is the day you finally hit publish. Whether that’s the day you publish your first blog post or add your new book to your very own website. If you want to know how to become a writer, it’s the moment the world can finally know you exist. While the first book or blog post will be a memorable one, years from now, you’ll see how far you’ve come in terms of your writing skills. Avoid taking too much time to hit publish. It can be scary to get your work out there, but success comes from writing endless numbers of books and published content. The degree of success you achieve will come from putting out as much content out there, and your expertise will also grow because of that. While the first published piece is a milestone, it’s only the start of the first chapter of your journey. Keep going.

12. Never stop writing, even if the critics are harsh

There are two ways of thinking: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. To succeed as an author, you’ll need a growth mindset. There will be times you write books and don’t sell any copies. Other times, you might write something you’re really proud of, only to have one critical comment kill your high. As an author, people will critique your writing all the time. The authors who succeed will be the ones who continuously challenge themselves to read those harsh comments and improve their writing because of it. Perfection is attained from failure. And you’ll need to create tons of bad books or blog posts to get to a level where people love your work. Becoming a bestselling author from your first book is unusual. You’ll need to keep writing and doing a ton of book promotion (learn how to market an ebook) to see numbers soar. We recommend that you continue to push yourself to write even when you fail, get negative Facebook or Instagram comments, or feel like you need to become a true expert. Your success will come with time if you keep writing, learning from mistakes, and moving forward.

Become an author with Payhip

You can become an author with Payhip. Payhip is a website builder for digital products like ebooks. Authors can protect their ebooks from ebook piracy to ensure that they’re securely being sent to paying customers. On this platform for authors, you’ll be able to set your own prices and sell other supplementary products like online courses, coaching services, or physical products like books. From the marketing side, authors can set up affiliate programs so others can market their ebooks for them, upsell and cross-sell other products, and build their own email lists. The best part about Payhip is that you can make your website for free and only pay a 5% transaction fee per sale. At most, the royalty for book sales is usually 70% for authors who self-publish. With Payhip, you’d get to earn 95%. Sign up for Payhip to build your own author website today!