• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Writing for Authors
13 Oct 2020 at 08:00 AM PDT
Updated 3 months ago

5 Qualities of Successful Authors

By Catia Shattuck

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

Browse by topic

All Posts Author Pages Author Website Cover Design Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Mailing Lists Promotion & Marketing Publishing Tips Social Media Technical Tips Tutorials Writing for Authors

qualities of successful authors

I'm a book wyrm
We hope you enjoy reading this post!
If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.

Most non-authors think writing a book is easy and they could do it if they only had time. In fact, many people plan on writing a book once they retire. But more often than not, they start a book and don’t finish it, or they don’t get it published. So what qualities actually help a person succeed as an author?

1. Creativity

Obviously, you can’t create something if you aren’t creative. If you are creative, you are able to take old, existing ideas and combine them in new, interesting ways. For fiction writing, there are a lot of typical plots out there (billionaire, boy-meets-girl, second-chance love, etc.), and to make your book good, you need to be creative enough to introduce new elements that will make your story stand out. For nonfiction, you have to present the material in an easy-to-understand way that gives more value than can be found by simply looking up the topic on the Internet.

The good news is that creativity can be developed with practice!

2. Discipline

Finishing a book takes discipline. It takes consistency, whether that is every day or weekly, depending on your schedule and whether or not you have a day job. It also takes multiple revisions and being able to read your book again and again and again. Book writing, whether fiction or nonfiction is often like putting a complicated puzzle together. Setting daily and weekly writing goals is a good way to maintain discipline.

3. Willing to Learn Something New

This quality helps in three ways:

  1. We live in an evolving world; the way authors work today is not the way authors worked decades ago. Today, work is done digitally, and to communicate and work with editors and designers, authors have to be willing to learn about and use new technology. Authors also need to be able to learn about marketing their book digitally, and self-published authors have to learn about ebooks and how to upload their books for sale on digital retailers, such as Amazon.
  2. If you never learn new things, your writing will become stale; you can only write what you know. Authors destined to succeed are eager for new knowledge and experiences that they can incorporate into their writing.
  3. Research is another way to learn new things. By thoroughly researching, you will likely learn far more than you will ever include in any given book, but the result is writing more authentically.

4. Willing to Improve

An author knows there is always room for improvement, whether that is improving their own writing skills with practice, or accepting criticism and feedback on the books they’ve written without getting defensive. Revisions will help you create a book that readers will be able to follow easily.

5. Observant

Authors observe the world around them so they can write better.

For fiction writing, authors need to understand how their own characters think and act. Authors can do this by observing those around them and trying to understand how and why those around them act in a certain way. Fiction authors are fascinated by the inner workings of the minds of those around them. Authors can also take what they see and use pieces of it in their books. Multiple pieces can be used in a single character.

For nonfiction writing, authors need to understand what their target reader might think and what questions they might have so they can answer everything that might come up, as well as bring up things the reader might have never considered. Observation, along with research (see #3), will help you cover all aspects of the subject, give examples from real life, and show you are an authority on the subject.

What qualities do you think successful authors have? Let us know in the comments below!

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more writing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2020 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “5 Qualities of Successful Authors” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to this post. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Avatar for Catia Shattuck
Catia Shattuck

I am a copyeditor and a typesetter of print books, and have been editing and typesetting (using InDesign) for twelve years. As the executive editor at Book Cave, I enjoy helping authors be successful, and I only get interrupted a little bit (ha!) by my cute, rambunctious one-year-old.


Share this authorpost

Keep Reading

books that will make you a better writer

Essential Books That Will Make You a Better Writer

Becoming a good writer is a process that is continually developed, and the skill requires constant practice and study. In this post, I’ll be taking a look at the essential books that will make you a better writer.

Funny Writer Shirts

Are You One of those WEIRD Authors? Top 8 Funny Writer Shirts

So you’re a WEIRD author. That’s great news! Celebrate your uniqueness with one of these funny writer shirts.

book presentations

Humor and the Personal Connection when Giving Book Presentations

Book presentations are nice stream of secondary income. It takes time to build visibility, but when you use humor to connect with the audience, your presentation will be a success and open the door to more possibilities.

Hello fellow book lover! We hope you are enjoying this post.
If you want free, content-rated ebooks that you can download straight from your favorite retailer, just sign up for our free newsletter
Sign me up!

Leave a Reply

Cancel


Comments

    Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
    Book Cave
    Book Cave Direct
    My Book Ratings
    MY BOOK RATINGS
    Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
    • Sitemap
    • Contact Us
    • Free ebooks
    © Book Cave - All the rights reserved!