In all honesty, I would start writing from an earlier age. I didn't release my first book until I was in my thirties, which I understand is the average age nowadays, but I think if I'd starting doing something with my love or writing sooner, my life may be very different now
As with so many other authors I know, hitting the NYT and USAT bestsellers lists is right up there. To some authors, hitting those lists isn't important to them, and while I won't stop writing, even if I don't get to those lofty heights, being able to put USA Today Bestseller or USA Today bestseller on the cover of my books would be pretty awesome.
As I'm not at the stage where I can write full-time yet, I still have to a maintain a forty hour work week. I try and write for at least one hour every evening, increasing this at weekends. If the words are flowing freely, I also take my laptop into work with me so I can write on my lunch break.
The short answer to this is yes. I'm not going to say which book it is, you'll have to figure that one out for yourself, but one of my books has some events that really happened in my life incorporated into it.
It is very important, the cover more so than the title. When I was starting out, I didn't really understand how important a cover was, so I tried to do them myself. The younger me thought they were great, but I soon realised that this wasn't the case. From doing it myself, I moved on to finding groups on social media that sold premade covers, and then on to custom designs. I have three designers that I go to for my covers, depending on the book I'm writing at the time. The cover is the first thing that catches the eyes of readers, and it's true what they say, "first impressions are the most important." The cover an author chooses is the first impression of their book, so it needs to be right.
Yes I do, and I take them as they come. When I got my first 1 star review, I was devastated, as I think most new authors are, but then I learnt that you can't please everybody. Not everyone is going to like the traits you give your leading man, or that the leading lady isn't as strong and powerful as they might like them to be. I've been lucky in that most of my reviews have been 4/5 star, but those that are less than that have had come constructive criticism in them, and I have taken some comments on board. A negative review is still a review, and it shows someone has taken the time out of their day to read my book, and comment about it.
