Progress in the Career of an Author and Writer

When I was young I had a dream of becoming a successful author with tons of published work. I'm not quite where I want to be yet, but I sure have made a lot of progress with my writing career.

When I was a kid I wanted to be the female version of Stephen King. I dreamed of writing fantastic stories and having tons of books out, and being rich from it. As my life progressed, things shifted and my one and only book, written when I was 13, went onto a shelf and my life took another direction. My life focused on my art for a long time, then a few years ago it came back to writing.

I was looking for ways to make money from home because health issues keep me from working a traditional job. Someone turned me on to eHow, and things just started rolling from there. I spent almost two years writing for them, and them I moved on to AC. During this time I also put out a book of my poetry, a how-to book, and several art books. I'm even in the process of writing an exercise book and a self-help book.

When it comes to my articles alone, I am amazed at the progress that I have made. At first, I didn't think I was going to be able to keep up with a regular writing schedule, but I have surprised myself with the amount of writing I have done. Here's a breakdown of what I have done in the last 2 years:

Arts & Crafts series: 43 articles

Herbal Health series: 18 articles

Living Green series: 17 articles

Pet Care series: 34 articles

Budget Living series: 26 articles

Vampires series: 19 articles

Spiritual Living series: 38 articles

Recipes series: 23 articles

How-to series: 98 articles

Random topics: 80 articles

That's a total of 396 pieces! I know there are some people out there who would consider that a trivial amount, but for me it's pretty impressive. I never thought I would be able to write so much. That's an average of an article every other day, which isn't too bad. Right now I'm trying to write a minimum of 2 articles a day, and sometimes I do as much as 8 in a day.

You also have to figure in that that 396 doesn't take into account the articles that I've written but not published yet, the 308 poems that I've written and published in a book, or any of the work I've done on other books that I'm working on. Overall, I'd say I'm not doing too bad when it comes to producing content.

Now, the place where I'm not doing so well yet is sales. I do make some money from my articles on AC, but so far I haven't sold any of my books. I figure that's probably because I haven't done a lot of advertising and not enough people know that they exist. I hate advertising and marketing, likely because I'm not very good at it, so there hasn't been a lot of buzz about the books yet. I'm hoping that will change in the near future.

My goal is to keep writing, and turn my articles into books, and sell a lot of them. I really want to be known for my writing, and I think if I keep at it, I can make that dream come true. I have 7 books out so far, and more on the way. Maybe one of my books will be on your shelf some day.