Success in publishing is actually quite simple. Honestly I am surprised more people aren’t more successful financially as an author. So many conference workshops are making this entire publishing thing far more complicated than it needs to be.

Today, here are six fast, easy, no risk steps to being a successful author in any type of writing. We will all be shaking our heads at the end for missing these simple actions.

I also want to apologize on behalf of this agency for making success at publishing sound difficult and complicated.  We have been misleading you for a long time and this blog post today is about to set the record straight.

So, here are six fast, easy, no risk steps to being a successful author:

1. Quit your day job today and live off your savings for the three weeks necessary to accomplish steps 2-6.
2. Become a good writer while writing your first book. (Ten days max.)
3. Establish your author platform (Three days.)
4. Develop a creative voice and style like none other to stun and create awe in the hearts of readers. (Two days.)
5. Get an agent. (Another two days.)
6. Get published and start making money (Four days.)

I almost feel embarrassed we haven’t covered this earlier. Of course, we have a vested interest as agents to make it sound more difficult than it really is, to justify our jobs and careers. But now, the cat is out the bag.

Yes, this was written tongue-in-cheek (keyboard-in-cheek?). If career success at writing were easy, then anyone could do it and of course, everyone cannot do this.

In fact, the six steps above happen approximately in years, not days. Ten years (or more) to work on writing, several years each on platform building, style development, getting an agent and getting published.

Even success at self-publishing, while skipping some of the steps, requires working on the craft, the platform and years of marketing yourself through the platform.

By the way, if you think author platform is important only for the traditional publishers, just try to be successful at self-publishing without it. Your opinion will change in a hurry when sales of your book don’t meet expectations because your book goes unnoticed amidst the avalanche of new books from traditional and other self-published authors.

About two thousand new books release every day in the US, including weekends. (Traditional and self-published combined.)

Really, it is pretty easy to be published. But it is very difficult to be published well.

Those two things, being published and being published well are often entirely different paths.

So you want a quick list of things on becoming a successful author? Things that don’t take years? Try this list on for size:

1. Care deeply about what you write, but not so deeply you reject editing or suggestions.
2. Treat deadlines as important, even those self-imposed. They aren’t set just for fun. Deadlines make things happen.
3. Recommend books to others, which are not written by you. They’ll believe you more when you tell them about your new book.
4. Care about other people more than yourself…or a copy of your new book.
5. Give courage to other aspiring authors. Courage is currency given one to another. (Where do you think “encourage” came from?)
6. Decide how you want to be remembered. Conduct yourself accordingly.

I’ve always liked lists. Making them, reading them, using them or having fun with them.  And sometimes they may even make me think.