19 Dec 2023

Why And How To Become An Author

The profession of author - if it really is one - remains a sort of strangeness in France, an artistic vagueness, a profession at a crossroads: taken by passion, subject to an industry, lacking recognition at the same time for its status and sufficient financial prospects. However, it is a profession that we are accustomed to admire, at least to consider carefully. After all, that’s what we say about careers of passion. But these considerations are not enough to understand in a concrete way what an author is and how to become one. 

Indeed – no offense to some – we are not born an author, we become one (definitely Mme de Beauvoir will have made popular a very useful formula…). What shines the most, the talent that catches the eye tends to eclipse the rest: discipline, work, perseverance, which will often do much more for an author's career than a few flashes of genius. 

We will therefore talk here about the vocation to become an author but also about a real profession and the path to follow to become one.

Author, a profession? 

Being an author relies above all on demonstrating expertise in the art of writing, skills, a technical level which joins the notion of professionalization. These are not nuances but rather what will separate authors from the rest of the population because, let us not forget, everyone, in principle, can write. But being able to write and knowing how to write cover two very different realities, especially when it concerns the development of artistic works, far from the writing of 'a mail. 

Author is certainly a profession in the sense that one can become a professional and recognized author - the publication of one's books or collections of short stories is also the first marker of achieving this status. And by publication we mean here on behalf of a publisher, by a publishing house, and not on behalf of the author or by self-publication. 

However, the professionalization of the profession of author does not cover needs and recognition, which are nevertheless essential from which many other professions benefit: sufficient social security, guaranteed minimum financial prospects, or even negotiated advantages which exist for lawyers, notaries or even tertiary professions under Syntec. 

Moreover, and this may be a revealing sign, we can read on the website of the Youth Information and Documentation Center (the CIDJ), supported by the Ministry of National Education: “because talent prevails on the diploma, there is no professional training leading to the profession of author.”

Why should this be so different from all other professions which have professional paths and diplomas? This also fails to take into account the dozen or so university master's degrees in literary creation that have flourished in recent years in France. 

In fact, for the authors there is no recognized training but a partial professional status and above all limited financial prospects which prevent many authors make a living from it. 

As a reminder, nearly half of authors in France live on less than the minimum wage. They are paid in royalties, corresponding to a percentage of sales. Their income, paid once a year, therefore depends on the number of copies sold and, on the sidelines, on reissues and possible adaptation rights for cinema or television. 

What few readers know is thaton average authors receive 8% on the sale of each of their books, this is falling even 6% on average on children's books and it is not uncommon for first-time authors to be paid 3%. For comparison, distributors in the book chain can earn as much or more than the author...

Fortunately, book players are committed to better remunerating their authors, like the publishing house Brandon & company. 

It is therefore a question of not having any illusions about the profession of author: we do not experience it, with some exceptions. It is a profession that many combine with another, more remunerative, more stable one, as a basis for their creativity. Bestsellers and well-known and recognized authors are visible but rare and are the exceptions that confirm the rule: you don't make a living from writing in France. But this does not authorize pessimism or discouragement! If the places are expensive, they will one day be occupied by authors who are aspiring today and who do not yet suspect the success they will one day encounter. 

We become an author and we remain so through passion, through an interest in writing, through this need to express our attention to the world, our vision of people and things. So, once you decide, how do you get there?

Becoming an author or the perseverance to achieve some advice to follow  

Whether supervised or self-taught, it is essential to train as an author because, let us remember, it is above all a question of technical skills, well beyond the notion of creativity. 

Many formats exist in France today: from writing workshops to university courses through long-term cycles like those offered by Brandon & company, Les Mots school or again Emmanuel Bing. But training must become a habit and part of every author’s daily life. The best training remains reading. 

It is therefore a question ofreading, again and again, because an author cannot progress well without educating himself and taking example from others, draw inspiration and confront themselves with writings other than their own, with other styles, with other cultures of words. Actors go to the theater, painters attend exhibitions, and authors read. 

To become an author, you also need to rely on a concrete project: participate in a competition short stories, embarking on your first novel or drafting a play is the condition for everything to begin. You can't do anything with a blank page. In addition to reading and training, you have to write. 

Moreover, planning to become an author also involves a psychological transition. We must no longer write for ourselves but for others and accept from our bedroom to the public sphere, eventually. You have to be ready for this and the transition is not so simple: the way we approach the subject, whether or not we think about our future audience, directly influences our writing. A novel is not a diary otherwise, once again, anyone could write and get published. Only some succeed and it is in this nuance that the author's profession and the demands it implies are fixed. 

Finally, must be patient. They say that it takes between five and ten years to write a good first novel. This seems extremely long but this rule is often true in reality. Counting the dozens of versions of the manuscript, the months of rewriting, time passes both quickly and slowly but the essential is often forgotten by aspiring authors who take these steps: even before having been published, they are no longer the same authors as when they started. Years of practice will have already passed with the progress that comes with honest effort and we no longer write in the same way: the sentences are more precise, the words more accurate and the story much more rhythmic. It is already an achievement in itself to produce a good first manuscript. Let's not underestimate this first objective.

My experience as an author in the making

For several years, the goal of publication blurred my vision and prevented me from seeing what I really needed to do to progress in my writing. During my adolescence, at twenty years old, I wrote a lot but made very little progress because I did not train. I wanted to become an author without really giving myself the daily means. Of course, I read a lot and I wrote quite regularly but that stopped there. The notion of writing technique was very distant to me and I was rushing to finish my manuscripts so that I could send them to publishers and move on to the next one. I didn't take the time to progress, to examine my writing in depth and to realize that I was writing above all for myself, much more than for others.