Cynthia Woolf

I can thank a friend of mine for my career in general. She was a writer friend in my same writing group, and in 2011 she asked me if I wanted to publish with her. I had no idea what she was talking about - this was when Amazon Kindle was just getting started and you could publish your stories with them for people to buy and read. My success has been based on her getting me into this career and pushing me to do something that I never would have done without her help and her belief in me that I could do it.

The best advice that I was given is to look at this career as a marathon and not a sprint. It's something that's going to take some time, something that needs to be prioritized in your life if you're going to be a successful writer and be published. You need to take it seriously. It's not a hobby, it is a career.

I would tell them to be patient. Because it is a marathon trip. You hear about these people, and their first book takes off, and they make millions of dollars - like Diana Gabaldon was one of those people, her first book took off. But that's not the norm. That's abnormal. So I would tell writers that are just starting out to be patient, and to hone their craft, and to learn as much as they can every day.

The biggest opportunities right now are in taking and putting your books on audio. More and more people are listening on commutes and things like that, so getting your books into audio is something that I'm working on, and I noticed that a lot of other authors that I know are working on trying to get their books in audio too. I've got 86 or 87 books published right now, and I think I have 33 of them in audio - maybe it's 31, I don't know. But I think that's the biggest opportunity - to write your books, get them published, and put them into audio.

First of all, I value honesty more than anything. Whether it's reading my book and telling me it's terrible, or reading it and telling me it's great, as long as you're honest about it, then I appreciate it very much. And the same in my personal life - I like people who are honest with me. I like loyalty. People who are loyal. I'm a very loyal person, and I like that trait in other people. And I like people who have a good time and have a good sense of humor. My husband was a very outgoing and gregarious man, had the best sense of humor that you can imagine. It was just amazing, and people gravitated to him because he was so gregarious and humorous and fun.