The Amazon Chart for…

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine

The Top 20 Most Sold & Most Read Books of the Week is a chart Amazon does to rank books according to number of copies sold, pre-ordered and read on their subscription program.

What I want to bring attention to is the number of books, from one author, that appear in the week of April 14^th. The author is, J. K. Rowling. She has seven books on the list. Five of the seven books have been on the Top 20 most sold and read over a hundred weeks.

The first book she wrote, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), was an unparalleled success. The novels in the series have topped bestseller lists, won numerous awards, and translated into over sixty languages. It is reported the series has become the biggest sellers in the history of children’s writings.

The question is, who will be the next author to write a book that will begat a series and turn it into one of the biggest sellers? It could be you. Yes, even you.

I feel quite sure, J. K. Rowling, never dreamed her first book she wrote would become not only the success it was but would mushroom in to a series of best sellers and garner awards after awards let alone, made into movies.

It all started with her deciding to just start writing, where she was. Isn’t that the crux of any beginning? To just start.

Don’t allow starting to write to intimidate you. Remember, not starting, kills the writing.

Don’t make it hard, just relax and let your mind begin from wherever it is. You can even tell yourself; I will put down on paper whatever my mind thinks and do this for one minute – two minutes . . . you set the amount of time. After that amount of time, if you still have things to put on paper, continue to write. When you do stop, relax and feel good you accomplished the hard part, beginning. (The words written do not have to even make sense. What is important is that you started.)

Now that you rested, start the process again, let the words in your mind pour on to the page.

The part we are sometimes afraid of is the “getting started”. The what if’s and the buts, set aside for now, just relax and get to know what words, what thoughts, what ideas are playing around in your head.

You may have the next best-selling book of all time.