In the 21st century, writing is one of the choices available as a career and it presents vast opportunities, one of them is being an author and writing books.
Sicelo Nkosi from Daveyton recently wrote a book, he says an author “is a person who writes for the benefit of the people, you must be passionate about passing on information by putting your thoughts on paper to inform, inspire or educate.”
Most people have writing a book as part of their bucket list, for most its an autobiography detailing their lives.
However many tertiary institutions, as well as writing clubs, offer training allowing people to make a living out of writing.
Sicelo suggests that anyone who wants to be an author needs “passion, inspiration and discipline to stay on course and focus on the subject to be communicated.”
To be a writer you also need “a great way of putting words together, which will enable understanding and catch the attention of the reader,” adds Sicelo
The advantage of being a writer is that it doesn’t need expensive production tools as many writers use pen and paper, but you will need a typist once you are done.
For Sicelo, writing is important because the information is passed on to other generations.
Writing a book doesn’t have a certain time frame and can vary from weeks to years depending on the content, inspiration and speed of the writer.
The challenge in being an author according to Sicelo can be in getting your book published “you need to approach any publisher who might be interested in publishing your work or you can self publish through a publisher.”
However you need to get an “appropriate and effective publisher,” Sicelo says most publishers pay royalties.
As an author you can expect “demand of your time by the media and criticism from your readers, you must not be faint-hearted.
