Types of Authors
| Novelist/Short Fiction Writer | ||
| Biographer/Autobiographer | ||
| Journalist | ||
| Scholarly/Textbook Author | ||
| How-To Author | ||
| Self-Help Author | ||
| Ghostwriter | ||
| Other Non-Fiction Authors | ||
From obscure poets to celebrity autobiographers, authors are the creative core of the book publishing industry. Today it is safe to say that there are more published and aspiring authors than at any time in history. Two principal developments have made this possible: (1) (historically) high levels of literacy and leisure; and (2) the proliferation of publication opportunities.
Technological advances have significantly lowered the costs of typesetting and printing, resulting in unprecedented opportunities for both established and aspiring publishers--and, therefore, writers. Contemporary outlets for writers include journals, magazines, newspapers, books, newsletters, business publications, advertising, theater, radio, television, film, and the Web. All of the information here applies only to writing books.
There are as many kinds of book authors as there are kinds of books. The following categories are some of the most common.
The term novelist covers a lot of territory--from the literature professor who toils for a decade on her magnum opus and sells 200 copies, to the millionaire author of courtroom thrillers who sells the movie rights to his novel before it's written. But all novelists have one thing in common: they are storytellers. Novelists create fictional worlds from their own experience and imagination. Novels are the single biggest-selling category of books.
Short fiction, before it is collected and published in book form, is almost always first published in magazines or literary journals. Many novelists also write short fiction, and a few writers specialize in it, but as a category, short fiction is much less popular than the novel.
A biographer is an author who tells the story of another person's life--usually a famous and/or historically significant person. Biography is a lengthy and research-intensive undertaking, and only rarely produces bestsellers. For this reason, most biographers are associated with universities or have other sources of income.
An autobiographer is a person who tells the story of his or her own life. Most often autobiographers are celebrities, businesspeople, or otherwise distinguished non-writers whose lives and views are deemed by a publisher to be of interest to the reading public. It is common for a professional writer to assist with or even assume the actual writing of an autobiography. See the ghostwriter section, below.
There are two main types of books written by journalists. One is a collection of previously published magazine articles. If the journalist is relatively unknown, these articles will tend to be united by theme. If he or she is well-known, the collection may take the form of a "best-of."
The second is a sustained non-fiction treatment of a particular area or issue on which the journalist has reported for magazines or newspapers. Often the book will be an expanded version of a previously published article.
"Publish or perish" is an axiom commonly heard in academia. Most professors and independent scholars choose to publish, and most write scholarly books aimed at a very narrow, specialized audience: other professors and graduate students. These kinds of books are generally printed in small quantities and not found in general-interest bookstores. Scholarly authors rely in great part on university presses, which are usually subsidized, since this area of book publishing is only modestly profitable at best.
Textbook authors usually specialize in one field of knowledge, and are frequently practitioners and/or educators in that field. Others are full-time employees of publishers. This sector of publishing is dominated by a few large firms.
The how-to category covers everything from cookbooks to software manuals. How-to authors tend to be experts in their field, and skilled at making technical knowledge accessible to lay readers. Because they are usually costly to produce and market, how-to books are typically originated and closely overseen by publishers, and their writers are either full-time employees or work on a contract basis. How-to authors sometimes work in teams.
The self-help sector is huge and profitable. Authors tend to be either celebrities or experts with advanced degrees in relevant fields.
A ghostwriter is someone who is not credited for the books he or she writes. The best-known kind of ghostwriting is the celebrity autobiography, but wherever a name is more important than writing ability, there is an opportunity for a ghostwriter.
"Non-Fiction" is catch-all category that covers everything from science to travel to humor to art criticism. The books have little in common; nor do their authors, except for the fact that most of them do not earn a living by writing books. This is a distinction they share with the majority of authors in every other category.