Carol Vorvain (@writersboon) is an Australian international lawyer, mediator, author and founder of Writers Boon. Her books, When Dreams are Calling, Why not? - The island where happiness starts with a question and A Fool in Istanbul - The adventures of a self-denying workaholic have been featured in a number of travel magazines including the International Traveller magazine and can be found in libraries, bookstores and on Amazon.
The Guinness World Records documents amazing achievements all around the world.
To celebrate authors, here are some of the best book-related world records.
Youngest person to write a published book
Dorothy Straight (b. 25 May 1958), of Washington, DC, USA is the youngest commercially published female author. She wrote How the World Began in 1962, aged 4.
First billion-dollar author
Who else then J.K. Rowling. The seven Harry Potter books have sold a total of 400 million copies around the world and are published in 55 languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek.
Highest earning adult fiction author
You guessed: Erika Leonard James (published as E L James), author of the Fifty Shades… series of novels is the most successful author of adult fiction. During the period June 2012 to June 2013, the British author netted a cool US$95million.
First self-published author to sell one million e-books
In 2010, James Patterson, a self-published author has achieved the feat of selling one million Kindle-formatted e-books on Amazon.
In June 2011, John Locke passed this impressive milestone. Using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service Locke’s total sales for his 21 novels are estimated to be in excess of 2 million.
Highest annual earnings for a children's author
First appearing on educational browser site FunBrain in 2004, Diary of a Wimpy Kid has grown into a global franchise with 11 instalments and 3 feature films. The series brought author Jeff Kinney earnings of $19.5 m.
Fastest time to produce a novel
The fastest time to produce a novel by a team of writers is 9 hours 5 minutes 8 seconds for "Moş Crăciun & Co" (Santa Claus & Co.), a collaborative book by 53 Romanian professional authors and academics.
The record attempt began at 10:20 a.m. with the conception of the original plot and characters. The developing and writing of the novel took 5 hours 35 minutes in total, after which the book was edited, proof-read and printed. The first finished copy was ready at 7:25 p.m.
Fastest selling book of fiction in 24 hours
The fastest selling book in history is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours or 345,833 books per hour.
Source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com
Lesson learned
Follow your calling. Believe in yourself. Write.
“Just write. Never mind the damn statistics. If you like statistics, become a CPA.” - Jim Murray