Who Does Your Greatest Success Look Like?

Who does your greatest success look like? Is it someone who has accomplished things, fame, made lots of money? Or are there other criteria you use to measure success?

It’s good to have goals for a day, a week, a month but what are your goals for your lifetime? Do you know who you want to be? 

This is the question I’ve pondered recently. During my reflections, I decided to look at female authors who have attained a level of success. I started with the Best Novelists of All Time on Ranker then went to the Best Selling Fiction Authors list on Wikipedia.

Best Female Novelists of All Time (adapted from Ranker)

1. Virginia Wolfe, an English writer 
2. Agatha Christie, DBE, an English novelist, short story writer, and playwright
3. Jane Austen, an English novelist 
4. George Eliot,  an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator
5. Mary Shelley, an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
6. Charlotte Brontë, an English novelist and poet
7. Flannery O’Connor, an American writer and essayist
8. Daphne du Maurier, DBE, an English author and playwright
9. J. K. Rowling, OBE FRSL, a British novelist
10. Emily Brontë, an English novelist and poet 
11. Margaret Atwood, CC OOnt FRSC is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist and winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature
12. Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights
13. Margaret Mitchell, an American author and journalist
14. Shirley Jackson, an American author
15. Willa Cather, an American author
16. Sylvia Plath, an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer
17. Toni Morrison, an American novelist, editor, and professor and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature
18. Anne Brontë, an English novelist and poet
19. Doris Lessing, a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
20. Alice Munro, a Canadian author
21. S. E. Hinton, an American writer winner of the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award
22. Elizabeth Gaskell, a British novelist and short story writer
23. Marguerite Yourcenar, a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist and winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize
24. Lois Lowry, an Newbery Medal award winning American writer
25. Patricia Highsmith, an American novelist and short story writer
26. Elizabeth Bowen, CBE was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer
27. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, a 19th-century German poet, author, and composer
28. Anne Tyler, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic
29. Dodie Smith, an English novelist and playwright
30. E. Annie Proulx, an American journalist and author
31. Diana Gabaldon, an American author
32. Suzanne Collins, an American television writer and novelist
33. Shirley Hazzard, an Australian author of fiction and non-fiction
34. Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter
35. Martina Cole, a British crime writer, businesswoman and occasional television presenter
36. Elizabeth von Arnim, an Australian-born British novelist
37. Karin Boye, a Swedish poet and novelist
38. Linda Lael Miller, an American author of contemporary and historical romance novels
39. Debra Webb, an American author of romantic suspense novels

Best Selling Female Authors (by # books sold)

1. Agatha Christie
2. Barbara Cartland
3. Danielle Steel
4. Enid Blyton
5. J. K. Rowling
6. Corín Tellado
7. Jackie Collins
8. Nora Roberts
9. Janet Dailey
10. Stan and Jan Berenstain
11. Rumiko Takahashi
12. Ann M. Martin
13. Beatrix Potter
14. Astrid Lindgren
15. Debbie Macomber
16. EL James
17. Catherine Cookson
18. Stephenie Meyer
19. Anne Rice
20. Judith Krantz
21. Eleanor Hibbert
22. Denise Robins
23. Anne Golon
24. Mary Higgins Clark
25. Penny Jordan
26. Patricia Cornwell

Who Does Your Greatest Success Look Like?

Do you have a success hero? Over the next few posts, I’ll explore the successes of these authors and those of the top science fiction and fantasy authors. We’ll discuss lessons we can take from them. Do any of these authors look like your greatest success hero? Are there women in other fields you consider your success hero?