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)
- Virginia Wolfe, an English writer
- Agatha Christie, DBE, an English novelist, short story writer, and playwright
- Jane Austen, an English novelist
- George Eliot, an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator
- Mary Shelley, an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
- Charlotte Brontë, an English novelist and poet
- Flannery O’Connor, an American writer and essayist
- Daphne du Maurier, DBE, an English author and playwright
- J. K. Rowling, OBE FRSL, a British novelist
- Emily Brontë, an English novelist and poet
- 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
- Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights
- Margaret Mitchell, an American author and journalist
- Shirley Jackson, an American author
- Willa Cather, an American author
- Sylvia Plath, an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer
- Toni Morrison, an American novelist, editor, and professor and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature
- Anne Brontë, an English novelist and poet
- Doris Lessing, a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Alice Munro, a Canadian author
- S. E. Hinton, an American writer winner of the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award
- Elizabeth Gaskell, a British novelist and short story writer
- Marguerite Yourcenar, a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist and winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize
- Lois Lowry, an Newbery Medal award winning American writer
- Patricia Highsmith, an American novelist and short story writer
- Elizabeth Bowen, CBE was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer
- Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, a 19th-century German poet, author, and composer
- Anne Tyler, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic
- Dodie Smith, an English novelist and playwright
- E. Annie Proulx, an American journalist and author
- Diana Gabaldon, an American author
- Suzanne Collins, an American television writer and novelist
- Shirley Hazzard, an Australian author of fiction and non-fiction
- Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter
- Martina Cole, a British crime writer, businesswoman and occasional television presenter
- Elizabeth von Arnim, an Australian-born British novelist
- Karin Boye, a Swedish poet and novelist
- Linda Lael Miller, an American author of contemporary and historical romance novels
- Debra Webb, an American author of romantic suspense novels
Best Selling Female Authors (by # books sold)
- Agatha Christie
- Barbara Cartland
- Danielle Steel
- Enid Blyton
- J. K. Rowling
- Corín Tellado
- Jackie Collins
- Nora Roberts
- Janet Dailey
- Stan and Jan Berenstain
- Rumiko Takahashi
- Ann M. Martin
- Beatrix Potter
- Astrid Lindgren
- Debbie Macomber
- EL James
- Catherine Cookson
- Stephenie Meyer
- Anne Rice
- Judith Krantz
- Eleanor Hibbert
- Denise Robins
- Anne Golon
- Mary Higgins Clark
- Penny Jordan
- 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?