J.K Rowling is arguably one of the greatest names in the world of literature when it comes to magic and fantasy and she has created a legacy that is nearly impossible to match.
When you think of her, the first thing that might come to your mind is Harry Potter and that is for good reason because the Harry Potter series is by far one of the most popular series of books and movies all over the world. We are including the movies to her credit because without her books there would not have been any movies.
The Harry Potter franchise is worth nearly $25 billion with the movies having made around $8 billion in box office and the books having been sold 500 million copies.
These are astronomical numbers and her books have catapulted her into the hearts and minds of every child and adult who has seen or read Harry Potter.
This comes with its perks because J.K Rowling is now a billionaire and this is quite an accomplishment because it is very rare for authors to become billionaires just from a series.
Let us look at some of her works.
The Works Of J.K Rowling
J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World
We are of course going to start the list with the Harry Potter books starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
This was published all the way back in 1997 and paved the way for some of the most seminal books on magic and wizarding which included back-to-back hits from books like:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
These were followed by the Fantastic Beasts Series as well as other books on wizardry.
Robert Galbraith
However, not many people know that she also got into crime fiction right after she completed writing her books on magic and fantasy.
J.K Rowling actually took on the pseudonym Robert Galbraith to write a series of books about crime fiction and these are also bestsellers.
She is such a master at her work that some people have actually read these books without even knowing that they were written by her.
It includes the books:
The Cuckoo’s Calling
The Silkworm
Career of Evil
Lethal White
Troubled Blood
The Ink Black Heart
The Running Grave
She always loved detective fiction and reading books like that and that is why she decided to experiment with this genre and thus Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series was born.
There is a lot to learn and understand about an author by how they act and this can be observed by the fact that she decided to utilise a pseudonym because she wanted to experience feedback that would not be influenced by her Harry Potter fame.
She is someone who loves the act of writing and that is why she did not want her Harry Potter fame to cloud the judgement of her readers and that is why taking on the name of Robert was an act of humility by this great author.
In her words, “Being Robert Galbraith was all about the work, which is my favourite part of being a writer.”
Other Works
Apart from the Harry Potter and the magical series of works and the crime fiction series of Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike, she also wrote other books.
These include:
The Casual Vacancy
Very Good Lives
The Ickabog
The Christmas Pig
While these are not as popular as her other books but they are also an incredible read because they are written by the same author who has created the legendary Harry Potter series.
We actually recommend that you read these other works if you are truly a J.K. Rowling fan.
This is actually remarkable that a single person has managed to create such an empire and a legacy but some people have their doubts.
So, Why Is This So Remarkable? Are There Any Rumours Going Around?
It is remarkable because the imagination of a single person has managed to create this entire magical world and enterprise across countries and continents along with other very popular series that have been adopted in TV and cinema.
It is her writing skills and imagination that have crafted this billion-dollar brand.
Or is it?
Some people allege and genuinely believe that J.K Rowling didn’t write the Harry Potter books herself or at least not all of them. These people believe that she either utilised ghostwriters for writing the Harry Potter books or plagiarised them from others.
You can find numerous opinions online on different forums of people claiming that J.K Rowling did not write the books.
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Some of them are opinion-based like the person above who feels that she could not have written a series like that because she does not behave like a person that could write it.
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While others are less driven by emotion and are more logical and based on curiosity rather than plain old dislike.
And of course, there are others that go into the category of full-on conspiracy theories.
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While you can go around investigating these rumours yourself and we actually encourage you to do that, you might probably be disappointed after doing some research.
This is because J.K Rowling has a highly documented career spanning from the time when she was a nobody and nobody knew her and she got rejected by multiple publishers to the time she became a household name.
She has her handwritten notes, thousands of interviews, witnesses etc.
She has documented the writing process of Harry Potter in extreme detail and has talked about her inspirations and how she came up with characters.
J.K Rowling and The Order of Lawsuits
Every great art comes with a series of plagiarism allegations and that is also the case with J.K. Rowling as a lot of people have not just thrown around rumours but have actually taken her to court.
One of the most famous cases of this happening was with the American author Nancy Kathleen Stouffer who accused J.K Rowling of stealing her trademarks and ideas.
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Stouffer even has her own series of books by the name of Larry Potter.
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The entire basis of her lawsuit was the fact that she invented the word “Muggles” and that it was stolen from her and while the characters in the stories do not completely resemble Harry Potter but there were similarities.
The court sided with Rowling and Scholastic Press (her American publisher) and Warner Bros. (holders of the series’ film rights) and declared that she did not infringe on any rights of Stouffer and her works. It was established that N.K. Stouffer was a fraud.
So, Did J.K Rowling Use a Ghostwriter?
There is simply no evidence to suggest that JK Rowling ever used the services of a ghostwriter and this is because she has documented her entire writing process very meticulously.
There is a lot of proof around her actually being the author of the entire series of books she has written and especially the Harry Potter series.
Her documentation of the entire process of writing the books is so detailed that she even has the actual handwritten pages of the first drafts of Philosopher’s Stone. If someone wishes to they can DNA test and carbon date the pages.
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She has documented her entire writing process where she mentions the fact that she always starts with a pen and paper.
She also describes using tables with colour-coded sections and outlines as well as corrected pieces and other detailing techniques for plotting the novels on hand-drawn spreadsheets. Her plotting spreadsheets are readily available online and support her claim of authenticity beyond any reasonable doubt.
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It is actually fascinating to study her entire process of writing her books and you can expect amazing levels of motivation when you actually try to follow her process or get inspired by her process and create your own novels.
So, we can rest the case and conclude the fact that JK Rowling wrote all her books by herself without utilising ghostwriters.
However, there is always a however. Even if she utilised ghostwriters for writing her novels, it would be nearly impossible to know that.
This is if that ghostwriting agency was as professional as ours.
This is because a ghostwriting contract is only valid when the privacy clause as well as the secrecy clause is maintained and if there is a violation then the client can actually take the agency to court, not to mention the entire reputation of the agency going down the drain.
That is why although is certain that she did not use a ghostwriter for her books but even if she did, we would never be a hundred per cent certain about it.
Although our personal opinion is that she did not use ghostwriters.
This brings us to another fascinating part of this blog where we talk about writing tips straight from the mouth of the legend.
Writing Tips By J.K Rowling Herself
Reading
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The first and most important tip by J.K. Rowling to young writers is that no one can expect to be a good writer and an author if they are not good readers.
Reading is actually the best way to understand and analyse a book and writing a book is very technical.
She also explains the part that it is very much possible that a writer might imitate their favourite writers and that new writers should not worry about that.
She adds that if writers continue writing on their own then they are definitely going to find their distinctive voice.
Discipline
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J.K. Rowling states that discipline is one of the most important elements of writing and that discipline can actually translate moments of pure inspiration into something that resembles a book.
According to her, everyone gets flashes of pure inspiration but if a writer does not have discipline in their lives, they cannot turn that inspiration into a book.
She states that perspiration is much more important than inspiration and that there might be times when the inspiration might fail but the writer should continue their work nonetheless.
Resilience and humility
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Humility is one of her greatest virtues and J.K. Rowling states that resilience can only be possible with rejection as she has witnessed multiple times in her life.
It is very normal to face criticism no matter how brilliant the work is and she also adds that informed feedback is very useful and necessary and every writer needs rejection and humbling feedback.
We believe that being humble is one of the best qualities any writer can have and especially a writer who has seen success because if a writer forgets humility, then they can never create something remarkable yet again.
That was actually the case with J.K. Rowling as he saw failure as well as success but if she took that success to head then she might not have been able to write the rest of the books.
Courage
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J.K. Rowling was rejected by publishers more than a dozen times but she never let the fear of failure get into her head and continued submitting her first book to agents and publishers.
That is why she mentions that courage is one of the most important things that a writer must have because a writer is going to face failure a lot early in their career.
They must not let that failure demotivate them and they must try and do everything possible to survive and finish the project.
Independence
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The last and most important thing she mentions as a tip is that you should never fall into the trap of tips or rules because you must always be independent enough to trust your own gut and do the things you want to.
It is important to understand what she means to say by independence. She explains the fact that a writer should never religiously follow any kind of rules and they must at the most get inspired by tips but be confident and independent enough to not follow them religiously.
We hope this blog has been helpful for you to understand the maestro behind the name J.K. Rowling and we hope this blog inspires you to write your own novel or series of novels.
However, we also understand the fact that you might simply not have the time to write your own novel because you might have an excellent idea but simply no time or training to execute that project.
You do not have to worry about that with us because we are Ghostwriting India and we are the fastest-growing as well as most popular ghostwriter-for-hire agency in India.
All you need to do is simply approach us with your idea and we are going to expand on that idea until we present you with a complete manuscript ready for publishing.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do as we provide every kind of service related to content.
