I’ll be 53 years old in March (2023). I started writing in 1997. I’ve traditionally and self-published quite a bit during that time and I have earned some money, but I haven’t reached the point where I can quit my day job as an English teacher in Japan yet.

Fortunately, there is hope, because if you do a search for famous and successful writers that didn’t exactly make it until they were in their 40s, 50s, and sometimes even 60s or later, you will find that you are in good company.

Here are some of my favorite writers that didn’t find much success until they were at least 40 years old. 

Charles Bukowski

I mentioned Hank in my first Writer’s Pep Talk, so I won’t say much about him here other than he was 51, one year older than me when he got his big break after writing his first novel Post Office.

Bram Stoker

He published his first novel A Snake’s Pit when he was 43 years old, but it was his second novel Dracula which was published when he was 50 that really made him famous. And in doing so Stoker also created one of the most iconic characters in history and started the wildly popular Vampire genre.

Daniel Dafoe

At 59 years old in 1719 Daniel Dafoe published Robison Crusoe. Some argue that it is the very first English novel ever written. But because the first edition listed Robison Crusoe as the author many people who read it believed it was actually a travelogue and not a novel. And yes, by today’s standard it isn’t “woke”, but it was published in 1719, so if you have any objections please just STFU! Thanks.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

She not only published her first book at 65 years old, but she went on to write a nine-book series. As a kid in the 70s, I watched the TV series based on her books before I actually read any of them, but I eventually did read several in the series in elementary school. And yes, I know about the recently mentioned “controversy” over how Native Americans are portrayed in some of her books, but since all of these books were published in the early 1930s and 1940s I’m willing to cut her some slack.

Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens better known by his pen name Mark Twain published his first book The Innocents Abroad in 1869 when he was 41 years old. The novel that made him super famous The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer were both published five years later in 1876. As far as American authors who became famous after 40 go, it doesn’t get much bigger than Mark Twain.

Again, as I mentioned in my first article, I’m not arrogant enough to think that I will ever write anything as great as these authors did, but that doesn’t keep me from believing that my writing will at least allow me to achieve my goal and quit my day job at some point.