Joanne Kathleen Rowling is a globally famous name for many reasons, but what really put her in the spotlight is her writing skills and creativity that were vividly displayed in the Harry Potter books.
Her entire life, J.K Rowling dreamed of being an author, but there wasn’t much success until after she clocked 30 years of age. Her life before Harry Potter was full of hard work and consistency, even though the big break had not yet come, she never stopped writing because it was her passion.
Indeed, J.K Rowling’s story of success is one that should inspire everyone, because she went from being just a secretary to leaving her footprints on the sands of time. She also holds the record for being the first person to ever become a billionaire by writing a book.
Her life before Harry Potter
J.K Rowling was born in 1965 and has a good history with writing. From a very young age, she was already putting her creative imagination into writing and even recalled writing a story about a Rabbit that caught measles.
She wrote that story when she was still in primary school and even though her mother was the only reader she had at the time, it did not stop her from continuing to do what she loved — even without getting published.
As time went on, she got into the University of Exeter, where she studied classics and the French language. While she studied at the university, she continued to write in her spare time and just took it as a hobby.
From working as a bilingual secretary after graduation, she got another job at Amnesty International in London, after which she moved to Manchester to work for the chamber of commerce.
All this while, she continued to write as a hobby, until the year 1990 when the big idea for Harry Potter came to mind while she was traveling by train.
Just like any other person with a bright idea, J.K Rowling picked up a pen and started jotting down these ideas as they came to her. Little did she know that these unorganized jottings would eventually become the books that would break the records and make someone a billionaire through writing.
The big breakthrough
In 1990, J.K Rowling moved to Portugal to start a new job as a teacher. While she taught, she used her spare time in the following 18 months to properly plan out the entire story of Harry Potter.
This story, which got embraced by the whole world, was composed of seven novels, but they could not get published until 1997.
While her books were yet to be published, J.K Rowling got married to a Portuguese and gave birth to a daughter, but the marriage ended in 1993 — barely a year after they got married.
She moved back to the UK with her child and started living as a single mother, without enough money, as she continued to send Harry Potter to different publishers.
Finally, Bloomsbury took interest and decided to publish the first book of Harry Potter in 1997. It was at this time that everything changed in the life of J.K Rowling.
Her success has only gotten greater since 1997 and she continues to be a powerful name in the world of authors.
The success of Harry Potter
It took ten years between the release of the first Harry Potter book and the last one, but J.K Rowling’s life as a writer did not stop or experience any drawbacks after 2007.
Collectively, the books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, so Harry Potter is still regarded as the best-selling series of all time. In fact, the last four books in the Harry Potter series were sold so quickly that they became the fastest-selling books in history.
This may seem like a huge achievement, and it is every author’s dream. But it does not even begin to scratch the surface of what J.K Rowling achieved through the Harry Potter series.
It has been translated into more than 70 languages and has been adapted into eight blockbuster movies that broke many records in the world.
Many people that did not know about the book got introduced to the series via the movie adaptations, and this further increased the popularity of J.K Rowling, making her a globally respected and powerful star.
As of 20 years, after the first Harry Potter book was published, the entire project had amassed about 25 billion dollars. The eight movies even have spin-offs that are still making money in the cinemas to this day.
There is also a large body of merchandise from the Harry Potter series, all of which contribute to the financial powerhouse that the entire project has become.
Apart from J.K Rowling herself, other people also made it big because of their participation in bringing Harry Potter to the big screen all over the world.
The young actor’s Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson who played the roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Wesley have all grown up to see their names in the books of history just because they got into the movie.
The broke single mother, who had to travel back to the UK and continued to mourn the death of her mother while dealing with the complications of divorce, turned out to be the one who used her books to change the world.
Her life after the success of Harry Potter
Since Harry Potter became a success, J.K Rowling did not allow her new status to make her forget her roots. She became a philanthropist and has been giving a lot of money and other resources to charity.
She has also written other books like Fantastic Beasts, the Ichabod, the Christmas pig, casual vacancy, troubled blood, and so many others.
Since the year 1999 when J.K Rowling won the glamor woman of the year award, she has progressed to win over 37 more prestigious awards. Including the legion of honor, Kids choice award for favorite book, British independent film award, Audie award for mystery, Hugo award for best novel, etc.
In 2001, J.K Rowling found love again and got married to an Anesthetist in Scotland. She and her husband have a home together there, and she also gave birth to two more children in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
Because of how much she has given to charity, her billionaire status is no longer certain. As it stands, J.K Rowling is still very rich, she is worth over 800,000 dollars, but Forbes had to drop her from the list of billionaires in 2012 because of the high UK tax and the hundreds of millions she gave up for charity projects.
Even with her inconsistent status as a billionaire, J.K Rowling is still regarded as the richest author in the world. She gladly talks about how her manuscript for Harry Potter was rejected over and over again by publishers and encourages people to continue trying to get what they want.
Besides her work as a philanthropist and writer, she does not publicize so much of her personal life. But she is always making headlines for her battle of words with members of the LGBTQ community.
