Joshua Bryant

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J.K. Rowlings Journey From Failure to Fortune

Success is not built on success. Its built on failure. Its built on frustration. Sometimes

it's built on catastrophe. -Sumner Redstone. J.K Rowling's fame of her book series Harry Potter

was established on many failures and money losses. At one point when she was beginning to

think of the Harry Potter series, she was even in poverty. J.K Rowling is the award winning and

bestselling author of the famous Harry Potter books and movies. She was born on July 31, 1965

in the Yate, Gloucestershire, England and grew up in a family of humble economic means. She

wanted to be a writer since she was five years old, but it took her almost 30 years to write her

first book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, due to many challenges she had to face in

her life. J.K Rowling created the most successful childrens book series which is the 15 billion

dollar world famous Harry Potter franchise, used persistence and innovation to overcome many

personal and literary failures to become a successful writer, and imagined and illuminated a

better world by supporting numerous charitable organizations.

J.K Rowling has created one of the most successful children's book series and has

captured the imagination and inspired everyone who has read even one of her books. J. K.

Rowling (born 1965) has sold more than a quarter-billion books from her series of novels about a

British boy wizard named Harry Potter ( J.K Rowling, 2005 ). Her Harry Potter book series are

so wildly popular all over the world that they have been translated into 60 languages. Each of her

seven books about Harry Potter and his adventures was made into hit movies which broke box

office records and appealed to both children and adults. Many of her Harry Potter books have
become some of the fastest selling books in history. For example, Harry Potter and the Goblet of

Fire sold 3 million copies in the first 48 hours of its release. J.K. Rowling not only created the

series of Harry Potter books that are loved by millions of people all over the world, but she also

created this series that is one of the fastest selling and financially successful collection of

fictional books in history.

J.K Rowling experienced many failures in her life before she became successful.This is

because she found the benefits of failure and used persistence to innovate her field and to

overcome personal and literary challenges. Failure is liberating: My greatest fears had been

realized and I was still alive and I still had a daughter whom I adored. And I had an old

typewriter and a big idea. (Bethune, 2005). Fame did not come easily to her, and she went from

one extreme to another in her life. She was a single mother with no money and living on welfare

while going through a divorce. She claims that she was as poor as she could possibly be without

being homeless. Even though J.K. Rowling experienced so many failures in her life, she found

the determination and persistence to succeed. She never gave up because all she ever wanted to

do was be a writer. Her persistence paid off and after twelve publishers rejected J.K. Rowlings

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, it was finally accepted and she became the first person

ever to make a billion dollars from writing.

J.K. Rowling imagined and illuminated a better world by generously supporting

numerous charitable organizations with the money from her famous and successful Harry Potter

series. In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from its billionaires list, not because the original

calculations were in error, but because she had dropped below a cut-offline after giving more

than $160 million in charitable donations (Bethune Brian, 2005). Rowling has donated a

tremendous amount of money to charities that support childrens welfare and literacy. For
example, she auctioned off a handwritten copy of her book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, to

Amazon for 2.5 million dollars and she donated this money to Childrens High Level Group

which is a charity helping needy children. She also donated over 12 million dollars to create a

clinic to treat Multiple Sclerosis. She named the clinic The Anne Rowling Regenerative

Neurology Clinic after her mother who died of Multiple Sclerosis. J.K. Rowling donated the

proceeds from one of her newest books called The Benefits of Failure to the childrens

organization called Lumos and to student financial aid at Harvard University.

J.K. Rowling is one of the most famous, successful, and loved childrens authors in the

world. She has created one of the most popular children's book series Harry Potter which have

sold billions of copies. They are so popular, they have been translated into 60 different languages

and have been made into 8 record breaking movies. Rowling used persistence to overcome many

failures in her life. Without persistence, she would have never overcome poverty, divorce, and

multiple rejections from publishers. She also imagined a better world by donating her wealth to

many important charities that benefit and improve childrens lives.

Works Cited

Bethune, Brian. "What Could J.K. Rowling Possibly Know about Failure? A Lot, It Turns out."

Maclean's 20 Apr. 2015: 45. Global Issues in Context. Web. 16 Jan.

 2017.Retrieved from: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

p=GPS&sw=w&u=vbcps&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE

%7CA409714822&asid=b55c6242bcae1d478bf6f88b99ae6b21

"J. K. Rowling." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 25. Detroit: Gale, 2005. N. pag.

Biography in Context. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.Retrieved from

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1631008590/BIC1?u=vbcps&xid=4294a057.