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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30052
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# No.

We always think of authors and other artists as people who were excited by some media experience (e.g. reading books, viewing movies, or playing computer games) and began a career in their medium because of their love for it.

But enthusiasm for a medium is not the only motivation to write or make movies or paint. There are a great number of books written (sometimes with the help of ghost writers) from a need to tell of a personal experience or some insight that someone gained. Many of these authors aren't readers in the sense that reading made them want to write. It was their life that made them tell of it.

Of course many of these kinds of authors have read books in their lives and from that reading have some knowledge of how to go about writing one, but others led lives mostly devoid of reading.

Books by these authors aren't necessarily autobiographical, either. Some of these people write non-fiction books in which they attempt to convey the knowledge that they have acquired. Others wrap their teaching into a narrative fiction.

Examples for books by these kinds of authors are accounts of uncommon lives, spiritual teaching, political ideology, or how-to books (by which I don't want to imply that all of these kinds of books are by that kind of author). Usually these authors publish only one book in their lives.

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Two extreme examples:

1. Musician [Kayne West](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West) wrote _[Thank You and You're Welcome](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0978967917)_. West says of himself:

2. Queensland author [Ken Hall](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-20/illiterate-author-ken-hall-finishes-9th-book/7430966) cannot read. Yet he has published nine books.

Original score: 2