Emily Trunko, a high school sophomore who studies from home, has been the subject of articles in newspapers across the world and is now under contract to write two books.

My name’s Emily, and I’m 15.  —Emily

She started her publishing journey as the author of two widely-read and hugely popular Tumblr blogs, Dear My Blank and The Last Message Received. Last Message was ranked Number 8 among Tumblr’s most viral in 2015.

I’ve always been interested in people’s lives and their stories.  —Emily

When someone asked if she’d turned her subject matter into a book… Emily decided to try. She queried a select group of agents… and within two hours she had an contract with the Bent Agency. Within three days, Random House asked her for books based on both blogs. 

Emily’s success is unusual… but not impossible to believe. She achieved her goals through hard work, the same butt-in-chair work every author has to do. You don’t monitor and promote a blog with more than 80,000 followers by sitting on your duff and watching TV all night.

And Emily is a resourceful, enterprising person.

When she was 10 she discovered that publishers sent copies of their books to reviewers, so she started a book review website, On Emily’s Bookshelf, as a way to get free books. —Mary Beth Breckenridge (Akron Beacon Journal)

Emily’s books aren’t out there yet. But I’ll be standing in line to get them. And I’m betting she’s got a lot more great ideas just waiting to burst out. I can’t wait to hear what they are.

What ideas do you have that you could turn into gold– into books, or blogs, or apps, or videos? Or into the next new thing on the horizon?

Read more about Emily here.