Does age matter in publishing? It’s an important question, but we never expected to hear it posed by a teenage author.

Earlier this year, YA author Steph Bowe sold her first book to Egmont USA. The Australian writer is represented by Ginger Clark at Curtis Brown. On Monday, she wrote a post aimed at other teenaged YA authors, offering some career advice for the very young writer in your life.

Here’s an excerpt: “I’m 16. I got a book deal when I was 15. There are authors that were published at 13 and 14 and I always find myself thinking, God, must I fail at everything I do? They were published younger than me! I think a lot of young, motivated people set impossibly high standards for themselves. Know that no matter how much you succeed, you’re still going to feel like you could have done better. Ignore these thoughts. You are an amazing person, regardless of what you achieve and the age at which you achieve it.”