Butler was a full-time banker and part-time author, but that didn’t stop him from producing over 30 books and 2,000 short stories.
He dropped out of high school at the end of his freshman year. He was 17 years old at the time, and spent the next 11 years working odd jobs while working on his writing. Butler left some parting advice to aspiring authors in his obituary: “Write the way you want to. Never sacrifice quality for quantity; go to school if you want to, but if you are going to write, you will regardless of schooling.”