1693 words today, all toward Indie Author Confidential, Vol. 4. I’m making good progress on it and hope to have it pushed out by end of next month. I’m already 15,000 words into it, and most volumes are usually around 30,000 to 35,000. That will be book #54. My goal is 64 books by 12/31/21, so I’m making progress.
MY PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
No progress on the novel today as I’m still waiting on people. I anticipate the first fact checker to be done tomorrow.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about my production schedule for anyone who is interested.
With only a few exceptions, I don’t plan out how many books I’m going to write in a given year. Usually it’s between 5-7. Some years it’s between 10-12. I just let it happen organically and write what I want to write when I want to write it. That’s not what most people do, but I prefer complete freedom. I’ve worked this way for the last eight years. Somehow, it works.
I usually let an idea stew around for a few months, thinking about it casually. Then, one day, I pull the trigger, and once I do that, the freight train begins.
Here’s how this novel went/will go:
Step 0: Decide to write the story, usually on a complete whim.
Step 1: Write the first ten percent of the story, which is around 4000-6000 words. At this point, I have everything I need to order the book cover and write the book description. I usually know the title and series title, too.
Step 2: Order the cover to get on the designer’s waiting list. Very, very important. I don’t like to waste any time here. At this point, if needed, I also get on my editors’ calendars and let them know that a novel is coming.
Step 3: Write the novel. As I write, I get a sense of what needs to be fact-checked. Once I approach the 75% mark of the story, the need for fact-checking drops off dramatically, which means it’s time for the next step.
Step 4: Recruit fact checkers. I usually do this by using my network or on Upwork. I can attract dozens of people in less than 24 hours. I make my decision on day two—I’m pretty good at posting job descriptions and screening people based on their talent. I offer a modest payment and ask for a 1-week turnaround to weed out people from the very beginning. People know upfront that I’m asking for fast turnarounds. By the time the contracts are signed, the novel excerpts are ready to be fact-checked. If I were going to use beta readers, this is also when I’d get them lined up and waiting in the wings for the full book once fact checkers are done.
Step 5: Finish the novel and wait for fact checker feedback.
Step 6: Self-edit in about 3-4 days and incorporate fact checker feedback into the book.
Step 7: Send to beta readers (I’m not doing that this time) with a 2-week turnaround.
Step 8: Incorporate beta reader feedback, and immediately ship to the editor who is waiting. 2 week turnaround (again, you negotiate this upfront).
Step 9: Get the book back from editor, make changes quickly and immediately format the book in Vellum for ebook and print.
Step 10: Finalize book description and keywords/categories/ads. Ideally, don’t leave this to the last minute.
Step 11: Write Book 2 and repeat until you’re ready to publish.
It takes a lot of coordination, but if I do it right I can get a book ready for publication in about 60 days from the time I start writing it. It always hinges on the cover designer though, which is why it’s helpful to get on their calendar the moment you know you’re going to be writing a new book.
THE MARKETING BEGINS
It already began when I started the book, actually. But now my focus is on packaging and discoverability.
What am I doing?
First things first, the book description. It’ll make or break the book. So I’m spending around 80% of my time on that, and the remaining 20% split between the cover, keywords, categories, and Amazon Ads. I also plan to do a couple off-the-beaten path methods for marketing this time around, such as Book Sirens and Book Award Pro. Both have services I’ve been wanting to try for a while.
I’ll start working on the description in the next few days or so.
Tonight I started taking a course by Dave Chesson on how to pick keywords for your book. I’m pretending I know nothing and taking lots of notes to use with this series. Pretty useful to start from scratch sometimes so you can challenge your assumptions and uncover blindspots. You can grab it here: https://courses.kindlepreneur.com/courses/Kindle-Keywords. I haven’t taken enough of it yet to have an opinion, but Dave Chesson’s good people, and anything he does is always good.
Have a good night.
