I had a couple of people ask, even after I did my “day in the life” post, exactly how books shake out, given my quick turnaround schedule so I’m going to toss this out there, both because I think it might be interesting and because I hope it might help people. So, for this book, the last book of the year for me, I’m going to do a weekly check-in to show what I’ve done. This is more of an introduction because I’m scheduled to start writing on Monday, November 22, 2021.
So let’s see where we stand.
I see a ton of this out there, but when you ask established writers how to write a book, their answers are not intended to make you happy. You being happy is irrelevant. The goal is to make your potential readers happy. That’s how you get to be successful!
Honestly, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no point trying to help amateur writers at all. Time and time again, I try to inject some real world honesty into the, unfortunately, fantasy land that far too many of them want to live in and time and time again, I’m met with hostility and anger, not thanks.
This is another one of those things that, if you hang around on Reddit or amateur writer forums, you will run into near constantly. The second they get the feeling that someone is better than they are, they will demand that it can’t be so because… fee-fees!
I came across this today and unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon for amateur writers, especially young, immature amateur writers, but I thought it would make a good cautionary tale that people can learn from.
I ran into someone who was trying to decide if they should do NaNoWriMo in November and asked my opinion. Personally, I don’t because the only thing that it’s worthwhile for is getting yourself writing consistently. I already do that, so what’s the point? But sure, let’s talk about it.
I’m in the midst of writing another book. I started last Monday and I expect to be finished in 4 weeks. That’s nothing new. However, there is something that I’ve noticed as I’m writing, that there will be a point, hopefully toward the beginning of the book, where everything will just click and from that point on, the whole story just comes together. Today was that day. Here’s what happened.
Now most people know that, if you’re going to be selling books, no matter where you’re going to sell them, series do a lot better than single books. It’s because, every time you release a new book, new people will see it and go back and buy up your back catalog. It’s why I very rarely ever do single books, not because I’m just out for money but because I tend to write much larger, sweeping tales.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but I have a friend that I’ve known for close to 40 years now and he’s an author. Sort of. By that I mean he publishes a lot of books on Amazon. Sort of. But if there’s a way to do it wrong, I think he’s found it. And now, I just can’t say silent about it any more.