Today is a great day. Not only is it Friday, but today is surplus day. More on that in a minute.
For reading, I continued with IDW’s TMNT Vol. 10.
For data analysis, no work.
For marketing, I spent time developing a presentation that I will be doing in conjunction with Chris Locke at the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). We are doing a joint presentation on self-publishing for beginners. It will be one hour long and recorded for anyone who registers. You can sign up by going here: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/live-virtual-event-self-publishing-best-practices/
IBPA is a juggernaut in the publishing industry, and it is a pleasure to work alongside them for this project. The presentation is next Wednesday (for my friends in the northern hemisphere) and Thursday (for my friends in the southern hemisphere).
I also received the final typography on the cover for Year of the Rat. I approved it and anticipate receiving the final files on Monday. My designer is also doing an omnibus cover for me, so I expect that sometime next week as well. I will share the cover when it is done; it is a night and day difference compared to the first draft they sent me.
For production, I woke up extra early this morning with the goal of writing as many words as possible. I had 1500 words before breakfast, 4000 words before lunch, and about 5000 words right now. I may write a little more to finish my current chapter, or I may not. I'm pretty tired right now. But I definitely did myself some favors because my surplus is now approximately 5 days. That means if I got hit by a bus tomorrow and it took me 5 days to recover (ha-ha), then I would still be on track to hitting my plan for 1.2 million words over the next year. I like where I am a lot, especially that we're heading into fall which is prime sickness season.
Let's also remember that the “time of great for getting” is almost over. Sometime over the next two or three weeks, writers will realize that they have wasted their summers, and they will hit the keyboards with a new passion. For me (and for those of you who have been writing furiously along with me this summer), things will be business as usual. And we'll have a whole lot of words to show for our productive summer. If you managed to keep writing over this summer, well done–my hat goes off to you because it is not an easy thing to do.
The Indie Author Bestiary II Is coming along quite nicely. I am sitting at about 7000 words for the book, which is over the halfway point because the first book was around 15,000 words. This one might be a little longer, but so far, it doesn't seem that it will be that much longer. The narrative is definitely evolving, and I'm intrigued where this is going. 24 hours ago, I couldn't have imagined that I would be where I am in the story right now.
I'm making so much progress that I have decided to go ahead and open up voting for my next book. I don't think this book will survive the weekend–if I have a day like today tomorrow, I could realistically be done as soon as Sunday.
Anyway, cast your vote for the next book here: https://forms.gle/a1JyfUZDkrLmohM26. Voting ends tomorrow night. I have some interesting choices:
#1: The Good Necromancer Book 6
#2: The Good Necromancer Short Story Collection
#3: Marketing Basics for Authors
#4: Book on AI Art for authors: pros, cons, use cases (not a how-to)
And, because I can't help but bomb you with links today, be sure to check out my podcast with Sacha Black—The AskALLi/Self-Publishing Advice Podcast. We had a grand time. Listen/watch/read here: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/common-self-publishing-questions/
Have a good night.
YTD Word Count: 68,650
Plan: 1,252,000
Words Over/-Under Plan: 13,650
Days Ahead/-Behind: 4.96
Projected Annual Word Count: 1,449,000
Projected Decade Word Count: 14,490,000
Deadline 12/31/2023
Days to Go Until 12/31/23: 471
Word Count Average: 3,433
Average Pulp Speed: 2.1
