Getting Back to the Business of Writing

CLICK HERE TO SEE

Yes, I view my writing a passion, a gift, a calling, if you will, but it is also a business. I discovered that side of things when I received my first book contract. My initial and quite simple business plan (read “write, find a publisher, and get published”) morphed into a plan to include what might be called research and development, production, marketing, and networking. Within this business vernacular I could easily define my “what if” sessions as my “think tank” and the rough drafts I create as “prototypes.” 

The Work Day

Writing is a business…my chosen line of part-time work. I set my hours and goals. I determine how much time and energy I will invest each day. Since I am most productive in morning, I like to schedule my working hours from 6:00am to 9:00am. That isn’t particularly difficult for me. I am generally up by five every morning. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE

I like to write a minimum of a thousand words a day, though I rarely track the exact number. I know I usually exceed 1000 words. But if I meet the thousand-word goal for a novel, I can lay down a decent draft for a short novel in three or four months. That’s assuming I take weekends off. 

So it is entirely feasible to create a draft in a few months of part-time writing. Draft. Remember prototype? And the draft only comes after the “think tank” session followed by the research and development stint. The draft or “prototype” as I’m calling it here is the earliest stage of production.

With my extra morning hours I work on my blog, research topics I need to know more about for the novel, study my craft, diagram my next project (I’m big into poster board diagrams for my stories), reread, edit, and revise sections of the work in progress, work on marketing materials, and essentially, wear all the other hats writers must wear in this business.

Do it all in just three hours a day...If only it worked that way.

CLICK HERE TO SEE

Overtime

I may sit at my computer three hours a day engaged in my writing business, but my mind works overtime. So do I. sometimes I get so excited about the direction a story is heading, I can’t help but write until my tummy growls. 

Editing and revising takes a lot of time. I throw editing and revising to the head of my Quality Control department. Me. 

Then there is the marketing and networking side of the business. Keeping up with my readers via Twitter and Facebook as well as emails eats into my day in other ways. Social media is not a 6-9am proposition. 

Nothing is Linear

I write. I revise. I edit. I submit. I get a contract. I sit back and wait for the reviews to roll in. NOT.

It's more like this: I write project A. I revise. I edit. I write some more. I edit some more. I write and revise a whole lot more. I submit. I wait. 

I start project B. I get rejected for project A. I revise A some more. I submit. Maybe I get a contract. Maybe not. I work on project B. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE

I hear from my publisher. I edit and revise more. I re-submit. I’m working on project B while making decisions about the cover and dedication, and continually making revisions for project A. 

A release date for project A is announced. I ramp up my publicity for project A. I get excited and take lots of “selfies” of me holding my book. The book is released and I ramp up my marketing even more. 

Eventually I get back to project B, but I spend three days re-reading the manuscript because I forget what I wrote or where I was heading. As I’m reading, project C pops in my brain like a cute kitten on the doorstep just begging for a chance to live. I diagram project C while I’m working on project B and marketing project A.

Real-Life Example

RELEASED THIS FALL

I continue to market Breathing on Her Own, my first novel while promoting the three books in the Writing to Publish series and completing my first romantic suspense novel. I have a novella being released this fall as part of an anthology of Ohio writers. The anthology is called From the Lake to the River and my story is called Courtesy Turn, based on a square dance move. 

In addition, I have a novel being released in March of 2019 called Libby’s Cuppa Joe. The editor from my publishing house sent me her suggestions yesterday so I need to wade through the manuscript again and make those changes. I’ll send it back to her and she’ll likely send it back to me again. We’ll do this dance off and on until the book is ready for publication. Plus…that story takes place in Door County, Wisconsin so I hope to do a girls trip with my daughters up there before too long for some photo shoots. 

And I blog. That’s not the only writing I do. More about that next week as I take you on a tour of my Writing Gym.

I think you get the idea. Writing to publish has a business side. Writers don’t make widgets. It is never a one and done experience. And even if we write in a “one-widget” genre, every story is unique. Every work requires something new from its creator. 

If we write solely out of passion, that’s one thing… But if we publish, it’s a business.

Curiously, the day after I drafted this blog post, one of my publishers sent out a list of articles authors might find helpful. Here is one of them. It is a post by Elizabeth S. Craig called Balancing Writing and Business. How’s that for timing? Click on the title to read the article. 

I AM A WRITER. I AM A TEACHER AND TRAVELER. I HAVE A FAMILY.  I WRITE IN THE MOMENT. MY EXPERIENCES. MY JOURNEY. I LOVE TO CONNECT WITH MY READERS. PLEASE ADD YOUR COMMENTS BELOW. I WILL ANSWER. 

If you don't want to miss a post, simply add your email address in the box on the right where it says "Follow by email."