Have you made your reading list for 2017?
I’m doing something new in 2017. Technically, it’s not really new, but maybe a new system or new way of doing some old stuff is a better way to describe it.
My goals and ambitions have always been a little larger than life, but sometimes slow to start out of the gate. I published my first novel written in my 20’s on KDP in 2012, then promptly focused on climbing the corporate ladder and left it alone to languish in obscurity. I sold a couple of downloads a month.
Crappy cover. Bad blurb. But some folks liked it enough that I earned a couple of bucks from Amazon every month and I kept my eyes on a Directorship instead of an author life.
Fast forward to May 2015 and that same corporate job I dedicated time and energy to for a decade decided to fire me. I was left in a lurch, out in the cold and heart broken. Nobody likes getting fired, and nobody likes failing. At the same time, I was moving into a new house, and dating a woman in my home state of Arkansas while I lived in Florida.
What I wasn’t doing was publishing on Amazon KDP.
I took some time off to adventure, and gather my thoughts on the next step in my career, and settled down in September 2015 to write full time.
I’ve spoken often about the backlist of material I have uncompleted, but I wanted to do two things:
First, I wanted to build a fiction library and begin to earn money from it as an author entrepreneur. Second, I wanted to document all the marketing efforts I used to grow so I could teach and train what I learned with other writers.
Over the past year, I’ve uploaded 80 projects to Amazon, 26 of them in non-fiction for the Author Moonshot series, and 20 fiction projects, novels, short novels and anthologies in various genres.
I’ve learned a lot. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I’ve made a little money from it. My couple bucks a month has steadily grown each month, with December being my best month so far out of fifteen.
What does that mean for 2017?
Reading and Writing.
What are the two best ways to reach your goals as an author?
Reading good work. Writing more work.
It really is that simple. That’s the slow and steady way to build an audience and build a readership. I know a lot of people don’t want to hear that because they think there’s a shortcut.
So, like me, they read all the semi-famous or infamous indie authors, and marvel at how they pull down six figures. Yet in my extensive reading, do you know when most of those authors got their start?
2010.
Do you know how many books they have published with professional covers, and good editing?
At least 15 or more.
This wasn’t a random sample. Trust me, I’ve been digging in and following authors all year long, trying to find what works best, what magic pill they’re taking, who is coaching them, what tactics are they using to catapult to success.
Turns out, it’s writing.
Yep, they’ve been at this for a couple of years (6 by the calendar) and they keep publishing good books.
Case in point, I just saw a post by Derek Murphy with Chris Fox. I’d never heard of Chris Fox before, but he was a six-figure earner and maybe had some tips to share. I read the post and wondered, “How have I not heard of this guy before?!”
He’s got some great points and tips to share and I went from the post to download two of his books, a non-fiction piece on 5,000 words an hour, and a fiction science fiction piece called EXILED. I’ll read and review both for this blog, but it pointed out something that even a six-figure author has problems with. Discover ability.
I’d never heard of this guy. I don’t know if I’ll like his books, or if he’s any good. And he made over 100,000 last year writing.
What does that mean for you?
Keep at it. If you haven’t started yet, what should you do? Write.
Write more.
I highly recommend my formula in 2017 Marketing Plan which is to write one 50k word book per month for six months and make a series. Don’t try to market them except through KDP free days, and once you have a body of work, then invest in marketing.
I cover a lot of topics on book marketing and increasing your discover-ability in my Author Moonshot series of books, which you can pick up for .99 each or grab a paperback for the price of a Venti Frappuccino.
But if you just want one action item you can do today, it’s WRITE a book.
Then write another. Publish on KDP. Offer 5 Free Days to reach more readers and increase visibility.
It really is the simple stuff or the basics that are going to help you succeed. The more you write, the better your craft.
Plus, the more you write, the faster you can write. I suggest spending an hour or two to create a highly-detailed outline for your novel, with 20 or 30 chapters.
Then go fill in the chapters during your writing time. That novel will fly by. Of course, it will be a first draft, so you need extra eyes on it, then edit it.
Run it through spell check and Grammarly. That’s going to catch a lot of your mistakes.
Have someone read it for you.
Then hire an editor.
Get a good cover from a pre-made selection for $30-$40 bucks or find someone you like off Fiverr to do the job.
Then publish on KDP.
After that, go write another and repeat.
Then another and repeat again.
The more you write in a series, the better your work becomes.
Think you can’t?
When you’re writing your outline for book one, go ahead and create four more outlines with one question: What happens next?
If you write steps one through 30 on a page, then put in 1500 words per step, and keep moving through 4 books like that, you’ll have a series created with an overarching storyline, and plot points you can cover in one session so you don’t have to go back and wonder what you said or made happen in book one by the time you reach book three.
I had some luck writing the first part of Battlefield Z – Sweet Home Zombie while I outlined BZ – Zombie Blues Highway.
It made both works go faster.
I’m trying it again in January with a challenge to myself. I’m going to write a novel per week for four weeks. That’s between 5,000 – 8,000 words per day.
You can help me out at PATREON if you like.
BZ – Zombie Blues Highway
BZ – Mardi Gras Zombie
BZ – Renegade Zombie
BZ – Bluegrass Zombie
One Dad hunts for his lost children after the Zombie apocalypse.
One of the things I did with BZ was show how the Dad descended into a darker personality type through each book. From a light hearted comedic tone that got progressively negative and dangerous the closer he came to learning the truth about his kids. Did they live? Did they go Z?
By using an outline of the series, each book can focus on growing and building the characters.
I’ve done the same with two more series I want to work on, WITCHMAS which I’m planning to publish soon, and SHADOWBOXER, about the world’s luckiest hitman. Next up I want to do something with THE ODIN RULE, another series I outlined journaling one morning and I’ve been playing with some more light hearted stuff about GNOMES, a trilogy that I’m almost done with.
With so many ideas popping, you can see I had to find and take training on how to write 5k words an hour, and then do it 2 or 3 hours each day.
I’ve been doing some reading on it, and there’s science behind how it happens. It’s called FLOW STATE and you may have read about it, or listened to a podcast. You may have even experienced it yourself, but it’s basically when you are in the zone and everything is going right. From an author’s perspective, it means being able to sit down and produce creative work on demand, and then cranking out a first draft in ten days or so.
Turns out, it’s easier than you may think.
I want to share with you how to prime your pump so you can hit flow state every time you sit down at a keyboard. First, pick the same time each day to write. Drink the same drink. (coffee, tea or smoky flavored whiskey) Put on the same music style. (I use classical, or Disco, or Classic Rock depending on the genre.)
Sit at the same desk, or same spot. Get comfortable so you won’t have any distractions for the next four hours, or your allotted writing time.
Open your doc and write down your beginning word count in an excel file.
Then write.
When your allotted writing time ends, write down your end word count in another column in the file.
Track your words daily.
I was doing this visually, but not recording them, and I really liked watching my word total in the doc climb, but tracking it in a spreadsheet makes sense. You can determine which days are more productive, and identify what led to the flow state.
But it’s about training your brain to get into that state when you sit down to write.
One secret that I’ve used this past year is working on a laptop that I can’t connect to the internet. This keeps me from going off the rail on “research” which I like to do, and keeps me from chasing all the other “To-do’s” that pop into my head and all serve as distractions to my overall goal.
If you work on a computer, think about downloading a program that keeps you off the internet to help with your discipline. Or grab an old laptop, work in Word or Scrivener on it, and then use a gig stick to transfer the file to your main computer when it’s time to share.
2017 is about sharing.
Sharing my reviews, sharing the love for other indie authors on #Helpanauthorout day where I tweet a .99 cent book all day and encourage others to share and retweet in the hopes of putting a couple thousand sales on the sheets for a good author I’ve enjoyed. (Part of my indie author focus.)
Sharing my work style on Patreon to gain additional support for myself and eliminate distractions to focus on what you should be focused on.
Write. Publish. Write. Publish. Write. Publish.
I can’t wait to see what you do in 2017.
Chris Lowry Books 