Wednesday, December 1, 2010

As a writer I can control only one thing...

...the writing

  My wife keeps the checkbook and pays all the bills. (Don't be jealous. Trust me. It's better that way. She's got the mathematical mind, and I'm good with words. That means I can usually talk my way out of overdraft fees...if I was allowed to make withdrawals, which I'm not...

Where was I? Oh yeah. Writing. Lately I've been spending more time publishing my work and promoting them. I can't stop the promoting. I'm a self-published author of 5 books. If I don't promote them, they won't get promoted. You nodded. I saw you. Actually, it's only part of the truth. Although I can't stop marketing the books, word of mouth will be the true seller of my stuff.

My wife and I just had a discussion about royalties. I have a couple of bucks coming in now, and she--as the bill payer--expects to treat royalties like any other income. She wants to pay bills with them. You know: credit card debt, mortgage, savings account, etc.

I'm the spender. My gut tells me that royalty money should be hallowed...and spent...on fun stuff.

She's right. I'm not right.

The answer is...I need to make sure I'm generating more revenue than bills. 

That leads us back to my original premise: I can control what I write, when I write, and how much I write. For the past 4 years I have written a minimum of 1,500 new words a day on average. That changed to 1,500 new words a month back in August when I published my first book as a Kindle book. Now I have 5 books generating revenue, and I anticipate the revenue will grow slowly. But lately it seems I'm spending more time trying to generate word of mouth for the books than I am writing.

That's the part that has to change. I need to let the existing books toddle about all by themselves for a while, generating word of mouth sales, and I need to keep my ass in the chair and my head in Sexton.

Tomorrow, my goal is to write 3,000 new words in Sexton Sand, and I'm going to let nothing stop me.

I can be quite disciplined when I want to be, even against odds. I beat childhood epilepsy, kicked Wernickes in the nads, and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout before my 14th birthday. I think I can keep my ass in the chair and my head in Sexton easier than I did any of those other things.

1 comment:

Jeffrey Miller said...

I totally agree with you and know exactly where you are coming from. Ever since I published War Remains I have been spending a lot of time trying to promote it but I am still finding some time to write.

1500 words a day? That's awesome. I'd settle for half of that.