Long Tail Writing

Looking ahead at 2020, there are things that worked well and things that didn’t. Some of the things that worked well in 2019 are producing quickly and building audio books. That constant stream of content allowed me to leverage more promotions. This combination led to my highest Amazon author rank ever. I sold a lot of audio books and my email list has grown 4.8% every month. Another thing that worked out well for me is setting a bar on writing profits. Anything above $350/month goes towards retirement/saving funds. That allows me to see the profit grow in a different way. I also like the idea that my work and effort doesn’t fade but continues to grow year after year. That’s the “long tail” of “long tail writing”: building once and seeing slow growth. However, a few things didn’t work out so well. I started a goal of writing every week day, but that evaporated. I had to scale that back to a weekly goal and had trouble with that. I determine that the main issue is that I wa...

I don’t think being 100% “pantser” is an effective way to write fiction. This method is where you have no plan and just start writing. I also believe that being a 100% planner ultimately results in analysis paralysis. (That’s where nothing gets done because you are planning too much.) Most writers I think fall into the middle, and here are 5 reasons why a bit of planning is a good thing. Connection of points previously not thought about When you plan you get to see the plot from a different perspective. That higher perspective can reveal recurring themes and conflicts in your work. That can help you play towards those themes, giving you book a much better impact overall. Allows you to recognize junk to cut Much like point one, knowing a high-level perspective can help you identify which components don’t fit. That can allow you to cut out junk the reader doesn’t need. Ultimately, the best stories are ones that are told in as few words as possible. This means tha...

Lately I’ve found myself struggling to continue towards a daily writing habit. There are so many things to distract me and I am not just talking about social media. Instead there are many writer activities that can distract me from writing. For example, plotting for new worlds, trying to determine how a mechanic would work, or even working through promotions. As I look to the new year, a few things will need to be sorted out. Here is a brief list of each and what they may mean. Daily Writing Habit Writing Vacation Days World Burner New Years Resolutions For the daily writing habit , what needs to be sorted out are the prompts. I need to build a system that helps me feel excited and ready to write for the next day. I think that part of that needs to be building daily writing prompts for myself. For example, if I end the day writing about a fight, I need to write a prompt that talks about ramifications of that fight. The idea being that I can dive quickly ...