Friday, June 29, 2018

Deadlines and Schedules and Dates, Oh My!


A couple of weeks ago, I was still happily piddling around with Girls’ Best Friend, the contemporary romance I’ve been working on for a couple of years. Then, one morning, I suddenly realized that if I want to release The Demon’s in the Details, Book 2 of my Touched by a Demon series, on October 1st, I was in trouble.
Let’s work backward through the schedule.
October 1: Make the book live on Amazon.
Last week of September: Load the book onto Amazon. Set up any ads I’d like to create to promote the book.
First three weeks of September: Have the book proofread and formatted.
August: Have the book copy-edited and work through the copy-editor’s recommended changes. (My first book had literally thousands of recommended changes, so I need a couple of weeks after I get the book back before I can pass it on to the proofreader.)
Are you feeling panicky yet? Well, I am.
That leaves me with seven weeks to do the revisions recommended by my developmental editor. That should should have been enough time, but unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re not looking at it from a schedule perspective), one of those weeks I’ll be in Denver for the RWA® National Conference.
What I really have is about 40 days to complete my revisions. I calculate that if I manage ten pages of revisions every day, seven days a week, I’ll have a handful of days leftover to review the whole book before send it on to the copy editor.
And once its winging its way to the copy editor, I need to immediately buckle down and finish Book 3, The Demon Wore Stilettos, so that I can release it in the first quarter of next year, before my readers have had time to forget I exist.
This is the first time I’ve ever had deadlines to meet for my writing, other than getting small chunks ready for contests.
I don’t like it.
One of the reasons I decided to go indie was that I know I don’t write fast enough to keep a traditional publishing house happy.
Now it appears I don’t write fast enough to keep myself happy, either.

4 comments:

  1. Hahahaha! Well... they're YOUR deadlines. No one's going to can your a$$ if you don't reach them. Better to have a quality product than a rushed one. :) Enjoy Nationals!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm thinking this is why retirement doesn't feel any less stressful than working did...

      Delete
  2. Take it easy on yourself...don't panic! You can do this:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will. Maybe not on my original timeline, but I will.

      Delete

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