I'm writing, publishing, and launching a novel in 7 days.

[themental]

Corona has kicked the arse out of my word counts.

Between homeschooling children, looking after shielded relatives and just general creative drain, my publishing schedule has fallen to pieces.

So, I have a pre-order deadline and a file that needs to be uploaded on Monday at 11.59pm. 5 days to write, 10k a day, two days for editing and formatting and then publish.

The fastest I've ever managed a book is two weeks. So this will be interesting.

Cross your fingers for me please

Crossing for you! I think you're amazing. I have various half written books and I hope to manage to finish and publish one before I die!

Everything crossed - that's Nano on speed!

So what are your kids and relatives going to do for the next 7 days? Are you suddenly not needed?

I ask as i'm on a 3rd draft of a novel myself and i'm lucky if i can find 30 minutes a day atm.

Where are you publishing it? Thats impressive going!

So get off mumsnet and get writing?? 😂

I admire your energy, OP, but two days for editing? You have one chance to get this novel to be the best it can be. You're going to write 50,000 words (so basically half a standard novel) in five days and then edit it in two days? You know that once it's out there you can't pull it back, edit it properly and put it back out. That's not how self-publishing works.

How many have pre-ordered?

You most certainly can re-edit and upload a new file after publication. Happens all the time. Amazon even expect it if they get too many typo reports. The people who’ve already bought it are unlikely to get that new file but they’ll be the OP’s super fans anyway and probably far more forgiving if there are errors.

Good luck OP! But in case you miss it (you won’t!), I think Amazon are being more forgiving of missing preorders and restoring privileges during Coronavirus anyway.

Yes, you can. However, you could have had a bunch of crap reviews by then!

Thank you all

@RuffleCrow relatives are covered this week via click and collect slots (not been able to get one until now!) so that will just take one afternoon. Kids are having a week of Sumdog school, pyjamas, and copious amounts of TV.

@HollowTalk 48 hours is my usual edit / proofread deadline so I'm not too worried about that part. My process involves continuously cycling back through the manuscript (I write into the dark so have to go back constantly and layer in details, set up twists etc). So I usually end up with a clean first draft. Then 2 days for pro writing aid, listening text-to-speech, and a final proofread done by my gran.

That said, the 48 hours is usually when I've done two weeks of 5k days! Not 5 days of 10k.

We'll see. I'm not going to publish something that's riddled with errors and holes. I'd rather lose the 300ish pre-orders (especially because Zon are reinstating due to corona). But usually my books are never works of art masterpieces, they're minimum viable products and my readers are good with that. They come for the crazy stories, not so much the beautiful prose

9736 yesterday, for anyone following 😂.

But usually my books are never works of art masterpieces, they're minimum viable products and my readers are good with that. They come for the crazy stories, not so much the beautiful prose

Aren't you ever tempted to see what you could do with more time and investment, if you moved beyond the 'minimum viable product' model?

What @phosphor said. One of the things i'm enjoying most about writing my novel is seeing how the layers of meaning surface from my subconcious and arrange themselves within the story. It might sound pretentious but there we are!

I feel like i'm learning so much about myself as I write it. And if i finish it and rate it, i'll be fairly confident someone else will pick it up and value it too.

@Phosphor I actually tried this earlier in the year. Wrote my "masterpiece". It did okay, it's not my worse selling book but definitely not my best either. So it doesn't really make business sense to take five times as long, and spend on editing etc when the financial reward doesn't correlate.

At least not yet. I'd eventually like to get into domestic thrillers, in which case it'll still be MVP, but the "minimum" bar there is set much higher than my current genre.

But, if I can ask @themental, how long did you spend on that novel, as you generally spend only a few weeks on an 'ordinary' one? I honestly don't think it's possible for most writers to write a 'masterpiece' in a few weeks -- there are exceptions, but they're pretty rare.

And I realise you're thinking financially, but sometimes spending much longer does net more money. A friend of mine got a £250,000 advance for a novel not long ago, and an earlier one of hers was optioned and then picked recently up by a production company, and she'll cowrite the screenplay -- lots more longterm money. She is reasonably prolific for a literary novelist, and probably writes a book every eighteen months to two years.

I suppose there are writers and writers

@Phosphor ahh see I don't write (or intend to write) literary fiction. I really just enjoy telling stories!

The "masterpiece" (I'm talking genre fiction here, so not literary greatness or anything) took about six weeks. It was a really complex plot, layers, twists, turns, emotional wounds galore etc. It took a lot of "fermenting" and scribbling notes at 3am when something clicked into place. I was extremely proud of it (the cover is actually framed in my bedroom along with the character artwork I had commissioned), it got great reviews, and the characters have a special place in my heart, but I don't think I'd want to repeat it anytime soon.

I found it a little boring. Because of the complexity (one of the characters had deep psychological issues that took a lot of research), I had to plot, and then it wasn't as exciting when I had all the issues worked out and I knew the end and all the twists. I kinda enjoy discovering all of that as I'm going along.

But yeah I know trad is a little different. I have a friend who is a genre fiction writer who was picked up by an amazon imprint and got an $80k advance. But it turned out to be a curse because the process was so long and convoluted. He didn't keep up with his own self-published stuff for say 8 months (because he thought he had it made with trad), and then the first of the three books flopped, and they dropped him. He's been trying to get back to where he was in self-pub for the past year.

So I am a little wary of changing what works for me, if that makes sense? I like to just tell decent stories and get them out so people can read them . And then move on to the next new interesting idea.

I suppose there are writers and writers

Which makes sense considering there are readers and readers

Nothing you churn out in a week is going to be 'great' in any sense. It's going to be contrived, derivative, predictable pap. My 'day job' is churning out writing in another field and i'm quite honest with myself that it's a bit rubbish. Then again i'm writing for other people's specifications.

I'm sorry, OP, I came over all mean-spirited just now. Good luck with your book. I'm off to shake off the lockdown cabin fever by doing PE With Joe.

I'm off to shake off the lockdown cabin fever by doing PE With Joe.

That's going to shake out the creative cobwebs.

@themental, did I imagine you said on another thread that your genre was romance set in Scotland? Which sounds incredibly specific to me, especially if you generally write and release full-length novels every few weeks ! Would you be prepared to say more about what your market is -- what do they want from your 'crazy stories', and who is your readership?

And, if I can say this in a way that doesn't sound offensive, why aren't they spending their money on books that aren't, to use your expression, 'minimum viable products'-- why would a reader not want something that took longer than a week to write and edit?

@RuffleCrow haha, that's okay.

I know what you mean, and I don't take offence.

@Limpetlike

Would you be prepared to say more about what your market is what do they want from your 'crazy stories', and who is your readership?

Hmm... I'm not actually sure. I guess I write in a way that anyone could easily consume. According to a study, 52% of Americans have basic or below basic reading levels, so I don't personally try to write for the top 2%.

As for my readership... my grandma loves my books! Haha, I'm kidding. I get instagram fan collages of my characters from twenty-somethings, and facebook messages from 65 year old housewives from Alabama telling me how much they love "Cole" or "Darren" or whoever I've made up, and asking how many children my imaginary couple had. Just going by facebook, they seem to be all ages.

And, if I can say this in a way that doesn't sound offensive, why aren't they spending their money on books that aren't, to use your expression, 'minimum viable products' why would a reader not want something that took longer than a week to write and edit?

I think maybe we have a different understanding of "minimum viable product"? That doesn't mean "shit", or something full of typos, or plot holes, or that has skimped on the depth or world building. It just means I don't tend to spend any time polishing a stone into a diamond, when people just want, and are happy with, a stone.

It's like saying "why would anyone ever have McDonalds when Michelin star restaurants exist"... sometimes people just want a quick and dirty McDonalds, I guess? Sometimes people only eat at top places, and some people would rather not because they don't like expensive food and prefer McDonalds. Everyone has different tastes.

As for the week thing, it's really just more hours in the chair actually writing. So I usually get my 5k in about 4 hours, which gives me 50k in 2 weeks. Sometimes I'm lazy and only spend 2 hours writing, or take loads of days off, and the 50k takes a month. In this case yesterday I was about 8-9 hours total time in the chair to get to 9.4k.

I think maybe we have a different understanding of "minimum viable product"? That doesn't mean "shit", or something full of typos, or plot holes, or that has skimped on the depth or world building. It just means I don't tend to spend any time polishing a stone into a diamond, when people just want, and are happy with, a stone.

Thanks for replying, @themental. The reason I asked was because I don't, in terms of writing, have any sense of what a 'minimum viable product' is -- I'd never come across the expression before you used it of your work. I didn't think you published books riddled with typos or plot holes, but it's not entirely clear to me what differentiates for your readership a stone vs a diamond.