So I keep getting asked how I plan to release a FINISHED book each month. The answer is very simple, really. I wrote them all years ago.
What, not the answer you wanted to hear? Probably not. So many people are trying desperately to crank out work fast enough to bump them up the lists, often thinking only of volume, not quality. I went the other way. I had stories to tell, and hoped that one day they’d become “real” books. Yeah, except that whole “real” part was never well defined in my head.
As a child growing up with only physical books, but an adult who loves her ebooks, I never stopped to think about HOW people would read them. I just knew I had this story, and I would finish it. Naturally, when I had the book ready for the public, I contacted an agent, then another, then another. While waiting for their response, I started researching this whole kindle revolution.
It took time – both for the queries and the research – but I eventually came to a simple conclusion. I don’t LIKE the direction traditional trade publishing is going. I DO like the control independent publishing offers. Unfortunately, by the time I felt confident with dedicating all my hard work to a specific course of action, I’d written so many books I had no idea how to get them to the public!
Kinda people told me to release a book each year. Uh, if that’s the case, my author career is over! I have 35 books. Many of these are book 1 in a series – from trilogies to 10 book epics. Why would I wait to release them? They’re DONE (well, my part). Instead, I began looking at editing, cover art, and how to FINISH a book.
But it’s easy to hem and haw, convincing myself that I need to do something before I release THIS book. It’s hard to admit that it will never be PERFECT, but can still go out into the world with a missing comma, or in the case of WWWD a “finance” instead of “fiancee”. No, those mistakes aren’t allowed, but they were missed 5 times. It happens. I can still fix them. And I am/have/will. But the books are seeing the light of day. One by one, they are all getting the best polish I can offer, then turned loose on a pre-determined day… because deadlines HELP.
I know, it’s not the fancy “cheat code” people want to know about. It’s not the miracle cure that you and only you will find on Google. This is the truth. If you want to produce a lot of books, then write a lot of books. Hopefully GOOD ones. Do everything right. You see, no matter how many people say the best way to make it big on kindle is to pump out a book/month, they forget one VERY important thing.
You need to release GOOD books.
It doesn’t matter how many books you have if they are all crap. If there are typos, plots that make no sense, shallow characters… no one will buy them. That’s just the truth.