Once upon a time, all a writer had to do was write manuscripts and send them to their editor…then roll right over into the next novel.
Along came the handsome prince indie publishing, and just like it has revolutionized every other aspect of writing, it has also changed the way we authors work.
No, wait…you haven’t changed the way you work?
The linear production method of writing—that is; plotting a book, then writing the book, then producing the book, then publishing it, then starting the next one—is a default workflow for a lot of authors. This is something I only discovered a few days ago. I seem to have stumbled across multitasking quite naturally.
Multitasking has a bad reputation because it usually implies that you do two or more tasks at the same time.
Multitasking in the context of indie publishing is different. It is when you divide up your available time for your writing business into distinct portions and complete those tasks one at time. The “multi” comes from the many tasks you complete over a given time period, that usually involve multiple books, instead of focusing on the linear “next step” of just one book. So:
X% of your time is for writing fresh manuscript.
X% for plotting the next book.
X% for production.
X% for promotion.
…and so on.
These are the most common “tasks” indie authors face these days, but your business might have additional tasks that have to be covered somewhere in your spare time. For example, with 55+ books published and now I am writing full time, administration and bookkeeping has become a major time sink that must be addressed somewhere in my work week.
When you multitask, you don’t just work on one book at a time. You split your time up into distinct roles. For example: On the way to and from your day job you write fresh manuscript for book 2 because you can’t get on-line while in transit. At lunchtimes, you plot book 3. And in the evenings, three days a week, you work on production for book 1. The other nights of the week, you concentrate on promotion for all upcoming and published books. On the weekend, you take care of business matters.
Dean Wesley Smith strongly suggests that an author spend 80% of his time writing fresh manuscript, 10% of his time on promotion and 10% of his time on business, including production.
I find this ratio doesn’t work for me. As I do all the production on my books except for the covers and the final line edit, I need more production time and I’ve already mentioned the administrivia and bookkeeping chores.
When I first started writing full time, I spent five hours in the morning on fresh manuscript, and the afternoons were reserved for everything else, including plotting the next book. Trial and error told me that there wasn’t enough time in the afternoons to cover the “everything else”, so I moved plotting to the mornings, too. So now I plot a book, then immediately start writing it, then plot the next, and so on. This seems to be working better for me.
Break your time up into ratios that you think will work for you, then experiment and see how it goes.
Tracy Cooper-Posey writes vampire romance series and hot romantic suspense. She has been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award. After a decade of legacy publishing, she switched to indie publishing has released over 55 indie titles to date. Her indie books have made her an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author and have been nominated four times for Book of the Year. Byzantine Heartbreak won the title in 2012. Faring Soul was awarded a SFR Galaxy Award in 2015. Tracy has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line. Her website can be found at http://TracyCooperPosey.com.
