Setting Writing Deadlines

If you want a good editor, cover designer, etc., you have to schedule them. It's rare you can find someone these days who will drop everything to accommodate an author the moment they finish a book with zero notice.

 

I recently contacted my editor to ask her how far out she was scheduling. Her answer? Two months. And that was her first available spot. She has authors who are scheduled into December.

 

When writing is your full time gig, it's a little easier to plan release dates. While life can still get in the way, there is more flexibility to make up writing time when there are more hours in a day to do so.

 

So what do you do if writing isn't your full time job?

 

First and foremost, you need to be realistic. How much time per week can you dedicate to writing? How much to marketing?

 

I know most of us would love it if we could just write the books, publish them, and then the readers would come, but that's not how it works. Marketing has to be done and you either need to do it or you need to pay someone to do it for you.

 

Once you've figured out how much time you can spend writing per week, you need to figure out approximately how long it will take you to write the story.

 

This is not an 'okay, if I spend every waking hour of my weekends for a month I can pound out the story' type of a thing. Sure, you could do that, but you're asking for burn out. If you want to make a career out of writing, then this is not a good strategy.

 

For me, I try to get an hour of writing done on most days. And I say most because life does happen whether you want it to or not. You have to plan for that when you're setting deadlines.

 

Every person's situation is different, and that needs to be taken into consideration. If you have a eight to five job with set hours and no big responsibilities outside of those hours, then you may be able to set aside more hours to write and publish stories more often.

 

My schedule is anything but set in stone. Because my husband and I run our own woodworking business, I not only have to help him with the shop, but there are customer emails and phone calls, dealing with vendors, and the dreaded admin work. All of these things take me away from writing.

 

Because of this, I make sure there's a large buffer between what I can get written and what I can realistically write in a week. I may easily be able to bang out 1,000 words in an hour, but that's if I'm not frazzled by everything else and can focus on my story. And even if I can get that amount of words down in one hour, there is no guarantee I'll be able to write every day.

 

All these things need to be taken into account when setting writing and publishing deadlines. Not only will it take a lot of stress of the writer, but it will help to build trust with readers. They'll know when your next book is coming and they will have confidence that the release date won't be pushed back.

 

Life happens. Sometimes we miss deadlines. But setting realistic goals for ourselves...ones we can actually stick to...will not only make us happier, it will make our readers happier as well.