Am I Cut Out to be an Indie Author?

After realizing there was merit to the 20 Book Theory, I started to wonder if this was the right path for me. I have always loved writer and have wanted to be a publish author ever since grade school. The types of books I have wanted to publish has evolved over the years but the desire has always been there.

As a mom who works full time I don't want to take too much time away from my kids while they are still small. When they are older and want nothing to do with me it will be a different story.

Right now I have a goal to average 1,000 words a day which takes about an hour to write. I am expecting proofreading and editing to take about the same amount of time; 1,000 words per hour. That puts me at 160 hours of work per book. This doesn't account for cover design and marketing because I have no base line to go off of with those. If we say I put in ten hours a piece on those that brings the total up to 180 hours to get write, edit, cover, and market a book.

We will see if that holds true in real life.

Since I only have an hour a day right now to set aside for writing I am looking at putting out two books a year. This means I would not hit the 20 book mark for 10 years.

Can I really stick with it for 10 years knowing even after that I may not see a return on investment? There is so much more to consider than I initially thought.

Comments

Worried for Nothing?

Recently I was struggling worried, Am I Cut Out to be an Indie Author? Last week I started writing a new story since I was really struggling with the last concept that I had. In my first week of writing I wrote 20,000 words! That is insane, I didn't even know I was capable of putting up those types of numbers. I doubt this pace is maintainable but maybe I can get my number of books released per year up to four after all and cut the time to get to 20 books down from 10 year to 5 years. I am going to keep pushing through and try not to stress too much. I still think waiting until I have a few books ready to release before putting anything out is a good idea. That way I get into the habit and mindset of written without an expectation of return on investment.

Dreams on Hold

They say there is a time and place for everything. Sadly no just isn't the right time to chase this dream. Hopefully the economy will get better and I will be able to have the free time again to work on my writing. Right now I need to pick up a second job on top of everything I am already doing to help cover expenses. Ideally this only last for about six months, but I don't know for sure. The dream is there. It isn't dead it is just on hold once again.

Ups and Downs to word count

The first seven days of writing my new story I put down 23,000 words. Then a lot of life happened and I had four straight days of 0 words. Thankfully I had been crushing it that first week and am still where I need to be a with the stretched goal pass of 1,500 words a day. Before I was excited by just how much I was able to get done and was even think that I may be able to finish faster than the 54 day stretch goal. That was always a miracle goal though. My reasonable deadline for myself is 90 days. This way I can write three books a year and use the remaining days on editing and marketing. I am learning to be patient with myself and that my production isn't always going to be linear.

Suburban Indie Writer

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