To say this was a lofty goal is an understatement, particularly in hindsight. As I look back over the past 7 weeks, I have asked myself many times, “why did I do this?!”
If you've missed any of the previous weeks updates, you can find them all here.
At the start of the Challenge, I was all fresh and excited, pumped to get started and see what the end result would be. The process of writing a book a week is actually not to difficult, but the part that is difficult is balancing everything else you've got going on in your life.
There will be a much longer post about the entire process once I've had a chance to sit down and regroup, but for now, here's a quick recap on the last two weeks and then some lessons I learned throughout the past 7 weeks.
Week 6 & 7 Recap
Week 6 I started feeling a little low, as week 5 had been particularly tough. But once I sat down and started writing “101+ Tools, Apps & Programs to Help You Run a Successful Freelancing Business” it didn't take me long to get into a flow and get the book written.
What I didn't anticipate though, was that trying to get all this writing done in the middle of coaching and working with the guys at Self-Publishing School! We had a Live Chat feature on the website that was utilised a lot, and between answering people's questions and trying to write, it took me almost the entire week to get this book done, rather than my normal 2-day writing stint.
To keep myself on target of writing and publishing a book a week, my editor, Lisa, was turning around my books within 24 hours. This meant that I was able to keep on schedule!
Here's the book cover for this one. I think it's my fave!
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Week 7. This is where I'm at right now and it's an awesome feeling to be able to sit down and just look at all the books I've written. As I write this, Lisa has just returned the last book and it will be edited and published today.
I started the week well, or so I thought. I knew what I had to write because I'd already outlined the book fully last week, hoping to get a jump-start on the actual writing part over the weekend. But it just never happened, because I was reaching burn-out and just needed a break.
So I took one.
When I sat down and started writing this final book, I was a massive struggle to do so. I remember sitting at my computer, writing for about 15 minutes, and then being ‘distracted' by an email, or jumping on Facebook to see what was going on. When I actually noticed myself doing this (about 2 hours had passed) I packed up my gear and went to my local coffee shop.
If I want no distractions, I go to one of two coffee shops. Monday, I opted to go to the one that doesn't have great wifi, so I could turn off all the distractions. I got half-way through the book by doing this.
On Tuesday, I turned off all my apps that notify me and just wrote. Butt in chair, typing, typing, typing.
That's how the book got done.
Now, I'm off to do my final read-through and make any adjustments before I publish it on Kindle and then CreateSpace.
Then, the launching process will begin for all 7 books.
Lessons Learned During “Write & Publish 7 Books in 7 Weeks”
Here are some of the lessons I learned during this challenge. I hope that you can take something away from these.
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- Lesson 1: If you don't outline your book properly, it's difficult to write it well and not feel ‘blocked'
- Lesson 2: If you don't stick to an eating schedule, you'll crash and burn
- Lesson 3: If you don't let others around you know what you're doing, you'll get lots of interruptions
- Lesson 4: If you don't update your to-do list and schedule, everything you're juggling can start to fall
- Lesson 5: If you don't have a good team in place, ie, other's to help you, then you won't be able to succeed
- Lesson 6: If you don't take a break at least once during a challenge like this, you won't finish it
- Lesson 7: You can't successfully write, publish and launch a book a week and then repeat the process the next week
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If you decide to do your own challenge like this, I would love to hear about it! Or maybe you did one and are now at the end of it too. Share your thoughts in the comments below, particularly if any of the lessons learned resonate with you.
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2 replies to "The Challenge Update—”Write & Publish 7 Books in 7 Weeks—Complete!"
Congratulations Lise!
I was challenging enough to write my first. Totally agree on making an outline. Once I had that done the only challenge was to find the time to write. I wrote faster and felt really organized. I’m sure your launch and promotion will go great!
Thanks Josh! Outlining a book first is definitely the easiest way to ensure that you stay on topic when you write as well, and definitely helps the writing process. Finding the time is just a matter of scheduling it in. That’s how I make that part of the process happen, butt in chair!