Oh man, have I got myself into trouble or what?! During the holiday period, I sat down and wrote out my goals for 2015 and then I started focusing on what I wanted to do business wise for the year ahead…
This is what popped into my head –
What would happen if I set myself the challenge of writing and publishing 7 books in 7 weeks?
If you've been receiving the OFS Newsletter for any length of time, you'll know that I started my self publishing side hustle in July 2014 and that I'm seeing some great successes.
So it should come as no surprise that a big focus for my freelancing business in 2015 is going to be on publishing more books.
To push myself out of my comfort zone (because my theme for this year is ‘focus and growth') and run a few tests (which I'll elaborate on in a future post), I wondered what would happen if I published a series of books in a short space of time?
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Enter THE CHALLENGE…
I got this idea after watching a replay of a webinar by Kirsten “The Book Ninja” Eckstein about the many ways that she publishes and puts together books.
She did an even crazier challenge where she wrote and published 18 books in 18 weeks and saw an increase of 878% in passive income… That was in 2013!
So that's what got me thinking about my own self publishing business.
Since September 2014, I've published 6 books on Amazon and have seen a steady increase in my monthly income from this source. I've gone from earning over $800 USD in September to over $3,000 USD in November with December 2014 sales set to tip the scales at over $4,000 USD – and that's just with 6 books!
It made me think about what would happen if I produced and published more in a quicker space of time.
During the holidays I also read a lot about what other indie author's were doing and in particular what my favourite non-fiction writer and authorpreneur, Steve Scott, had previously done.
I reviewed Steve's stats and noticed a tipping point at about the sixth book he published, where his income jumped from $6,000 USD to $10,000 USD per month…
With all of these thoughts swirling around in my head, it was inevitable that this challenge would pop into my mind, right?!
What's Involved:
Ok, here's how this is going to play out. If you're interested in doing something similar, you can follow this loose structure outlined below or make your own.
If you do decide to do this, leave a comment at the end of this post with what your lofty goal or crazy challenge is so we can all follow along!
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- Step One: Mind map each book idea (each book is based on a blog post from OFS)
- Step Two: Create a structure for the books (aiming to follow the same for each one to make the writing process quicker)
- Step Three: Aim for 5,000 – 10,000 words for each book (they are part of a series, so will bundle together once completed)
- Step Four: Day 1 – Start each new book on a Monday, taking 2-3 days to write each book
- Step Five: Day 3-4 – Hand book straight to editor on day 3 or 4 (24 hour turnaround)
- Step Six: Day 5 – Have cover designer craft the book cover and compile then book to .mobi, epub and CreateSpace
- Step Seven: Day 6 – Upload book to Kindle (craft description, choose categories and 7 keywords) and publish
- Step Eight: Day 7 – Launch book at 99 cents and publish on Kobo and CreateSpace
- Step Nine: Repeat steps 4-8 each week until challenge is complete
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A couple of things to note at this point:
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- I've already got the 7 blog posts that I'm basing the books on
- I've already sourced images for each book cover
- I've already done some preliminary research for each book
- The mind mapping and structure for each book will be completed this weekend
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I'm a planner, so it made sense to put a bit of pre-thought into this instead of just jumping straight in. I feel that this will help me write the books faster and hit the ground running.
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I've also lined up my Ambassadors to help promote the books and leave reviews as well – if you'd like to help out and get your hands on FREE copies of each book, then sign up to be one of my Ambassadors right now!
I'll be posting on the blog each week with an update on how I'm progressing with the challenge and then at the end of the challenge, I'll be writing up a huge post on outcomes including income earned during the challenge period.
There will also be a follow-up post to see how doing the challenge affects my sales over the next 30, 60 and 90 day periods.
I'm excited! Are you keen to do the same or set yourself a different but lofty challenge? Leave a comment below and tell me what you're planning – and if I can help (by promoting your links on social media etc) I will!
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10 replies to "The Challenge: Write and Publish 7 Books in 7 Weeks!"
Actually, this year I didn’t set any goals for myself related to writing books. I kind of like just writing whenever I want to write, but making sure that I’m driven at a good pace.
I just finished writing my first book and will be submitting it to Amazon this week! 🙂 It’s about using Skype to network and meet people!
A book a week is pretty challenging, I have to say! How are you going to be accountable for that kind of a goal? Also, do you have a punishment set if you don’t (at least) write a book every week?
My focus this year is on writing more books, it’s part of my business model, so definitely have some things in place to ensure that I hit my targets.
Awesome work on your book – make sure to leave a comment with deets once it’s live!
Yes it is a challenge, but I’m up for it. In terms of accountability, I have a mastermind group I belong to, so checking in with them daily as well as putting out into the world wide web via this blog. I’ll be posting an update each week with my progress. In terms of a punishment if I don’t write a book a week – that type of thing doesn’t work for me, so no punishment system. It’s more of a personal goal – but if I don’t hit 7 books in 7 weeks – it will hurt my income more than anything, as I’ve had to turn other projects away to do this 🙂
Thanks for your comment!
Hi Lise! Malan from Pat’s Kindle Books here. I find your challenge very inspiring and can’t wait to get to the other posts and see how it went.
Can you tell me more about these mastermind groups? That keep you accountable? That sounds extremely useful.
malanvdw@gmail.com
Hi Malan, thanks for your comment, will send you an email re the Mastermind groups, but basically I found them through Location Rebel, where I’m a founding member. I have one that I check in with every two weeks and the other is every month plus daily Facebook chats in our private group 🙂
Hi,
I love the idea of writing 7 books in 7 weeks. That’s going to be awesome. I’ve just released my first book in Amazon (no1 Bestseller in its category! – check it out here : http://bit.ly/21DyDtRevUSA) and am writing my second.
I love the idea of mind making first as I haven’t done that before and my second book is not flowing as well as my first so I think I will be doing that tomorrow before I continue writing. I already have ideas for books three and four…
Love your blog and will be trying the 0.99 launch with the next one to see how that goes…
Thanks again.
J.
That’s awesome J, I did see your book in Pat’s Facebook Group. It’s doing really well, congratulations!
Mind mapping is definitely the way to go – it allows you to get all the ideas out of your head, and from there, I find it’s much easier to come up with an outline, then chapters. I can then write much faster because I have a format to follow – much easier.
I’ve just started the challenge today, as it’s Monday here in New Zealand – already nailed 2000 words!
Good luck with the 99 cent launch – I’d love to know how it goes!
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