In A Hurry

All Writers Early On Are In A Hurry…

I know for a fact I was no exception to that fact when I started publishing. And I have talked about this here and in workshops a lot of times in a lot of different ways.

But today and tonight I had a couple reminders. Two reminders from writers, one reminder as I was recording some new videos for the Licensing Transition (they are not posted yet. More to record tomorrow.)

One aspect about licensing is that nothing happens fast. And it often will take years to build a good license with a partner. I will talk about that more in the class. And wow, in the master class, that became very, very clear.

But book sales is where in this modern world of indie publishing you see this rush. Lots of writers think they can write a few novels and bam start making a lot of money. If I was silly enough to play the lottery, that would be like saying, I will buy a ticket on Saturday and be rich by next week. Nope. It happens, but it is not a business plan.

Part of this business and of licensing is to try new things, take some risks. Let me give you an example you can see right now.

For about a decade Kris had this nifty idea of sending subscribers a story per day for a period of time. And for a decade we talked about the idea, through ups and down, through all the inventions of the indie movement, even though Kris being sick. It was always this great idea that Kris has a vision for.

So last year at this time we decided to go for it, finally, because we felt the technology was in place to make it happen for readers and also the wonderful gang at WMG Publishing was up for the task.

So Kris took the editing reins getting the great stories and off we went. And you are seeing now the first year of this with the Holiday Spectacular where you can get a holiday story by a professional writer arrive in your inbox every day.

You can’t believe the amount of behind-the-scenes problems that had to be solved to make it seem so simple and easy to the readers. But it is working.

And I find it cool, better than I had even imagined it would be.

So timing on this  was that we thought about the idea for a decade, started it a year ago, and are now having it come out. But having it come out is far, far from the end of the project, because the plan on this is to let it build, do it every year, with more holidays.

So an omnibus of the first stories will be out in July followed by the three books in October for everyone to buy, and then it starts again.

The long-term plan is to have this Holiday Spectacular be a regular and fun thing and the plan extends years in to the future.

In other words, things take time.

If we had been in a hurry on this idea, we would have launched it before the time was right, before technology was up for the task, and screwed it up and ruined it.

Sometimes good licensing ideas just take time to build.

And sales take time to build.

And your writing skill level takes time to improve.

We are all headed to a new decade.

Where do you want to be in December 2029??

Don’t answer me, just think and plan for that. And this month I will be talking a lot about this planning for both next year and the next decade. Stay tuned.