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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38525
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38525
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My advice is to ignore the people that advocate writing a book in one month, or two, or three.

Even with no other duties, it takes me at least six months to finish my fifth draft of a book, and I may spend another three months doing more drafts. I don't expect anybody else to follow my formula, it is based on my personal sensibilities and what I have found works to create a publishable book. Stephen King has said it takes nine months to produce a book, and some have taken more than a year. JK Rowling rewrote the first Harry Potter book from scratch five times. It's 384 pages, no way she did that in a month!

Write and edit at your pace, don't let anyone tell you that you are doing it wrong. Figure out for yourself how to streamline your process, but you should not have a time limit.

In this business, quantity is not a substitute for quality. Mediocre books written in a month, even given away free on Amazon or iTunes or whatever, may help you build a mailing list: But if people out there are disappointed with the quality of your **_free_** book, by what logic will they **_pay_** for the next book? Or even bother downloading another free book?

These strategies might work if you have a stack of quality books, but not with a stack of slap-dash, poorly edited, garbage books. And is that really what you wanted to write, anyway? Not for me; I want to be proud of my work.

I read of a woman that won a million dollar long shot trifecta, she picked the jersey colors that matched her scarf. I read of a man that won millions in the lottery playing the birthdays of his kids -- but his winning ticket had one of them wrong by a month. Now these are obvious examples of what I am about to say, but the same idea applies: Just because _somebody else_ found a method that worked for them, don't think that means it will work for you too.

You can sure listen to it, try some elements of it, but in the end remember you have to produce quality, and if their method produces dreck, discard it. Do not listen to the apologists that tell you it is good enough, typos don't matter, grammar is fluid, and the only important thing is to be done with it and make a buck.

It is possible they have some natural storytelling skill so readers forgive their trash for some element of suspense, a natural skill you don't have, so your similar trash will flop.

Write your stories by your own method, take as long as it takes. An approach I believe works is building an audience with free work. Build up some stories to give away free, one at a time, specifically to build up a mailing list of thousands of people. Use them for _feedback_, ask them how they liked it, good or bad because you want to be a better author. Engage with them, ask them to fill out a survey. Best thing about your book. Worst thing about your book.

Some will respond. Apply their feedback to another book, and email them to offer it to them, again for free. Advertise it for free to build more mailing list (keep track of which books each email address has seen / purchased). More engagement. Then, after two books, try to sell one. All this while writing another book, which will be for sale, also.

A large quantity of books will not sell more books. A large audience that LIKES your books will; every time one comes out. You don't have to be a whiz on social media and make friends with all of them, you don't have tweet something clever every day or post to Facebook every day. You just need customers that if you email them **occasionally** , several weeks apart, they will bother to read your emails and not automatically delete them.

The fame you want is not _general_ fame, it is _specific_ fame, X thousand people that have read one or two of your books and **like** them. But, again, this strategy relies very heavily on quality writing, because even for free, readers have choices, and aren't going to waste their time on your second free book if your first was an amateurish disaster you tried to finish in a month.

Original score: 13