What the hell is a production schedule? Well, it’s something I never thought I would use honestly, because I didn’t ever think of it. While listening to an audiobook by an author named Joanna Penn, she writes fiction and non-fiction. This particular book was one of her non-fiction books about helping authors with the business side of things. Something I DESPERATELY need guidance with.
In the book she said, quite obviously, that author businesses revolve around your books, aka your products, and the way to make more money (which has never been the point of writing really, but I would LOVE it if my passion could pay for itself, at least!) is to have more books to sell. More titles CAN directly impact your revenue thus progress your business. Well of course I knew this. So how does this mysterious production schedule come into play for me? Glad you asked.
A production schedule is a breakdown of your projects for you, the author, for the year written out on a calendar. Pretty simple. Similar to SMART goals if you are familiar with those. Just less complicated. Or maybe not. It has been a hot minute since I last wrote a freaking SMART goal. Anyway, she mentioned that it is useful to write down your projects, and then a daily/weekly/monthly schedule of how you manage those objectives. Again, not something revolutionary, so I’m not sure why this hit me so hard, but regardless, it did.
I thought about it, and since I can remember, I never really took the time to write down all the umpteen hundred and a half projects I want to accomplish as an author. Never did it. Of course, I wrote down my ideas, and even fleshed them out for future Ryan to write those, but I never organized my weeks into a legitimate structured schedule. It just never seemed necessary. I generally would write when inspiration hit, correspond with authors, handle marketing, record podcast episodes whenever I had time, and edited both the books and podcast as I saw fit.
In essence, I was always working, but really going nowhere when it came to my books. Basically, because the starting energy to begin writing for me was the most difficult part, I would do what was easiest, which was take care of the odds and ends for the podcast and other non-vital aspects of my work. I’m very task centric. Goal oriented, yes, but I tend to do the quickest item first and bring that to completion. However, the issue with that when you have a recurring, weekly podcast is there is never a shortage of things to do. So, the book writing suffered.
That is when I came across Joanna Penn’s series to help authors with various topics. So, what I devised when I began to mull over putting my ass on a schedule was to first prioritize my books and other literary projects. Second, manage the podcast, and third, plan and utilize social media and other means for marketing. Wow. What a damn difference.
What I started to do with my priorities listed and all my stories I have planned was really reflecting on the time needed to maintain the podcast. That was always my go to, if I didn’t feel like writing. Just work on another episode. It's cool to be ten weeks ahead of schedule, right? Absolutely, but not at the cost of your book production. So, I limited myself to three hours of recording on Fridays, and only Fridays. Then I chose two days out of the week that I would allow myself to edit audio files for the podcast, which ended up being Monday and Tuesday. In reality, I would only be editing for about two-three hours per week. Enough to be one week ahead of schedule. Plenty of leeway in case something weird happens in the week. Every other day would be dedicated to the writing and other steps of book production.
With that podcast schedule reigned in I now needed to figure out a goal for myself with the books. The last four years my priority has been my fantasy series, and I am hell bent on finishing the manuscripts to that entire story before moving onto anything else. The “Beasts of Men and Gods” series will have at least five full length novels. I have some work to do. With that said, I know from experience that I can slam out a first draft within six months, and that’s the time I gave myself for book 3. Looking at the beginning of Sept 2024 all the way to the end of Feb 2025 I will be frantically writing that manuscript. Then the clock will reset for book 4, and the finish off with book 5, completing the series’ first drafts by early 2026.
Seems daunting right? It is. But for the first time in a long time, I felt I had a plan of attack. Now what mattered was my pacing. I had the goal, and now I set my speed, cruise control, if you will. In essence, how many words per day am I writing at a minimum. Ummm…I could always go back to 100/day. While that seems SUPER reasonable, I am done with being reasonable. I need to push myself. Since figuring out my sleep issue which directly affected my sleep, I am living on more energy day to day than the last few years. With that said, I landed on a substantial, yet entirely manageable 500 words per day. So far, so good.
Finally, my third priority arose. How would I manage my marketing? I hate marketing with a passion. Enough so, that it can only be described as lustful disdain. Then how was I going to handle it without making me want to commit physical violence on a virtual place like social media? Again, I landed on limiting myself to a single day for that task(s). I landed on Sunday after breakfast. This seemed incredibly natural for me and my week. For at least an hour, I would schedule and plan email marketing campaigns, social media posts, send communications to various people, collect photos, set up blog posts, and manage my website. In that one hour I accomplished quite a bit, and I didn’t feel awful about it. I planned for the week or more going forward, then called it quits before my tiny brain exploded.
I made production schedules work for me and my slowly growing business. It’s not the end all be all solution; however, I can see and feel a HUGE improvement. It reminds me of driving a car. Take your hands off the wheel and the vehicle will drift slightly. You drift long enough, prepare to see the bottom of a ditch or the front end of oncoming traffic. Constant attention and adjustments are required to get to your destination. With this new tool I am accomplishing so much. With a combination of creating my physical schedule, fixing my sleep, and establishing my priorities for my authorship projects I now feel free to pursue other concepts to better improve my viewership/reader base and beyond. Not to mention, my mental health has greatly improved. Before I was wasting time, stressing over not getting writing done, feeling guilty, and just beating myself up over the lack of progress. To the point of developing some anxiety and depression. A nasty combo I wanted to avoid.
Thankfully organizing my author life has given me the focus necessary to move along and see real growth. For instance, since implementing the production schedule I have completed extensive edits to book 2 that I had struggled for two years prior to complete. I updated and improved my covers, rejoined the marketing game, recorded several interviews with wonderful authors, and also wrote over 10,000 words for book 3 in about a four-week period. All doing this while still performing my duties as a husband, father of two active kids, and working full time. All thanks to the implementation of a production schedule.
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