Baby Evil Writers 101: How Long Does Publishing Take

Baby Evil Writers 101: How long does it take to get published?

Julie Butcher

Write a million words.

So you see my sweet evil babies, it all depends on you. If you wrote one thousand words a day, every day. Then, in one thousand days, you would have your million words. But even the most fervent writer doesn’t work each and every day. The evil children must be fed and if you miss the evil queen mother’s birthday—you’re toast.

So let’s assume that you do not write for two days of the week and that you do write for five days. (Like a real job) Now you’re down to twenty-two days per month or 264 days per year and this doesn’t count holidays. Let’s take away twenty days for holidays and making dinners and birthdays and blowing up stuff on appropriate holidays. Now we have 244 days per year.

“Oh!” You say. “That is 244,000 words or around three manuscripts.”

Not so much. You’ll spend twice the time editing that you do writing—if you do it correctly. It will take a lot longer because you are new at evil. After a few books you’ll only use one day to edit for every day you write. Eventually, you won’t have to edit hardly anything because you learned all of the things. But now, that takes away from your actual working time so you’ll have one book to edit and I’ll be generous and say that your book is 100,000 words.

There’s one tenth of what you need to be awesome. Ten years until awesome hits the shelves.

Unfortunately, most of us are not quick learners. All of your words need to be filled with evil and wonder. Each word needs to further the plot of your book. Add two or three years to learn to plot without holes and to write concise sentences. (At 1.000 words per day it will take that long.)

Now we’re at twelve years if you write 1,000 words five days each week.

So put on your big kid pants, put your butt in the chair, and write. Dreaming about writing will not get you there. Stalking agents and editors on twitter will not make you one word closer. The one and only thing that will make your journey faster is to write.

Baby Evil Writers 101: Writing for a Living

Baby Evil Writers 101: Writing for a Living

Julie Butcher

I don’t think I’ve ever met a writer who doesn’t want to quit working, stay home and make their living from writing. Quitting the day job is the ultimate dream. The problem is making your dreams into reality. Those pesky children seem to want food every single day and then you need a roof, and electricity to run your laptop, and heat in the winter is a necessity and not a luxury. If this is a serious goal, you need to have a plan.

First of all, you have to sell some books. To live in a modicum of comfort, you need to have three books on the shelf for each and every member of your family. For most people this means that their career needs to be firmly established for ten years or more before they gain their freedom. During those ten years, you need to figure out some things.

1.      Where will the health insurance come from? If you are the working person who provides this necessity, you need to plan on paying for it yourself. It isn’t cheap. Unless you have a few hundred thousand dollars tucked away, this isn’t optional.

2.    Make a budget and learn to stick to it. An author gets paid twice yearly and that is a long time between paychecks. Ramen is good but it’s not that good. Also it will make you fat so there you go.

3.      Will any of your children be going to college when you plan to work at home? If so, add another book on the shelf for each child in college. Even scholarship students have expenses not covered by grants and loans

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4.      Pay off anything you can before you quit working outside of the home. You get bonus points for no mortgage and a decent, paid-for car that won’t need immediate repairs.

5.      Include in your budget traveling expenses for conferences and conventions. You’ll need the exposure and unless you’re a big time author, you won’t get your plane tickets paid for you

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6.      Don’t forget to set money aside for promotional items. Also don’t go nuts with these. It is kind of dumb to give away something that costs more than you make by selling a copy of your book.

Most of all you need to get into the habit of setting aside writing time each and every day and sticking to your schedule.  Working from home is still working. No work, no food. Easy-peasy.

Guilty as Charged.

I don't read much for pleasure. That's a capitol offence pretty much for an author, and I lose a lot of sleep over it. I'm not kidding. It really bothers me. It's not that I don't adore reading, that I haven't spent my life until now as an avid reader or anything like that. I love a good book as much as the next person...more than most if you factor out my fellow bibliophiles.

Other authors will snort and shake their heads if you tell them you don't have time to read much anymore. I get it. I actually agree with them 100%. You have to read as an author. Perfectly valid. It's vitally important to expose yourself to others' words, to keep current with your genre, to stir the creative juices. I believe all of this...and yet, I don't read much for pleasure.

The problem is not and has never been that I don't want to read, its seriously just that I don't have time. Make time. I can hear them chanting it in my head at night. Maybe it's that easy, but I have little kids, I have home schooling, housecleaning, writing, editing, cover making, errands and laundry and holy moley some days I don't get to shower or even sleep. (And I get that everyone is busy and this is just me whining. I do.)

I want to comply, but most days, reading for pleasure (or anything for pleasure) is not going to happen. Despite the fact that I love nothing more than to ignore the world and spend a day embedded in a good story of someone else's making, it's just not very likely that I'll get to do that more than once or twice a year.

So usually I feel like a turd about it instead...except I got to thinking about what I do read, and it turns out that is a substantial amount of fiction. I won't even count my own books, which I read from seven to twenty times each during the editing phase. I won't count blogs or industry news'zines or anything nonfiction.

And I still read like a fiend.

Because I beta read for my friends. I critique for some authors and I review for others. I read tons of awesome books all the time, and I haven't been counting them at all. If I actually factor in the reading that I've done "for work" as pleasure reading, (and most of it HAS been a pleasure) I am like a reading machine!

And away floats my guilt...except they also say to keep current with what's popular in your genre, and I also agree with that wholeheartedly. Crap. It's back again.
I can't win for losing here.

The moral is to read, right? Or maybe, not to beat yourself up about it if you can't do what everyone says you "should."
Shoulds, don't do anyone any good.

But books do. :)
Even awesome rough ones written by your friends.

~Frances