Day 2 - Writing An eBook In One Week

Neera

I started the morning going through yesterday’s work to give me an idea of where I was up to and started editing. I was going to edit just for half an hour and ended up editing for two hours.

I had to rewrite most of the things to figure out the right voice I want to use in the book. I realized I was using two different voices in the book. My hesitant and struggling voice in the Diary section and authoritative and more confident voice in the book. 

A visit to idea factory

During the shower, I remembered several things I wanted to include in the book. By the time I got out of the shower and was going to jot them down in the notebook that goes to the bathroom with me, I had forgotten half of them. 

I am hoping they will come back to me. Fingers crossed. 

Evening scare

I spent the afternoon researching and writing one chapter. In the evening, Reedsy’s Editor started playing up. It scared the hell out of me. 

For the next half an hour, I copied everything in a Word document. I couldn’t do “Select All” and had to copy chapter by chapter.

ISBN

An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a unique number that is assigned to every published book. An ISBN identifies a book’s edition, publisher, and physical properties like trim size, page count, and binding type. 

I do not need an ISBN to publish an eBook on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). But I do need an ISBN to publish a paperback. KDP can provide a free ISBN, or I can purchase from multiple sources on the Web. Since I am not thinking paperback at the moment, I am not going to worry about it.

Draft Bookcovers

After dinner, my battery was running on low. I wanted to start writing another chapter, but I knew I would tire myself. So started working on the book covers in Canva along with watching a movie on TV. 

I struggled with moving objects and using different fonts in Canva. I was tempted to learn from YouTube videos, but that would have wasted a lot of time. After playing with Canva, I figured it out. 

I am thinking of including an illustration of Ms. Jolly’s on the cover. Ms. Jolly is a character I created while learning to draw cartoons last year. She is my alter ego, a much daring and wiser than me but also comical and witty. 

I created 4 different covers with a bit of variation. None of them is complete, though. But here they are. I need your help to choose one.

Image by the author
Image by the author

I also need a subtitle for the book.

I came up with some: 

“An eBook writing guide for first-time writers.”

“Writing and eBook made easy.”

“A beginner’s guide to writing an eBook in a week.”

“An easy to follow guide for writers who are intimidated by the book writing process.”

“Write your first book fast.”

“Write a short book and write it fast.”

“Intimidated about writing your first book? Make it short and make it fast.”

Please help me choose or suggest something totally new. 

Because I am not completely happy with any one of them.

To Recap

By the end of the day, I had met my daily quota of writing 5000 words. Altogether I have 11,478 words. But I am very conscious that a lot of them will be either edited out or rewritten. 

Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

Day 1 — Writing An eBook In One Week

Neera

Yesterday I announced that I would write an eBook in one week and share the daily progress on Medium.

I have been procrastinating writing eBooks for three years now. The main reason for that was I thought anything that has the word ‘book’ in it should be written by an expert and it should be a unique and great idea.

In my daily meditation, I have been asking the universe to help me get over this hurdle. This morning I heard a tiny whisper, “Write the damn book. Start today, and do it fast.”

Startled, I opened my eyes.

The message was clear. I shouldn’t ignore it.

If there is one thing that I have learned in my creative life, it is to act while the idea is still hot. It may not amount to anything, but at least I would have tried. There would be no regrets later that I didn’t give it a go.

I opened my laptop and got to work.

I decided to use Reedsy’s Free Book Editor as my writing tool. It has a clean interface, has auto-save functionality, works well with Grammarly and takes care of the formatting and conversion to most publishing platforms.

Next was the structure of the book.

Luckily I have a structure that I use with most long-form writing, which I knew will work well with this book.

I spent an hour outlining the book. While doing that, I came up with an idea to keep a diary while doing the project. I had read a similar diary with one of the books and found it very interesting to read about the author’s struggles and the decisions he made while writing the book.

I wrote about 350 words in the diary. An outline and few paragraphs in the diary, that was all I could manage in an hour. But at least I made a start.

Time to attend to other important tasks, i.e., housework.

While washing dishes, I made a few decisions about the book.

  1. I will write this book as a fun project, which means no pressure for perfection, or spending money.
  2. The book will be 15,000 to 20,000 words long. That means 60 to 80 pages. No more than 100 pages with acknowledgments, references and other such pages. No one has time to read long books.
  3. I will self-edit using Grammarly and ProWritingAid. I already own both software.
  4. I will self-design the book cover. Later on, if needed, I can replace the cover with a professionally designed one.
  5. I will self-publish the book on Amazon.

I know from experience I will only get four clear days in a week. Some sort of chaos will happen on at least three days. So practically, I have four days to write the book. If I could do that in the first four days of the week, I will be able to use the last three days for editing.

That means I will have to write 5000 words a day for Day 1 — Day 4.

Sweet.

No problem.

Bring it on.

Hell no!

In those four days, I will have to do the research as well. If I had planned the project properly, I would have done the research first and then would have started writing the book. But now I have to do both side-by-side.

Research is one thing that makes most of the writer give up their projects. Not because they don’t like it or are not good at it, but they get sucked into it. That is one thing I need to watch out for if I am to finish this project in time.

That is exactly what happened on the first day. I got sucked in research on the very first day. There is so much information on publishing on Amazon that my head spun.

But I manage to get enough information for one chapter. Then I wrote the Introduction and Chapter 1, basically information dumping without worrying about fluency or grammar.

By the end of the day, I had written 5543 words written. More than half of them will be edited out.

I worked on the Publishing chapter first to give me a roadmap of things I need to do in-between writing.

Three things I need to address straight away:

1) Book cover — Design it early so that I have time to share it and get a vote on it, leaving me enough time to tweak it if needed. As I have no experience in cover designs, the sooner I start better it is.

2) ISBN — see whether I need it or not. And how long it takes to arrive.

3) Kindle Direct Publishing — Start filling the form and see if there are any surprises there.

I will write about the progress on these tomorrow.

Photo by Spencer on Unsplash

I Am Writing An eBook In A Week

Neera

I have wanted to write an ebook for months now. But every time I start, I stop after a few days. I convince myself that I don’t have the skills. That I don’t have a good topic to write about. That no one will buy my book, so why bother.

These are all excuses.

The reason why I want to write an eBook is the same as why I wanted to write on Medium.

Back in March 2020, when COVID had just struck, I wrote an article on Medium. It was an innocent attempt. I knew very well that I don’t have the skills to write on a platform like Medium and of course, no one will read it.

To my surprise, many people read the article. Some even clapped and started following me.

I felt so encouraged that I started writing more often. So much so that nine months later, I decided to write an article a day. That helped me win $500 bonus just three weeks later.

My reservations about writing eBooks are the same. And I have to counter them the same way. Just write in and publish it.

This morning I decided to write my first eBook. And I want to write it quickly. Before my left brain has a chance to talk me out of it, I want to announce it here, so that my readers keep me accountable.

Selecting a topic and a niche.

The biggest problem for writing an eBook is finding the topic. The common advice is what are you good at and what people want to read. I don’t know the answer to both of them. At times I feel I am not good at anything and I have no clue what people want to read for which they will be willing to pay money.

The second way to ask is to figure out what problem I can solve. My mind goes blank at questions like these.

So I tried the third way. What would I like to know for which I will be willing to pay money?

That made it a bit easier.

There are many things I would like to know and will pay money for them.

One of them is how I can write my first eBook quickly. I want to do that along with my other commitments. So if someone can show me the way, give me a repeatable process, I would happily pay for it.

That seems like a good enough topic to write about — how to write and publish a book quickly.

I am sure there must be many books available on the topic or the information can be collected by researching on the internet, but if I could give it a bit of twist I can write a useful eBook and learn a lot in the process.

That settles it then.

I have my topic now, what about the niche?

My niche is new writers like myself.

Writers who want to write a book but are intimidated like me.

I want to take them on a journey along with me.

If I could make the process simple and easy enough, they might be able to write their first eBook within a week too.

That’s it then.

I will be writing a book titled — How To Write And Publish An eBook In One Week, and will share the process right here with you.

The twist I am going to give it is that I will write and publish the eBook in seven days, starting from today.

I will do that to prove that it can be done.

Today is Day 1.

Wish me luck please.

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu on Unsplash

An Afternoon At The Redhill

Neera

“Where are you going?” My husband asks before I leave the house on a lazy afternoon during the Christmas shutdown.

“I don’t know. Somewhere.” I step out of the door, still unsure where I was heading, then, as an afterthought, added, “Probably will go and sit under a tree.”

I walk off with car keys and a water bottle. This year we had decided to stay at home during Christmas break and do nothing. Five days of doing nothing and I have had my fill of doing nothing. I needed to get out of the house.

But where? I sit in the car and wonder. Other than shopping centers and tourist attractions, there are very few places to hang out. I want to go somewhere quiet. Somewhere where I can be alone. I let the car take me where it wants and before I knew it, I was on the Redhill.

The car park at the top of the hill has only a few cars. That is encouraging. I get out and take a walk around the building at the top. It is a restaurant but closed for Christmas break. I have been to the Redhill before, mainly with visitors, to show them a bird’s eye view of Canberra. But never took a walk around the hill.

At the restaurant’s back, a bit away from the road, there is a BBQ table. It is empty. I sit there and take a deep breath. The view before me is sublime and serene.

The suburb of Redhill is spread in front of me, covered with mature trees in varying shades of green, interrupted here and there with rooftops. The Redhill primary school and Canberra Grammar are peering out through the dense eucalyptus trees.

At a distance, plains of Canberra airport, followed by vacant land divided at random with rows of pine trees. Low hills surround the valley marking the boundary of Canberra. Far away on the right, I can see houses of Queanbeyan, a town of New South Wales, considered almost a suburb of Canberra.

The afternoon breeze has its own sound and presence. It is hot and cold at the same time, bringing the aroma of local vegetation. It also brings the constant buzzing of the cars from the Hindmarsh Drive. It makes the pages of my notebook flutter and makes my pen and glasses fly away to the ground.

I have found the isolated spot, I tell myself. Who would come here in such a heat and during Christmas break? Half of Canberra has gone to the coast. The rest is in shopping centers.

But I am wrong.

A girl, wearing a striped t-shirt and pair of shorts with earphones in her ears and a water bottle in hand, climbs from the Mugga Lane side of the hill. Moments later, a family of four comes from the other side. The dad is carrying the younger boy on his shoulders while the daughter is walking with the mum.

Another man approaches from left, panting and sweating, in a white t-shirt and a blue cap. He crosses the family, exchanges greetings, and keeps going down the same way as the family.

Near the bench where I am sitting, bull ants patrol around the mount they have created by digging the soil. A bird calls somewhere from a tree. A fly is following me, buzzing annoyingly.

I get up to take a walk along the perimeter around the top. The rock sticking out from the ground has many black and white layers showing a formation geologists talk about. A bush of massive Aloe Vera, pine trees, several varieties of eucalyptus, and many more natural bushes.

Footsteps behind me are crushing the gravel. Somewhere down the hill, someone is playing cricket. I can hear the bat striking the ball. There is a big rattling sound at a distance, like metal sheets unloading from a truck. I wonder how clearly the sound traveled with the wind. I can hear things from miles away.

A signboard tells me how Redhill got its name. Red Bottle Brush was planted here due to Walter Burley Griffin’s interest in color in the landscape. In 1916, the designer of Canberra, Burley Griffin, directed that the hills around Canberra should be replanted according to the mass color scheme — yellow flowers and foliage for Mt Ainslie, pink for Black Mountain, white for Mount Mugga Mugga, and you guessed it red for Redhill.

Redhill was the first hill subjected to the experiment. It was planted with red Bottle Brush plants. It was hard to maintain such a vast area and weed out the other flowers. The experiment failed miserably.

In 1917 Mr. Griffin thankfully changed his mind and urged that the Canberra hills be restored to their natural state.

Different birds are calling from around the trees. I hear a peculiar sound from the bush in front of me, like a newborn baby. I can’t find the bird, though. I hear a Kookaburra and I spot it. It flies in from the left and lands on the top branch of the gum tree. It lets out few more cries, announcing its presence. I see a flash of red between the gum leaves; moments later, it changes its position and becomes clearer. It’s a Red Wattlebird.

A butterfly swirl pass. I follow her with my gaze and notice there is another near the metal fence.

I hear two sets of footsteps behind me. A young boy of late teens and a slightly older girl walk past me. They are deep in discussion.

“Love is crazy, dude!” Boy in a black t-shirt and blue jeans declares.

“Love is good. Love is nice.” Says the girl with a canvass bag on her shoulder and a water bottle in hand.

“Love is crazy and good!” The boy says thoughtfully and the girl laughs.

“Maybe.” She responds.

Suddenly it all makes sense — nature, the wind, the trees, the birds, the people. I touch my lips with my tongue. They are dry with heat and wind. I drink some water and crave tea. I am ready to go home now.

Dated: 29 December 2015.

I live in Canberra, which is the capital of Australia. It is known as the bush capital. It is a beautiful place. I will write more about it in the future.

Photo by Hugo Kneebone on Unsplash

Forget About Year, Forget About Months- Focus On Days

Neera

This year I learned the biggest lesson ever. The importance of each ‘day’ in my life.

All through my adult years, I wanted to start several projects, learn new things, and read a plethora of book but I couldn’t because I didn’t have time. 

I thought, one day, in future, I will have a lot of time. Then I will be able to do all these things. I thought that future was when I retire. 

Not working will add ten extra hours to my day. 

I retired two years ago and I still didn’t have any time to do the things I wanted to do.

The reason was not the lack of will or not knowing the productivity hacks. The reason was, I didn’t understand the importance of a ‘day.’

A day is the single unit of time that is most significant. It has fixed 24 hours which are same for everyone. 

Our weeks could be different, our months could be way different and a year is way too long.

But a day has a rhythm about it. Sun goes up, sun goes down.

Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the battles of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness for something that happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time. 

— Richard Walker in Twenty-Four Hours A Day

That is why Alcoholic Anonymous has a slogan ‘One Day At a Time.’

How to establish a daily practice of anything?

Whatever you want to do, do it every day. Whether it’s writing, meditation, yoga, or a favorite creative activity, you’ll get so much more from doing it every day. 

When you do an activity every day, it become a second nature. Your skill level improve and same task that used to take you hours is done in fraction of time. And you no longer dread it any more.

If you want to write, write every day.

If you want to sketch, sketch every day.

If you want to paint, paint every day.

If you want to sing, sing every day.

Do it every day, until it becomes easy.

Luckily the steps to set the daily practice of anything are the same.

Set the intention.

 Everything starts with intention. 

If at the start of the year someone had said to me that the only way you will be able to make a mark on Medium is by writing an article a day I would have said, “Thank you very much, I am out of here.” 

Yet this is exactly what I did. Mid-April this year, I set myself a challenge to write 100 Articles in 100 Days. This meant writing one article a day.

It started with an intention but the most important thing was ‘why?’

Why I set myself the challenge? I had three very strong reasons for that.

  1. I wanted to get better at writing. 
  2. I wanted to bring the article writing time down from 5–6 hours to 1–2 hours. 
  3. And I wanted to build a rigorous system to publish online articles.

You can make your intention even stronger, by sharing it. I announced mine by writing an article. However, be careful about talking about it too widely, it can dissipate the energy.

Set time and process to do the task.

Setting intention will get you going, setting a time and process to do the practice will make sure that you keep on doing it.

Once I declared my intention I set a time when I will be writing those articles. I write a handwritten draft in the morning, before breakfast. Between breakfast and lunch I type the article. Then I leave it for a few hours. Then either before dinner or after dinner, I edit and publish it. 

I rarely leave the articles for next day (not a good practice) because I know I will run out of steam on the topic and don’t finish it. I like to wake up each morning excited about what I am going to write today.

I have a similar process for watercolour sketches. I do them in the afternoon. I have all the materials at one place. That stops the procrastination. I make a small painting or even an easy one if I have less time. Some days my painting turns up horrible, even then I post it. It is the act that counts not the quality. The quality will come with time.

And should you start to despair at your progress, always keep in mind the words of Harvey Pekar: “Every day is a new deal. Keep working and maybe something will turn up.”

Whatever you are working on make it your most important task of the day and do it no matter what.

Track your progress

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld suggests a calendar method to help keep track of your daily practice. He recommends getting a wall calendar that shows the whole year. Each day, when you’re finished with your work, mark an X in that day’s box.

Every day, instead of just getting work done, your goal is to just fill a box. 

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

I made that calendar in Excel spreadsheet. I use it for my article writing, water colour painting and meditation practice. You are welcome to print it from below.

Image by the author

Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring at the door. Keep knocking and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there. — Rumi

To sum up

A day is your most important commodity. Make sure you use it wisely. 

If you want to learn something, there is nothing like it to practice it daily. 

If you are working on a project, figure out what little daily chunk of work is, and every day, no matter what, make sure it gets done.

Do the work every day. Fill the boxes on your calendar and don’t break the chain.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

What Is The End Game For Literary Writers

Neera

Two days ago, I wrote an article where I said, knowing your end game will help you decide what kind of writer you want to become and what path you need to take to get there.

M.A. Mercier, a dear young friend of mine and upcoming prolific writer, wrote, “I don’t understand your reasoning behind ‘genre fiction.’ I consider myself a Passion writer, but my ‘end-game’ is to write literary fiction. My ideal future where I do both content writing and fiction writing.”

Dear Mercier, this article is for you.

You have pulled the words out of my mouth and wrote them in the comments section. 

It was precisely the question I was trying to understand when I wrote the article. Like you, I am a literary writer. So what is my end game, then?

Being a literary writer is not the end game. The end game is how to stay as a literary writer and make a living.

It is hard to make a living as a literary writer. For one, you can’t keep coming with a book every six months or a year. A good literary book takes much longer to write. 

Second literary readers are not lining up like the fans of Harry Potter or Jason Bourne waiting for the next book. They buy the book when there are enough reviews that say that it is a great book, even if they are written by a great author. Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Khalid Hussini’s subsequent books didn’t sell as well as their first ones.

I didn’t understand it either when I was told, time and time again, that if you want to make a living as a fiction writer, you need to pick a genre. 

Genre writing is what people buy in hoards. They can’t seem to have enough of Nora Roberts, Dan Brown, Stephen King, Arthur Hailey, Michael Crichton, Ken Follett, and Robert Ludlum.

Genre writers can build a following, self-publish, and make six to seven-figure income by selling directly to their readers. The model is well-established and many authors are following it and succeeding at it. 

Literary writers who make a living solely on their books are far and few. The New York Times published a small article based on a recent study by the Authors Guild that said:

“In the 20th century, a good literary writer could earn a middle-class living just writing (citing William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Cheever). Now, most writers need to supplement their income with speaking engagements or teaching. — Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild.

The end game for literary writers used to be to win a major literary prize. This is how Ros Barber described in The Guardian: 

Traditional publishing is the only way to go for someone who writes literary fiction. With genre fiction, self-publishing can turn you into a successful author (if you can build a platform, if you can enjoy marking and are good at it, if you are lucky). But an author who writes literary fiction is dependent on critical acclaim and literary prizes to build their reputation and following. If genre fiction is chart music, literary fiction is opera: the audience is small, and there are limited ways to reach it. Self-published books are not eligible for major prizes like Baileys and the Costa and the Man Booker, and getting shortlisted for major prizes is the only way a literary novel will become a bestseller. The chance of a self-published novelist getting their book reviewed in the mainstream press is the same as the chance of my dog not eating a sausage. The chance of an indie author being booked for a major literature festival? Donald Trump apologising to Mexico. — Ros Barber

She received £5,000 for her most recent novel for two year’s work. Yet, she thinks self-publishing is a terrible idea for serious novelists. 

Because she says, “Self-publishing authors spend only 10% of their time writing and 90% of their time marketing… Good writers become good because they undertake apprenticeships… My first novel was my fourth novel. It was accomplished on the back of three complete novels (plus two half novels)… The gatekeepers are saving you from your own ego… Good writers need even better editors. They need brilliant cover designers. They need imaginative marketers and well-connected publicists.”

So if making a living from your literary fiction is not your goal, then you can go on the path to become a good writer and do a long apprenticeship. I will be cheering for you. But that will take you to the hobby writer category (writers who like to write for personal satisfaction) until you start making a living from it.

Let me come to the question of ‘Passion writers.’

Maybe my definition of ‘Passion writers’ was incomplete. Allow me to elaborate a bit.

Passion writers write what they are passionate about, whether it is content, fiction, or non-fiction and make a living from it.

But even this doesn’t sound right. Maybe I shouldn’t call them ‘Passion writers.’ In the real world, they are called the ‘Bestselling writers.’ They are bestselling because they write to market demands. 

But I want to stay with the term ‘Passion Writers.’ Because I believe passion moves mountains. 

It was the writers’ passion who wanted to break away from the clutches of traditional publishing and create a model for self-publishing within a decade that is repeatable. They wrote in the genre they were passionate about. 

Literature is a genre too. It, too, has dedicated fans. They may not be lining at the bookstores to buy the next book by their favorite author, but they do buy many books.

I think literary writers can do the same. I think we can build enough followers and make a decent living even with fewer books. We might need to become savvier in terms of selling the rights of our work. I am certain that young bright writers like yourself will find a way.

So, by all means, keep your end game to become a literary writer. But learn the market forces. You don’t have to bend to them. You need to bend them to yourself. Learn from genre writers. They are a decade ahead of you and have a lot to teach. Then, apply it to literary fiction and change the game for writers like me. 

I am counting on you.

Make literary writing mainstream writing because there is nothing better to read than a well-written book by a thoughtful writer.

I hope I answered your question. 

As far as my end game is concerned I am a hobby writer. I will be writing whatever I am passionate about at any given time and not worry about making money from it (also because I don’t have to). I am turning sixty this year and don’t have too much time left for a long apprenticeship or traditional publishing. I want to leave my legacy in the form of stories in whatever broken English I can tell them. 

I believe in the power of the stories rather than the strength of the language. Not because I don’t appreciate good writing but because I am in awe of it. 

All the best.

Some relevant reading:

How Much do Fiction Writers Earn?
Is Self-Publishing Literary Fiction Possible?
The horrible hidden truth about self-publishing that nobody wants you to know
These self-published authors are actually making a living. Here’s how.
For me, traditional publishing means poverty. But self-publish? No way

Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash