Business & Craft Post: Scheduling, Writing Speeds & Release Timing

Alright people, I'm going to talk about something super exciting right now - scheduling and writing speed. cue sarcasm.

No? No sudden bouts of interest? Ah well, too bad. Thi sis my blog and I'm going to write what I want, which is something that has been dominating my brain for the last few weeks. It's all about release sechedules and timing.

Alright, before we begin; let's talk about my current list of projects that need to be done or released, their current status and how many words a project would be expected to be.

- A Thousand Li: the Fourth Wall (book 12). Finished, 150k words.

- A Thousand Li Sequel (book 1+). Book 1 50% finished. 200k words minimum.

- Hidden Dishes book 3+. Book 3 - finished. Book 4 - TBW (to be written). 30k.

- Climbing the Ranks book 3+. Book 3 - finished. Book 4 - TBW. 170k+ words. 

- New LitRPG Project. Book 1 90% done. ~150k words each.

That's all my current projects or planned projects, not including Magic Kingdom that is finished and won't be written on anymore or any random shorts. Now, one other thing to note - to be safe, we can say I roughly write 2,000 words a day (approximately 720k words a year). 

Now, let's move on to another piece for consideration.

Optimal Release Times

What? There's optimal release times? Well, generally speaking; yes. In the indie world, the sooner the better is the watchword. The more books you can release (all other things being equal); the better. I know authors in the romance genre who release once a week and their fans can't get enough. In general, the faster you can release the better. Which is why, a consistent release schedule of Magic Kingdom at War for once a month kept happening for a bit. That didn't work out, for a variety of reasons (it'll get its own post); but... the concept works. 

So, optimally, you'd release once a month. That's pretty impossible though, at least for how big a book I write. So...

We'll call once every 3 months optimal. Let's call this 100% of reader retention of those who would read the next book.

If you release once every 6 months; we might see a 10-20% loss in that optimal number of readers.

If you release once every 12 months instead, you'll lose around 40-50% of that optimal number.

I have no data or even a guess at once every 2 years. 

Now, please note - these are rough guesses based off my own past history and sales and the trend that I see from books coming out. This is also, mostly, focused on the progression fantasy genre. And, these 'losses' are to some extent within the first 3 months - you do pick up a small number of those 'lost' readers over the following months, though how much; I'm still finding out. I will say, for absolutely certain - some of those loss readers are lost forever.

Now, obviously, there's no 'loss' readers if you are releasing book 1 - it's now ALL THE READERS you are trying to get. So a new series / book launch is a new attempt at acquiring new readers. Everyone that you get is yours now.

Some Example Mathing (for those who are a little lost). 

Let's assume you are releasing book 2 of a series. Let's further assume you managed to get a 1000 readers for book 1.

In an optimal world, with a well written series, you would see an 80% readthrough if you released book 2, 3 months later. That's 800 readers.

If you released book 2 6 months later, you might only see 640-720 readers pick up book 2.

If you released the sequel 12 months later, you might only see 400-540 readers. 

That means your actual readthrough is going to be somewhere between 64-72% for book 2 with a 6 month readthrough break and 40-54% with a 12 month break.

Now, remember - for a series to be even considered successful (in the indie sphere); you need at least a 50% readthrough.

A 12 month break could kill a series. 

Real World Examples

I have 2 series that have taken a little longer to come out, that shifted from regular every 3-4 month releases to a gap of nearly 9 months in one case (Adventures on Brad) and a series that releases once a year (on purpose) - Hidden Dishes.

For AoB, the readthrough rate before was roughly 80% for previous books before the shift. For book 7 (the long gap); we see a drop to around 60% of sold books (and if you take into account free books, it's ~48%). Book 8 and 9 that rapid released (once a month) saw readthrough rates of~90%. 

So, MASSIVE change.

Now, for Hidden Dishes; we have a different experience. Book 2, a year after release of book 1 has only seen a small readthrouhg rate of around 34%. While it could be that the book itself is terrible or the series, considering how much love there is among readers; I'm going to assume it has more to do with the long release period. 

Super long release period - terrible book 2 results.

Why do readers stop reading?

There's a million reasons. Partly, of course, there's the buzz. A new book coming out, one after the other, builds upon the excitement of the previous works. In the indie sphere, you can create a high degree of buzz (if book 1 sells) and increase anticipation. Even if you can get readers to pre-order, the long period between release times kills the excitement. When the book finally does release, unless you have a massive media push; the excitement fades.

Secondly, unless your writing (and series) is superb; the long lead times means that readers forget. Not just about you, the author or the series; but the details of the series. It's a huge chore to reload the details of a book - and if the author does not have the skills to provide the basic information in the text, it can require the readers to readthrough previous books. This can be a massive chore.

Then, you have the way Amazon's algorithims work. Pre-orders don't count towards launch day statistics fully; so if you had a thousand pre-orders; only a fraction of that number gets counted to your launch day 'sales'. Which means that ranking and getting a coveted yellow tag (bestseller tag) can be MUCH more difficult. Without that extra visibility and push from Amazon, even a good series can fizzle and die.

Writing Speed & Optimal Release Schedules

Alright, we've gone over the basics, the details of why release dates (and keeping releases tight) is optimal. In general, if I could write and release a series every 3 months, that would be great. Perfect even.

I can't. I don't write that fast.

Let's take the ATL Sequel (which we will call CC for... reasons.).

CC is 200k words for each book (I think, I still have to finish book 1 to know). Written at 2k words a day, that's approximately 100 days to finish the series. That's over 3 months, not including editing time (add 20 days or 10k per day for editing). So, 120 days to write and edit the series. What is that? 4 months.

Now, let's take the LitRPG new work (called DB for reasons too). DB is 150k; so that's only 75 days plus 15 days; so 90 days. 3 months to get it done.

Assuming you want to write and release every 3 months, a 150k book (give or take) is the maximum size (if you're me). Assuming some time off and illness/etc; a 120-130k book would be perfect.

Realistically, if you're writing 200k word books, at best; twice a year release schedules would be best. 

But you said you write 720k words a year (2k a day)? This doesn't add up, Tao! Well, the reason for that is I'm often editing AND writing at the same time, so there's a bit of an overlap.

Assuming we use the 720k number, we can theoretically write 2 CC books, 2 DB books and 1 HD book. Give or take 10k.

However, if you notice, I also have a Climbing the Ranks 4 in there, which means I need to write.... 900k. 

Oh, oh.

Scheduling Concerns

And here's where we run into problems. How do we balance release dates, writing speed and optimal income? 

I have DB 1 nearly written, but not edited yet and no release date. 

I have CC 1 50% done for release end of this year / early next year. CC 2, optimally, should relesae middle of next year then. And possibly CC 3 end of the year (6 month gaps, give or take).

I have CtR (Climbing the Ranks) 4 to release next year sometime. 

I have HD 4 to release next year sometime.

So, something has to give. If I try to hit and release ALL these books...

I'll probably miss some deadlines in writing.

Worst, on a publishing perspective; some of these books will go from say, once a year - like Climbing the Ranks or Hidden Dishes - to once every 16-18 months. Or, even more terribly; I could release DB 1 soon... maybe even squeeze DB 2 in (by pushing writing of CC 2 out); but then DB 3 or CC 3 would be pushed back, to at least 8-12 months delay.

Which would kill the momentum of that series.

So what do I do?

Solutions to the Problem

If you're me, and you write a lot; but you have a bunch of books that need to be released in short order but aren't ready yet; because you can't find the time... what do you do?

The same thing I did with Magic Kingdom at War. You hold the series back. You keep the book in your backpocket for a very, very long time and wait.

In this case, I can either delay:

- DB (the new LitRPG series) until I have at least 2 books written (maybe 3) before it goes out.

- Climbing the Ranks 4. Pushing the release date and chapters out by months, if not years. This is a problem, of course, since you can read ahead in Starlit Publishing, and while we don't have hundreds of subscribers, we have enough that it is not desirable to do so. Also, my son, who is a big fan of the series would kill me.

So, chances are, my best bet is to write CC 1 & 2 and probably 3, try to get Climbing the Ranks 4 done (potentially more) this year and maybe if I can fit it in, more work on DB. 

What that does mean is that I have a series that will be sitting, unreleased with at least 1 if not 2 books unreleased for years.

And yeah, you can see why I almost prefer shorter works. It means that if I start a new series, I can release them more regularly, rather than holding them back.

Sadly, there's just not the same revenu potential for such works.