This was perhaps one of the longer weeks I've had in a while. But, I managed to get almost everything finished that I had planned in Asana. I had to move a few things around thanks to working on cars and having to run to Costco in the middle of the day. Still, the production level was strong with this one.
I'm pretty excited about June. I have nearly the entire month planned out including everything from videos to blog posts. As long as I can keep the flow going as I have been, it'll be an interesting month, to say the least.
I have some things making a comeback and plan on trying out new writing software. One of which was suggested by a sponsor, so perhaps that'll pan out better than last year's "Ezoic" episode.
Despair Comes Back Tomorrow!
After roughly eight months, my audiobook on YouTube, Despair, makes a comeback tomorrow night (Saturday 6 pm Mountain Time). The goal is to keep it a weekly upload until the book is finished. I write each episode in 1500 to 2000-word increments. It makes for about an eight-minute video or so.
The reason why I put Despair on the back burner is because of how long it takes to write, record, edit, and produce each episode. As I do everything myself, it takes up roughly 4.5 hours of my week. That's quite a chunk of time when considering how many other projects I have going on at the same time.
This year, I spent a lot of time hashing out a viable daily schedule. I focus on two hours on, and then 30 minutes off for an eight-hour day. And so far, this has worked out splendidly. I start at 8 am and wrap up my day by 5:30 pm. As long as I don't have any hiccups from clients, which tends to happen a lot, I should be able to maintain Despair.
Perhaps I'll try to squirrel away time during the weekends to get a few episodes ahead.
Polishing Up Kingmaker
I'm almost to a point where I feel comfortable enough to publish my second book. I have beta readers going through it right now for the second round and have spent a bit of time this week polishing up a few parts.
Yeah, make sure you spell your characters' names correctly throughout the book.
I've added nearly 10,000 words from the first draft and made sweeping changes to a few backstories. I feel this second round is a far better book overall. This is why you don't publish your first draft.
Well, aside from glaring grammatical and spelling issues.
Your book can be ultimately different from what you imagined when first writing. And the changes you make in the proceeding drafts could make for a far better experience for both the reader as well as how you develop your own style.
As I've said many times, the book you write at first is not the one you're going to publish. There will undoubtedly be things you'll want to add, change, or remove. Don't expect a perfect draft from day one.
Working on VII This Weekend
One of my overall goals is to finish writing VII for Wattpad. As soon as I'm done with VII, I can move on to one of my other many projects. After all, it's not like I have a shortage of ideas I want to put out into the universe.
The plan is to spend a great deal of time on Saturday rewriting the manuscript. Theoretically, I should be able to finish Sloth and start the next chapter. I say theoretically because I know myself and am easily sidetracked. But since I don't have the kids here this weekend, I should be able to work on VII at least for a few hours.
The fun part is that some of the chapters I'm rewriting from scratch. Sloth, Pride, and Envy really didn't sit well with me when I originally started the book. Not to mention the final chapter that ties everything up in a nice bow. So, I have my work cut out for me.
The Power of Writing Reviews
Another project I have going on this month is replacing the traffic I lost from Textbroker content on the blog. Since Textbroker shut down applications and the work has been drying up, those blog posts about the system don't draw even a fraction of the audience. To put it into perspective, I went from hitting between 220 and 250 visits per day to 140-ish. That's a bit of a dip.
Luckily, there has been one saving grace for WriterSanctuary.com. It appears my reviews get quite a bit of attention. Currently, they make up eight out of the top 10 visited posts on the website.
Plus, a few of them are at the top of search results for their keyphrases.
That's one of the beauties of writing reviews. Roughly 80% of people research a product or service before making a purchase. So, reviews are quite popular for virtually every niche. Regardless of what your primary focus is for your blog, there's always a product or service you could write about. As long as you're thorough and can answer questions people might have about a product, these types of blog posts can do quite well in attracting an audience. As an added bonus, you can then add a bit of affiliate marketing to possibly make a sale or two of that product.
Tutorials also work relatively well, but in my case, reviews draw the biggest crowd. The problem is that I don't have a lot of time to try out new products or services, and I never write a review about something I've never used. I don't even make lists on WriterSanctuary.com unless I've tried the product.
How can I call something the "best of" if I've never used it?
June is Gonna Be Fun!
I certainly have a lot of tops spinning for June. Between getting the blogs on a routine publishing schedule, getting Despair going once per week, finishing up my second book, and finishing VII, I'm definitely a busy guy. And this is just the tip of an incredibly large iceberg.
I just need to make sure I don't glance it and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.