Category: Publishing

Posted on by

My Second Draft – What I Never Imagined

Villain's Vacation cover What is it like?

My Second Draft – What I Never Imagined – Here is my second installment of this series in real-time. I just finished my second draft and sent it to my editor. I’ll have the third installment in the future. Be sure to read the first post on my first draft here. Click here.

As always, you can get free books from me by clicking here.

Also, if you ever want to contact me, to comment or ask me something, click here.

So, what shocked my socks off about this second draft?

By the way, this book is the third in my Secret Supers series. It covers the adventures of four disabled middle schoolers who become superheroes. Here’s the first book:

Interesting Links My Second Draft
Secret Supers – click for free audiobook.

My Second Draft – My First Surprise

I finished my first draft last week and contacted my editor. She informed me that she has a six-week lead time. I didn’t know that. Oops!

Why is this a problem? I wanted the book completed by November 14th and the Christmas shopping season. I ASSumed she had a four-week lead time. My error.

My second error is that I promised it to her by Columbus Day October 10th and didn’t get it to her until today. That’s a double oops. So my publishing timeline is probably shot.

You see, when you’re a self-published author like me, you’re responsible to keep yourself on schedule and meet deadlines–or your sales suffer.

But why was I late? I have multiple excuses, but basically, it’s poor planning.

Villain's Vacation cover What is it like? My Second Draft
My second novel in the series, Villain’s Vacation. Click for a free copy

My Second Surprise in My Second Draft

Remember I mentioned being self-published? That means I contact and contract with an illustrator for each of my books. Fortunately, I’ve found a great illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan. I contacted him the same day as my editor about doing a cover illustration. He had the time to do it in October. Hurray!

We met yesterday via Zoom and Facebook conference and brainstormed a good cover we both loved. We also brainstormed the chapter icons. I love them! All my books have them. Here’s a sample:

What Do Readers Think My Second Draft
Chapter 1 icon of Villain’s Vacation. Click to get a copy

So what’s the problem? The cover we both wanted depicted a scene I hadn’t written. It was in the back of my mind for the whole book. So I spent yesterday afternoon writing it. But that was one reason I didn’t get my book to my editor yesterday.

The Other Reason I was Late

Just adding a new scene isn’t enough. With every second draft, after I clear off all the Grammarly errors and made all my points of view correct, I read the whole book aloud.

It’s amazing what you discover when you do that with a book you’ve just written. I find inconsistencies in point of view. I find awkward sentences. And I discover plot inconsistencies.

I read really fast and I don’t read every word–unless I read it aloud.

One last pitch: find out when my new book comes out through my newsletter. Subscribe here.

Posted on by

Writer’s Block My Experience – This is why I don’t write more

What Do Readers Think

Writer’s Block My Experience: I’ve written eight books in seven years. It doesn’t sound like I have writer’s block–but I do.

I’ve been struggling to finish Secret Supers in Space for seven months. That’s the first draft—just 50,000 to 60,000 words. Usually, I get that much done in two to four months.

What’s my big problem?

Writer’s Block My Experience – What Is Writer’s Block?

It means you can’t or have difficulty writing. Duh!

A more official definition is:

Writer’s block—wanting to write and not writing—is a persistent problem that every writer (yes, every writer, even Stephen King) deals with, and one that has ended far too many writing careers.

The first thing I saw in my search

The last book I wrote in this series was Villain’s Vacation:

Writer's Block My Experience
Chapter icon from Villain’s Vacation

I got off to a flying start in November, writing for NaNoWriMo, the official National Novel Writing Month organization.

Here’s a chart of my monthly writing, so you can see what my writer’s block looks like:

MonthWords Written
November3,973
December0
January423
February0
March1517
April211
May (so far)0
Chart of my writing ‘progress’

Total? 6129 words in 42 hours of writing for 142 words per hour.

Pretty pathetic for a professional author, but I have an excuse: I was finishing two other books: 1) Zombie Detective audiobook (now published)

Andy Zach Newsletter Zombie Detective Audiobook Writer's Block My Experience
Audiobook cover – click to listen.

and 2) my first non-fiction book, The Gospel Medley. Believe it or not, this is at least the 20th round of edits for this book, over the 35 years I’ve worked on it.

The Gospel Medley Writer's Block My Experience
The Gospel Medley cover. Click to get

So that takes care of December through March. I can’t multi-task. What’s my problem in April and May?

Writer’s Block – the problem of self-publishing

I get easily distracted while writing. First of all, there is research. I’ll write and then need some fact, like “Where are there underground nuclear silos in Kansas?” This question arose for My Undead Mother-in-law.

Writer's Block My Experience
My Undead Mother-in-law, front and back cover spread. Click to get.

The same thing happens for Secret Supers in Space. What does the ISS look like? What is the capacity of the Dragon capsule for SpaceX? Where does SpaceX launch from? What is the curriculum for Space Camp? What is the daily agenda?

But that’s not all.

More Distractions

Every publisher and author needs to market your book. That doesn’t mean selling, although that’s what you want to happen. Rather it means telling people who might like your book that your book exists and is worth reading and WHY it’s worth reading.

This is a very important thing to do. You, as an author or publisher should do it every week, if not every day. If people don’t know about your book, they can’t buy it. If people don’t know how much they will enjoy and laugh at my books, why should they buy them?

So I joined Story Origin this year to market my books. That’s absorbed my time, every week, as I promoted my newsletter, books, and other newsletters and books.

I also have maintained Amazon ads, although I’ve cut my expense from $300/month to $50. I found a better way to advertise: through Free Kindle and Discount Books.

The Bottom Line – What Should I Do?

Give me your best and worst suggestions. Everyone who does so will get a free ebook of mine to read and review. Reach out to me any time at my email: [email protected] Or subscribe to my newsletter for all my blog posts and news, as well as free books.

Posted on by

Taking Inventory of Books – Indie Author Version

Authors Business Owners

Taking Inventory of books – what does that have to do with being an indie author?

If you’re indie, that means you’re self-publishing. That means you print your own books. That means at the end of the year you have to file taxes–and tell the IRS about your inventory.

Who cares? You do, if you’re an author. And you do, if you’re a reader, because ultimately you pay for all the author’s inventory.

In this blog post, I provide you a spreadsheet template you can use to inventory your products, books or anything else.

Taking Inventory – the interesting part

Authors Business Owners Taking Inventory
Zombie Lady saving money with inventory

The interesting part is that you can save money if you’re an author. And you can pass those savings on to your readers in the form of cheaper books, or better promotions.

And of course, this applies to non-authors too–anyone who sells stuff has to track their inventory.

Another good feature is you’ll have accurate information to give to the taxman. I assume you want to avoid penalties for errors.

For more interest, check out my latest review:

The Dark Forest

The Dark Forest Taking Inventory
Cover

by Liu Cixin (Goodreads Author),

Feb 22, 2022  · it was amazing

bookshelves: dystopian, science-fiction

Author Liu Cixin follows up his first novel, ‘The Three Body Problem’ with another, just as good. Most of the characters from the first novel are dead, except the rude policeman Da Shi. The novel covers two hundred years after the announcement of the coming alien invasion from Proxima Centauri star system.

The novel begins with the four Wallfacers, people chosen to fight the aliens and who are given dictatorial power and resources. The aliens monitor all earth communication and technology development and thwart any progress in physics through directly affecting particle accelerator output. The Wallfacers, keeping their thoughts and plans to themselves, can surprise the aliens.

But that’s just the beginning. Multiple characters leap forward in time through hibernation to two hundred years later. The Wallfacers emerge with no fame or power. Their whole effort has been superseded with spectacular technical advancements. The Earth has built a fleet of two thousand ships, all faster than the invaders’ ships and armed with gamma ray lasers and fusion bombs.

But everything is not as it seems. The fleet advances to intercept an alien probe sent on ahead.

That’s when the action really begins.

You must read this book. It has more twists than the first one.

Andy Zach‘s review

Taking Inventory – the Template

Taking Inventory
Inventory spreadsheet

Here are the fields I have and how I use them:

  • Date – When the transaction takes place. What transactions? Buying, selling, giving away, returning books, and putting them on consignment at stores.
  • Quantity – How many books are involved?
  • Cost per book – When you divide the quantity of books by the purchase price.
  • Shipping cost – The total shipping cost for the order.
  • Sales tax – the total sales tax for the order.
  • The total cost of the order – everything above summed together.
  • Description of the book order, sale, gift, return, or consignment inventory.
  • Discount – any discount you received from the book printer.
  • Cost per book – the total cost divided by the number of books.
  • Print books sold – total quantity sold for that day.
  • Books given – total books given for that day.
  • Consignment inventory – books put on consignment at a store for that day.
  • On hand, ending inventory – the number of books on hand at the end of that day.
  • Ending inventory value – the total value of the remaining books
  • Onhand inventory value change – the change in value from the previous day to this one.

Got questions so far? Then ask me here! Or you can email me at andyzach@admin.

Finally, you can download my spreadsheet right here.

Some Inventory ‘Gotchas’

What can go wrong?

  1. You can lose track/not record your sales.
  2. Or, you can lose track/not record your gifted books.
  3. You can lose track of your consignment inventory
  4. When you reorder books, the prices can and do change. If you don’t reflect that in your spreadsheet, your dollars spent won’t match what you’ve sold and given away.

These are all mistakes I’ve made.

Ya Got Trouble

The solution is to record your sales and gifts immediately and multiple times. When I sell a book, I make a slash in my notebook under “ZT ZD MUM PP Oops SS or VV”, like this:

  • ZT lll
  • ZD ll
  • MUM l
  • PP l
  • Oops ll
  • SS llll
  • VV llll

At the same time, I’ll fill out a receipt for the customer. At the same time, I’ll update my sales spreadsheet when I get a chance. So I have 3 records to cross check myself.

This covers cash sales. For credit card, I use Square which gives another check on my sales.

Taking Inventory – Get a Free Book

I’ve got two ways for you to get a free book right now.

First, tell me your ideas, things I haven’t covered. Click right here.

Secondly, you can get a free book through my book newsletter. Click here.

Life After Life Chronicles
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!