Five days until the start of the Super Great Challenge. Dean posted tips for tackling the SGCs. I thought I’d go through those and see how I’m doing in my planning.

Hint #1

Consistency is key. Plan days/times to write and stick to it.

I have several sessions planned each day on my daily planner for writing. If I manage all of those sessions, I can generally figure I’ll write at least a thousand words per day. That might not be quite enough.

Hint #2

Plan to write more than you need.

This follows naturally from what I said in the last hint. If I write 1,000 words in a day, that’s only 7,000 words for the week. The stories need to be at least 2,000 words, but they might end up going over 7,000 words. Even if I only bump it up by 500 words (1,500+ words total), that gets me an extra 3,500 words for the week. Enough to cover false starts, stories running long, or a headstart on the next story.

Hint #3

Practice covers and set up templates.

I’ve created quite a few covers over the years and have templates. That said, I do want to create some new ones over the next couple weeks. Creating covers for the stories will have some challenges. I need to complete them quickly, creating artwork and design. They need to be branded as a group, to my author brand, and to the story genre. Better to get started on that now. And for those in tiers 3+, I’ll share the templates so you can see exactly how I’m laying those out.

Hint #4

Control all of the steps.

I do this normally. I like the various publishing steps. I enjoy creating books and bringing them to life. It’s all part of my process. That means I’m not relying on someone else to do cover design or create artwork for me.

I have checklists for publishing titles with each step so I don’t forget anything.

Hint #5

Create interior templates.

I’ve already created interior templates. One of the keys with this is having section templates for things that appear in every title. Copyright pages, about the author, other titles—all of the front and back matter that appears in books.

I do want to spend some time over the next couple weeks making some decisions around interior branding for genre. A science fiction book interior will have different font or chapter headings than a mystery, for example. I’ll have some templates to share for this too, for those tiers 3+.

Hint #6

Have back matter in place.

Yes. This is really covered in #5.

Hint #7

Set up publishing accouts and add stories.

I already have accounts set up with Amazon, Kobo, Draft2Digital, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Google Play, and Ingram. The challenge stories will appear on all of those in addition to my shop. All members in Tiers 2+ will automatically get each title delivered to your my.bookfunnel.com library.

Hint #8

Set the publishing deadline three days before the challenge deadline.

Good advice. Critical, in fact. Depending on the retailer, there can be up to a day before titles become available in the stores. And it takes time to upload all of the details for each title to each site. Lots of filling in the same information about each title, but in different forms.

Hint #9

Don’t wait until the last minute to complete challenge steps.

Also good advice that’ll be key to success. The deadline to submit the story manuscript each week is midnight on Sunday. Same deadline for the Books2Read link when the story is published (except two weeks later). I plan to submit each as early as possible. If I finish a short story and have it ready before the week is up, I’ll submit it. If it hasn’t taken me two weeks to publish the story, that’s fine. I’m not making you wait. I’ll submit it to fulfill the challenge requirements.

Checklist Clear!

I’m ready. We’re good on the checklist. I’ve set up my physical tracker. Each story is listed with each of the challenge steps. Writing, sending the manuscript, publishing and sending the link. I have cards printed to add to the pockets. I’ve even adapted the design I created for the writing-in-progress card to create a mug to have on hand while I’m doing the challenge. You can pick up a “Writing Stories” mug right now in my shop. It’ll make a great gift for writers you know (or for yourself).

I was asked about the icon I drew for the design. It represents my keyboard, which is a split, ergonomic design, the ErgoDox EZ. It’s open source. It has a terrific feel and is easy to customize your layout. I got mine all in black, no backlight, with unlabeled keys.

The design features a dotted border to imply an in-progress display—suggested by Kate. I didn’t think I’d add that to the design, but once I saw it, I knew it had to stay.

I finished writing a new novel yesterday. I don’t have a planned release date yet for the book. It is the first novel in a new series centered around space librarians. Yep, space librarians. It’s a fun space opera book.

With that done, the way is clear to focus on this challenge, writing stories, and improving my writing. I think the consistent practice and focus on writing short stories is exactly what I need to move my writing to the next level. I’m thrilled that people have already signed up to join me in the journey. It’s free to start and gain access to the posts going forward. You can always pick up stories that look interesting in my shop (or through retailers). You can get a discount each month to save on a story of your choice for only $2/month (and get a $2 discount), or sign up for $5/month to get e-book copies of all of the stories written each month. Support my writing at higher levels to get access to more digital goodies and—for the collector—print copies of the stories.

I appreciate support at every level.

Until next time,

Ryan