Give yourself a deadline for your writing!

When you are self-published, deadlines aren't something you think about that often.  After all, you don't have a publisher breathing down your neck, waiting for your next or final draft.

You may sit down at a certain place every day and write, dressed like you're going into work.  Or you may be stealing moments right now, sitting at your job, reeling off a few pages in between sips of coffee, keeping that screensaver handy in case someone stops by.  You might sit in bed with your computer on the covers, writing before you get into your day or before you head off to dreamland at night. Why would you want the pressure that comes with an enforced deadline?  You want your writing to stay fun!

Whatever way you write, have you thought about deadlines?  I know you don't want the stress of putting yourself on a plan for your writing, but you really have to, especially if you are writing books in a series.  And you should be writing books in a series, so you keep your readers coming back.

Readers grow to depend on authors they follow, and having a long gap between releases makes it hard to keep your readers interested and involved.  I have only found one exception to this, which is George R. R. Martin.  Aren't you waiting on the last book right now, praying to God that He leaves him here to finish it?  He is one unhealthy looking fella, and HBO is priming the Game of Thrones Series to be our final book, does anyone else have that suspicion?  I sure as heck do.

Anyway, as a self-published author, you do need an overall writing plan, and you need to set up some deadlines so that you stay on task, and your readers know they can expect continuations in your series in a timely manner.  Deadlines will help you understand and track important pre-release tasks, like when to start posting teasers on Social Media, to alert fans a book is near completion.  If you do a pre-release, it helps direct old and new fans to Amazon and gives them a firm date when they can expect your book on their reader of choice, or in their mailbox.

Think about writing out a plan to help you stay on track, with a firm release date in mind.  That will help you write a certain amount each day,  I recommend at least an hour a day doing something book related.  Some days you will exclusively write.  Other days, research pricing, taglines, updating your biography, tweaking book descriptions to reflect current events, or updating your website.  Make sure across the spectrum, your marketing is up to date, and consistent.  I would recommend putting a cap on your Social Media of a half an hour a day to rotate from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other Social Media outlets that you favor for your writing.  Spend 30 minutes looking over Pinterest, to see if you can pin to your own Book Page on Pinterest or related pages for your books.  I have them, and I know they get repinned a great deal.

And if you have a Blog, take 15 minutes and add an entry every other day.  If you write every day, you are going to burn out.  Sit down and structure what you need to do for your writing, what you want to do for your writing and what you wish you could do for your writing.  If this were any other enterprise you had in life, you would have a plan.  You make a grocery list (at least I hope you do) before you go shopping so you stay on task, only buy what you need, and make sure you have everything to prepare meals before you leave the store.  Your writing should have at least that level of importance.

So today, before you write (or don't write) take a moment and sketch out a plan, and a deadline.  It doesn't have to be set in stone, but you have a beginning, construct a middle and an end, to help your writing process along.