Day 123: Preparing for launch: Street Team
Now that I've finished volume 2 in my series, I can start editing volume 1 and prepare it for release. I'm planning a short preorder period for this book.
So I spent a lot of time this morning preparing to ask for reviewers from among my newsletter subscribers. I ask them to join my Street Team and help me promote the book by reading the ARC and posting a review on Amazon.
I had to create a landing page for them to sign up for the Street Team, and I had to test it. I'm glad I did, because I realized I needed to change the headers for a bunch of my automated emails that confirm their subscription to my newsletter, but it did take some time since I wanted to set up some dummy email addresses to test it with.
I also went on Canva and made a nice graphic banner for both my newsletter and the landing page. Man I love Canva! Despite how graphic-design-challenged I am, I can still make pretty graphics for marketing purposes.
I also had to write my two newsletters for October. I had forgotten I was involved in a BookFunnel promotion this month and so I had to make my Camy Tang newsletter right away, in order to give my translator time to translate the text. And my Camille Elliot newsletter will have the news about my Street Team, so I had to write that, too.
Now I'm finally ready to start working on my books for today, but all that busy-work took me almost 4 hours, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done.
I'm going to try the experiment I mentioned yesterday for my self-editing.
I have already started a large word count monster on 4thewords.com, Desert Rudakai (isn't he kind of cute?), and because his time limit is 280 minutes, I'll do a couple hours of editing with him. That way, any words I add to volume 1 will count toward defeating him (but any words I delete won't count against me).
However, he's 1800 words, and I'm fairly certain I won't add that many words when I self-edit, so I'll have to make sure I stop editing and give myself about 2 hours to finish him. I can do my brainstorming for my Reader Magnet to defeat him.
***
My editing experiment wasn't a total failure, but I had to put it off after only 40 minutes. As I was working on the scene, there were a lot of things that came up that I didn't have answers for because they involved my Reader Magnet story, and that isn't written yet. I finally decided to table the self-editing until the Reader Magnet is done.
On the positive side, it wasn't all that hard to get into the self-editing today because I was doing it in the game. In fact, it was rather fun to know I was defeating a monster at the same time as doing the self-editing.
I also found a way to streamline the process of checking the etymology of the words I'm using in the book. Since it's a Regency, I try to make sure the majority of the words were in use in the Regency period, although I'm not perfect. I'll also often use words that other Regency authors have used, since if Georgette Heyer can use that word, well, so will I!
But I thought it might make it easier if I found a way to list all the words used in the book in order of frequency, so I searched for a tool or app that would list out all the words in my book. I think I found a free online tool, so I'll see how that goes. I copied and pasted the results into a spreadsheet and I'll go through the words to make sure I'm not using anything too modern.
I'm going to brainstorm the reader magnet story right now.
***
I got a lot of brainstorming done! I really feel like I'm getting faster at this. A lot of it was due to freewriting on 4thewords. I kept writing because I wanted to defeat the monster, and I kept coming up with ideas, too! Most of them I had to toss, but it was nice to see the ideas all written down so I could know what I'd already considered.
I also continued to switch workstations and that seemed to help both my back and my ankles today. I would do about an hour at each station before moving.
It might be because I kept switching workstations rather than taking a sitting break, or it might be because I would start a monster just before switching and so I never had the time for a long break, but I avoided too many long breaks today, which was where I was wasting time before.
Also, I didn't realize it until earlier this evening, but I had accidentally skipped checking social media today, so I had an extra 30 minutes of time today for work.
Writing: Time spent: 5 hours, 58 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: n/a (I didn't record my words while brainstorming)
Writing: Average speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 5 hours, 23 minutes
My takeaway for today: Switching workstations seems to be helping my back and ankles.
So I spent a lot of time this morning preparing to ask for reviewers from among my newsletter subscribers. I ask them to join my Street Team and help me promote the book by reading the ARC and posting a review on Amazon.
I had to create a landing page for them to sign up for the Street Team, and I had to test it. I'm glad I did, because I realized I needed to change the headers for a bunch of my automated emails that confirm their subscription to my newsletter, but it did take some time since I wanted to set up some dummy email addresses to test it with.
I also went on Canva and made a nice graphic banner for both my newsletter and the landing page. Man I love Canva! Despite how graphic-design-challenged I am, I can still make pretty graphics for marketing purposes.
I also had to write my two newsletters for October. I had forgotten I was involved in a BookFunnel promotion this month and so I had to make my Camy Tang newsletter right away, in order to give my translator time to translate the text. And my Camille Elliot newsletter will have the news about my Street Team, so I had to write that, too.
Now I'm finally ready to start working on my books for today, but all that busy-work took me almost 4 hours, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get done.
I'm going to try the experiment I mentioned yesterday for my self-editing.
However, he's 1800 words, and I'm fairly certain I won't add that many words when I self-edit, so I'll have to make sure I stop editing and give myself about 2 hours to finish him. I can do my brainstorming for my Reader Magnet to defeat him.
***
My editing experiment wasn't a total failure, but I had to put it off after only 40 minutes. As I was working on the scene, there were a lot of things that came up that I didn't have answers for because they involved my Reader Magnet story, and that isn't written yet. I finally decided to table the self-editing until the Reader Magnet is done.
On the positive side, it wasn't all that hard to get into the self-editing today because I was doing it in the game. In fact, it was rather fun to know I was defeating a monster at the same time as doing the self-editing.
I also found a way to streamline the process of checking the etymology of the words I'm using in the book. Since it's a Regency, I try to make sure the majority of the words were in use in the Regency period, although I'm not perfect. I'll also often use words that other Regency authors have used, since if Georgette Heyer can use that word, well, so will I!
But I thought it might make it easier if I found a way to list all the words used in the book in order of frequency, so I searched for a tool or app that would list out all the words in my book. I think I found a free online tool, so I'll see how that goes. I copied and pasted the results into a spreadsheet and I'll go through the words to make sure I'm not using anything too modern.
I'm going to brainstorm the reader magnet story right now.
***
I got a lot of brainstorming done! I really feel like I'm getting faster at this. A lot of it was due to freewriting on 4thewords. I kept writing because I wanted to defeat the monster, and I kept coming up with ideas, too! Most of them I had to toss, but it was nice to see the ideas all written down so I could know what I'd already considered.
I also continued to switch workstations and that seemed to help both my back and my ankles today. I would do about an hour at each station before moving.
It might be because I kept switching workstations rather than taking a sitting break, or it might be because I would start a monster just before switching and so I never had the time for a long break, but I avoided too many long breaks today, which was where I was wasting time before.
Also, I didn't realize it until earlier this evening, but I had accidentally skipped checking social media today, so I had an extra 30 minutes of time today for work.
Writing: Time spent: 5 hours, 58 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: n/a (I didn't record my words while brainstorming)
Writing: Average speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 5 hours, 23 minutes
My takeaway for today: Switching workstations seems to be helping my back and ankles.
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