Day 805: Dictation, day 19: Need to do at least 2 exercises
I dictated the following during my walk as my freewrite dictation exercise, so it might ramble a bit. But at least I didn’t stop dictating and there weren’t any long pauses.
***
Promotions
I ended up spending too long doing marketing today. I decided at the last minute to participate in some time sensitive promotions, and so I had to get them done.
I really don't like doing promotions. It is outside of my comfort zone. It also causes me anxiety for some reason. I think it's because I have to make sure I do certain things by certain times, such as making sure to send out a newsletter, or post on my blog, or remember to lower a price on Amazon. I think because so many things need to be done beforehand, I get anxious that I've forgotten to do something.
I'm not sure if this promotion will do anything. However, it was free, and I had to take advantage of it before the end of the month. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a small promotion.
The promo itself is to target readers who don't know me. But my problem is that I don't have an easy way to advertise that the promotion is going on to anyone outside of my newsletter, most of whom have already bought the book.
In a way, I'm not sure if promotions really do anything to secure a larger audience. However, what might happen is that my fans might share about the promotion to other people, or some other newsletter group might pick it up and feature it for free, and then other people will download the book simply because it's free. In that way, I'll get readers who had never heard about me, from the stage 1 or stage 2 of the 10 stages of audience.
It took a long time for me to decide if I was going to do the promotion or not. I really don't know why, but decision-making takes a long time for me. I hope I made the right decision to do this promotion. I think I did. I don't think it will hurt. I'm just not really sure if it will do a whole lot, probably just a blip in sales or page reads.
Marketing for books 4 and 5
I have been thinking about the marketing for the next two books to come out. I have finished writing book 4, but I am holding it back until book 5 is almost completed, so that I can release the two books within 30 days of each other, since book 4 ends on a cliffhanger. Because of that, I am thinking of putting more effort into the release of book 5 rather than book for.
Elana Johnson mentioned that she doesn't put the same amount of effort into every book launch. So I figured I would do the same. Since book 4 ends on a cliffhanger, I figured it would be better for me to put money into promoting book 5 instead of book 4.
The thought of marketing has also gotten me very anxious. I'm not sure exactly what to do, and I don't have a lot of money, either. I have been listening to a lot of podcasts in order to hear what other people have done, and culling some ideas from them. I think my best bet at this point, with the size of my audience, and the fact that it's been over a year since book 3 came out, is for me to put a little money into newsletter promos, and not worry about advertising just yet. I think that it will be less stressful for me to do this rather than trying to learn advertising in the few months before I would release book 5.
Of course, this is all assuming that I can write a book 5 quickly. I have been writing very quickly for the past couple weeks, since I started dictation. Before that, I wasn't exactly writing slowly, but I wasn't writing 4-5000 words every day. I really hope that the dictation will enable me to write a book 5 very quickly. I feel like the dictation is a little less effort than sitting at my computer for four hours. Because I can dictate for two hours, and then edit for two hours right after that—and without feeling the resistance I usually do to editing, since the dictation was from the same day.
I'll have to see if I can keep this up for another couple weeks. If I can, I think I will have written a significant chunk of book 5. If that's the case, I will be able to extrapolate and figure out when book 5 will be done, and when I can release it. I am hoping to be able to release it in November, but I'm not sure about that. I might instead release it in December.
Anyway, the marketing has been stressful for me. I don't think anything I'm doing is particularly difficult, but it's outside of my comfort zone.
Social media: Facebook and Goodreads
I was also listening to some podcasts about marketing, and most authors are in social media to some extent. I have a poll that I gave my readers, and I would say that most of them don't actually talk to other readers on Facebook about books. But many of them who talk to readers do it on Facebook or Goodreads.
I have a group on Goodreads, which has practically no traffic. However, I like Goodreads because it seems to have less going on than Facebook. Facebook is sometimes kind of stressful for me, because there are so many conversations going on in the groups I belong to.
Also, when I post on my page on Facebook, hardly anyone sees the post. I also have a reader group on Facebook, which has something like three people in it.
A lot of the authors who have readers on Facebook have large reader groups that are very active. I simply don't have that. Because of that, I'm not sure if I can do the same type of marketing as those authors on Facebook. They interact with their Facebook group almost every day, and they post little things to interact with their fans. I'm sure I have fans who are on Facebook, but I don't think they know that I am there. I also rarely get interaction on my Facebook page or my Facebook group.
Because I am such a fail at Facebook, I decided to try to give Goodreads a try. Goodreads is fun because I belong to a few major groups, and the people there are very nice. Also, the pace of Goodreads is a lot slower compared to Facebook. I feel a little less anxious when I get on the Goodreads forum boards than when I check my Facebook groups. Probably because there are fewer discussions on Goodreads than there are on Facebook. And the Goodreads forum boards are better organized than the Facebook groups, which has every conversation posted on the page by order of how recent it is. Some groups have dozens of conversation each day, and that sometimes causes me anxiety because there's so much going on.
Anyway, I decided to give Goodreads another go at it. Now that I'm feeling better, it's not so difficult for me to get on Goodreads once a day. Also, I don't feel guilty if I can't check Goodreads every day. It's not as time sensitive as Facebook.
I figured I could start a couple conversations in my group, and then link to them in my newsletter. I will see how many people I can get to join the conversation. I can try this for a few months and see how it goes. I guess I'll give it six months to see. Also, in six months I can see about getting back into Facebook, and seeing if there is a way for me to do it that doesn't cause anxiety.
Part of me wonders if maybe I shouldn't do social media at all, since it causes me so much anxiety. I'm still kind of undecided about it. I think that's why I decided to do the Goodreads experiment for six months, to see if it really does make any kind of difference in my sales. Although it's hard to judge that, because I will be going on Goodreads at the same time that I will soon have books releasing, and new releases always cause in upsurge in pages read on Kindle.
The marketing was kind of stressful today, because I had to make decisions, and because I was doing things that were uncomfortable for me. However, I am an author and if I want to make a living with my business, I'm going to have to do some things that are uncomfortable.
Self-editing resistance
Speaking of uncomfortable things, I have had a hard time today getting to my editing of book 4. Just as what had happened on Saturday or rather Friday, I found myself procrastinating rather than getting to the edits, simply because I don't like doing them.
However, I forced myself to get started. I'm glad I did, because I can see that because it took so long for me to write book 4, there are some things I had written early in the book that I had completely forgotten about by the end. I'm very glad I didn't send this book straight to my editor without doing this last self-editing pass. There are some things I'm going to have to add in to the middle and end of the book, which might also make an impact on some parts of the plot. I hope the revisions will not be too difficult.
I think that if I dictate my books and finish them faster, there won’t be the disconnect between the beginning of the book and the end of the book, like I’m seeing now. I think it will make the editing easier next time if I don’t have so long between when I started writing and when I finished the rough draft.
Dictation today
I didn’t intend to dictate so much of book 5 today, but I went out walking, and after a 20 minute dictation exercise, I thought I might as well try dictating my book for a few minutes. It turned into more than 20 minutes of dictation.
I have noticed that it takes me a while to ease into the dictation, so I had a lot of pauses while I was dictating.
BUT I do think that I had fewer mistakes this time. I think my dictation is getting smoother. When I did the dictation exercise, I didn’t have very many mistakes—but I tend to have fewer mistakes when dictating a blog post.
However, when I started dictating my fiction, I also still had fewer mistakes. I did still have long pauses as I tried to think of what to say next, but I think that in general, I had fewer messed up sentences, or repeated sentences so I could redo what I just said.
It’s hard to tell if that’s true or not, though. But it felt that way to me, at least. I hope that means I’m starting to think in whole sentences rather than word by word.
But I wasn’t able to get my mind to relax enough to not pause so much during dictation. It could be because I only did one dictation exercise, which was a freewrite, but I hadn’t had time to do a second dictation exercise involving sentence variation and using a fiction prompt (my Regency side novel). When I did both exercises before, I thought I might have had an easier time in getting my brain to relax and just flow with whatever first came to mind.
So I need to make sure to do at least 2 different dictation exercises before I dictate my book. I think it will make the book dictation go much smoother and faster.
***
After cleaning up the dictation, my raw dictation speed was only 2750 words per hour, and I’m aiming for 5000 words per hour (eventually). I could tell that I was pausing a lot during dictation, and like I said, my brain wasn’t relaxed enough, so I think I froze as I was trying to think of what to say next.
I will need to knuckle down and get my editing done faster so that I can get back to doing my dictation! Argh! I wish this editing pass wasn’t so vital!
Writing streak: 284 days
My takeaway for today: Try Goodreads for about 6 months to see if I can keep up with it despite my anxiety about social media.
My second takeaway for today: If I finish a book faster, I think the editing will be easier because there won’t be so much disconnect between the beginning and ending.
My third takeaway for today: Do at least 2 dictation exercises before writing to help my brain warm up and maybe relax a bit more when dictating my fiction.
My fourth takeaway for today: Knuckle down (moron!) and get your editing done faster so you can get back to doing dictation!
(My word count on my battle report is high because I had to cut and paste some text, and 4thewords counts it as new words written.)
***
Promotions
I ended up spending too long doing marketing today. I decided at the last minute to participate in some time sensitive promotions, and so I had to get them done.
I really don't like doing promotions. It is outside of my comfort zone. It also causes me anxiety for some reason. I think it's because I have to make sure I do certain things by certain times, such as making sure to send out a newsletter, or post on my blog, or remember to lower a price on Amazon. I think because so many things need to be done beforehand, I get anxious that I've forgotten to do something.
I'm not sure if this promotion will do anything. However, it was free, and I had to take advantage of it before the end of the month. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a small promotion.
The promo itself is to target readers who don't know me. But my problem is that I don't have an easy way to advertise that the promotion is going on to anyone outside of my newsletter, most of whom have already bought the book.
In a way, I'm not sure if promotions really do anything to secure a larger audience. However, what might happen is that my fans might share about the promotion to other people, or some other newsletter group might pick it up and feature it for free, and then other people will download the book simply because it's free. In that way, I'll get readers who had never heard about me, from the stage 1 or stage 2 of the 10 stages of audience.
It took a long time for me to decide if I was going to do the promotion or not. I really don't know why, but decision-making takes a long time for me. I hope I made the right decision to do this promotion. I think I did. I don't think it will hurt. I'm just not really sure if it will do a whole lot, probably just a blip in sales or page reads.
Marketing for books 4 and 5
I have been thinking about the marketing for the next two books to come out. I have finished writing book 4, but I am holding it back until book 5 is almost completed, so that I can release the two books within 30 days of each other, since book 4 ends on a cliffhanger. Because of that, I am thinking of putting more effort into the release of book 5 rather than book for.
Elana Johnson mentioned that she doesn't put the same amount of effort into every book launch. So I figured I would do the same. Since book 4 ends on a cliffhanger, I figured it would be better for me to put money into promoting book 5 instead of book 4.
The thought of marketing has also gotten me very anxious. I'm not sure exactly what to do, and I don't have a lot of money, either. I have been listening to a lot of podcasts in order to hear what other people have done, and culling some ideas from them. I think my best bet at this point, with the size of my audience, and the fact that it's been over a year since book 3 came out, is for me to put a little money into newsletter promos, and not worry about advertising just yet. I think that it will be less stressful for me to do this rather than trying to learn advertising in the few months before I would release book 5.
Of course, this is all assuming that I can write a book 5 quickly. I have been writing very quickly for the past couple weeks, since I started dictation. Before that, I wasn't exactly writing slowly, but I wasn't writing 4-5000 words every day. I really hope that the dictation will enable me to write a book 5 very quickly. I feel like the dictation is a little less effort than sitting at my computer for four hours. Because I can dictate for two hours, and then edit for two hours right after that—and without feeling the resistance I usually do to editing, since the dictation was from the same day.
I'll have to see if I can keep this up for another couple weeks. If I can, I think I will have written a significant chunk of book 5. If that's the case, I will be able to extrapolate and figure out when book 5 will be done, and when I can release it. I am hoping to be able to release it in November, but I'm not sure about that. I might instead release it in December.
Anyway, the marketing has been stressful for me. I don't think anything I'm doing is particularly difficult, but it's outside of my comfort zone.
Social media: Facebook and Goodreads
I was also listening to some podcasts about marketing, and most authors are in social media to some extent. I have a poll that I gave my readers, and I would say that most of them don't actually talk to other readers on Facebook about books. But many of them who talk to readers do it on Facebook or Goodreads.
I have a group on Goodreads, which has practically no traffic. However, I like Goodreads because it seems to have less going on than Facebook. Facebook is sometimes kind of stressful for me, because there are so many conversations going on in the groups I belong to.
Also, when I post on my page on Facebook, hardly anyone sees the post. I also have a reader group on Facebook, which has something like three people in it.
A lot of the authors who have readers on Facebook have large reader groups that are very active. I simply don't have that. Because of that, I'm not sure if I can do the same type of marketing as those authors on Facebook. They interact with their Facebook group almost every day, and they post little things to interact with their fans. I'm sure I have fans who are on Facebook, but I don't think they know that I am there. I also rarely get interaction on my Facebook page or my Facebook group.
Because I am such a fail at Facebook, I decided to try to give Goodreads a try. Goodreads is fun because I belong to a few major groups, and the people there are very nice. Also, the pace of Goodreads is a lot slower compared to Facebook. I feel a little less anxious when I get on the Goodreads forum boards than when I check my Facebook groups. Probably because there are fewer discussions on Goodreads than there are on Facebook. And the Goodreads forum boards are better organized than the Facebook groups, which has every conversation posted on the page by order of how recent it is. Some groups have dozens of conversation each day, and that sometimes causes me anxiety because there's so much going on.
Anyway, I decided to give Goodreads another go at it. Now that I'm feeling better, it's not so difficult for me to get on Goodreads once a day. Also, I don't feel guilty if I can't check Goodreads every day. It's not as time sensitive as Facebook.
I figured I could start a couple conversations in my group, and then link to them in my newsletter. I will see how many people I can get to join the conversation. I can try this for a few months and see how it goes. I guess I'll give it six months to see. Also, in six months I can see about getting back into Facebook, and seeing if there is a way for me to do it that doesn't cause anxiety.
Part of me wonders if maybe I shouldn't do social media at all, since it causes me so much anxiety. I'm still kind of undecided about it. I think that's why I decided to do the Goodreads experiment for six months, to see if it really does make any kind of difference in my sales. Although it's hard to judge that, because I will be going on Goodreads at the same time that I will soon have books releasing, and new releases always cause in upsurge in pages read on Kindle.
The marketing was kind of stressful today, because I had to make decisions, and because I was doing things that were uncomfortable for me. However, I am an author and if I want to make a living with my business, I'm going to have to do some things that are uncomfortable.
Self-editing resistance
Speaking of uncomfortable things, I have had a hard time today getting to my editing of book 4. Just as what had happened on Saturday or rather Friday, I found myself procrastinating rather than getting to the edits, simply because I don't like doing them.
However, I forced myself to get started. I'm glad I did, because I can see that because it took so long for me to write book 4, there are some things I had written early in the book that I had completely forgotten about by the end. I'm very glad I didn't send this book straight to my editor without doing this last self-editing pass. There are some things I'm going to have to add in to the middle and end of the book, which might also make an impact on some parts of the plot. I hope the revisions will not be too difficult.
I think that if I dictate my books and finish them faster, there won’t be the disconnect between the beginning of the book and the end of the book, like I’m seeing now. I think it will make the editing easier next time if I don’t have so long between when I started writing and when I finished the rough draft.
Dictation today
I didn’t intend to dictate so much of book 5 today, but I went out walking, and after a 20 minute dictation exercise, I thought I might as well try dictating my book for a few minutes. It turned into more than 20 minutes of dictation.
I have noticed that it takes me a while to ease into the dictation, so I had a lot of pauses while I was dictating.
BUT I do think that I had fewer mistakes this time. I think my dictation is getting smoother. When I did the dictation exercise, I didn’t have very many mistakes—but I tend to have fewer mistakes when dictating a blog post.
However, when I started dictating my fiction, I also still had fewer mistakes. I did still have long pauses as I tried to think of what to say next, but I think that in general, I had fewer messed up sentences, or repeated sentences so I could redo what I just said.
It’s hard to tell if that’s true or not, though. But it felt that way to me, at least. I hope that means I’m starting to think in whole sentences rather than word by word.
But I wasn’t able to get my mind to relax enough to not pause so much during dictation. It could be because I only did one dictation exercise, which was a freewrite, but I hadn’t had time to do a second dictation exercise involving sentence variation and using a fiction prompt (my Regency side novel). When I did both exercises before, I thought I might have had an easier time in getting my brain to relax and just flow with whatever first came to mind.
So I need to make sure to do at least 2 different dictation exercises before I dictate my book. I think it will make the book dictation go much smoother and faster.
***
After cleaning up the dictation, my raw dictation speed was only 2750 words per hour, and I’m aiming for 5000 words per hour (eventually). I could tell that I was pausing a lot during dictation, and like I said, my brain wasn’t relaxed enough, so I think I froze as I was trying to think of what to say next.
I will need to knuckle down and get my editing done faster so that I can get back to doing my dictation! Argh! I wish this editing pass wasn’t so vital!
Writing streak: 284 days
My takeaway for today: Try Goodreads for about 6 months to see if I can keep up with it despite my anxiety about social media.
My second takeaway for today: If I finish a book faster, I think the editing will be easier because there won’t be so much disconnect between the beginning and ending.
My third takeaway for today: Do at least 2 dictation exercises before writing to help my brain warm up and maybe relax a bit more when dictating my fiction.
My fourth takeaway for today: Knuckle down (moron!) and get your editing done faster so you can get back to doing dictation!
(My word count on my battle report is high because I had to cut and paste some text, and 4thewords counts it as new words written.)
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