Craft Workshop

Last Saturday was the first in a  year long series of workshops I am presenting at the North Bend library called Nanowrimo to Publish. I was so excited about the turn out. Even more excited about how far some folks drove just to attend, an hour plus in some cases. And about 75% of the participants signed on for the year.

The class/workshop/seminar, I really need to figure out what the bleep to call it, is really an effort to take people from point A, a lump of a novel that is a total mess after Nano, to a beautifully edited and honed work that increases the reputation of self publishing. And to do it in nine months. But I don’t aim high or anything. LOL

If you don’t live in the PacNW you’re missing out so I’ll give a bit of a run down here the following Saturday after each workshop class.

Yesterday we talked about the schedule, it’s pretty tight. By next month’s meeting they need to return their first pass critique of their partners work, which I assigned yesterday based on what people like to read and what they wrote and who was ready to send it by Sunday and who needed a week or two. It was actually easier to work out than it sounds. They have March and April to fix it all up and get it ready for Beta, integrating that first pass information. We’ll be helping with that and be talking about how to find betas, how to keep your family from revolting, things to do while your book is out to beta, etc. May and June beta integration. July, Create Space and Kindle. August Cover design. September final clean up based on ARC feedback. Not to mention we’ll cover blogging, marketing, and launch parties over the year as well.

That’s not too bad right? The truth is I publishing Scripting the Truth in eight months last year and while I don’t have a wide readership, I have an average of 4.8 stars so it must be at least decent. But I missed a lot of the critical marketing points and I now know better.

We also talked about critique. How to give good critique. It’s so important I’ll spend a whole blog post on that one alone.

Finally we talked about time management and productivity. There’s no better tool to evaluate your time management, in my humble opinion, than Chris Baty’s simple suggestion that you track your activities for one week in 15 minute increments and look at what you could cut. I’ve suggested an hour a day is enough to get you to published this year. I shared this productivity link, which is heavy, I know, but something on here will speak to you and that will help you make the most of your time.

Feel free to follow along at home and let me know how it is going.