Setting Up My May Writing Plan || Plan With Me || Writing and Publishing Business

hi everyone today we're going to be doing a planning overview video if you're interested stick around it's time to release a word cracken Oh wait we're just going right into it cuz the intro already rolled so hi I'm am Sarah welcome or welcome back if you're new here I a Gen X librarian and Indie author while a lot of this channel is devoted to my budgeting and cash stuffing because I have no idea what I do with my money a lot of what I need to figure out about my money is how to pay for Indie publishing needs that's editing cover design marketing uh the writing process kind of stuff so I thought because I needed an extra video I messed up I was going to show a mini savings challenge stuffing this month and I deleted the draft of the video accidentally I'm going to see if I can recover it from a few different devices but I thought let's set up the planning video so you can see how I go about planning projects month by month as an author who is doing it all not just writing but the editing process the promotion process the publishing process Etc so for this I like to use the Martha Stewart discbound system this is similar to the Happy planner system except that it is um Martha Stewart and it's not as large I do like to use happy planner discs uh because they have so many and such pretty colors this one specifically has the pink princess tiara discs that are in it but what I really like about the arc system specifically the Martha Stewart brand is that it's got these really nice sturdy hard covers that go with it and um and the system in general allows you to pull in and uh pull out content and move it around so I'm not as locked in as I am with a bound planner my bullet Journal functions very differently my notebooks all function differently and I also like the system because there are so many different brands doing them that they have a variety of L out per page uh Mara Stewart really just likes a blank page but I have some from her gardening set that like have a grid on it's I find them all over the place so what you're looking at is a gold cover and the first section of the planner is a calendar a monthly calendar those are pages from The Arc system that Staples cells specifically they have this nice Monday start blank Journal a blank calendar Pages where you can just set them up and I take my stickers and I make it pretty cuz I love stickers and then I just kind of keep track of the big things going on each month so we're looking at May uh the bit there's not a lot going on this month I'm going to be honest the big thing is this first weekend when I have a halfway to Halloween event it's a it's a week late it's not technically halfway anymore but the bookstore that I was planning this with didn't have any didn't have any free space the previous weekend so we're doing this weekend uh and then I have um some plans for my patreon and re releasing and then web page blogs that I just have to schedule ahead these aren't conversational they're more like things going on that you should know about um and then I have a uh on the 25th I think I'm doing a conversation online about Jane aus modernizations with the Jane Austin foundation in the UK I'm really excited about this one uh the other page the one on the right is my actual project breakdown this sits at the front I do this with um they are technically storyboarding Pages where on the left side you would illustrate and then on the right side you would describe if you're doing videos or storyboarding a project that it's very useful but that's not what I do I break it in half the left side this month is fantasy the right side is romance and then each each row of the box and the lines is a different Focus I always set a top five of things I have to do these are the most important things they're my priorities they're either events or tasks so like halfway to Halloween and a note to bring extra books for something else to finish in search of spellcaster to plagues to release those patreon and ream chapters and to get the first book in my frozen Wasteland series permanently free across all the platforms we're close I just have to bug Amazon on the right side I have to do draft three of citation needed It's the final book in my Jane Austin Series so uh I really want to finish that up I also have an anth a story that I'm submitting to a holiday Anthology for Jane Austin fanfiction and I have to finish that by the end of the month so that it can go to the woman who is working on those on that um and then I have one of my writing groups which technically isn't romance but it's a top priority and then there's two not so important priorities one is uh finish an edit of a book that I've already released I firmly believe that if I'm in complete control what's to stop me from re-editing a book and releasing a newer Edition or just uploading a newer Edition especially when it hasn't sold well who knows who knows that I've done that very few people uh and then I do on my romance Channel because I have I have other YouTube channels um one is dedicated to my primarily My Romance audiobooks but I do create other content specifically annotations and commentary from my perspective about the book I go through the CH I basically Explain the origin and motivations for me to write the book what I was thinking what I was doing how I researched it and then I go chapter by chapter and I kind of go over like what I was feeling or what I hoped the characters were conveying to the reader uh sometimes it's me just being like ew ew this guy cuz I feel very strongly about my characters I don't love them all obviously you're not supposed to love your villains but there are some villains that I do love the next section is a breakdown of tasks I could complete this month if I have the energy and it's always about my energy these are really behind the scenes so I have a short story collection that hasn't in the fantasy and horror space that hasn't been um uploaded to more than Amazon that needs to what we call go wide I have to update my web page links to accommodate all the links to all the platforms that you can order it I have to new I have to get new paperback from stock I have to update a new blurb uh we order some postcards I do postcards to promote my patreon and ream so when I'm at an event and somebody buys a book I give them the patreon re postcards that they know about the what's going on there uh I have to basically do a lot of little things I want to make a new audio book for modern persuasion because it has been edited since the original Audi book was created uh I have talked in the past about the expense of audiobooks so I do AI audiobooks until I can afford my narrator and um those are sort of just low effort but they do take effort and then I upload them on YouTube to listen for free I do that with both the fantasy pen name and the romance pen name but uh I got things to do and then I have a friend who is reading a story I had to check in with her but actually I crossed it off she got back to me before I got back to her and then um there's there's things like that uh I do like to use my mid uh mild line my what are they I don't even remember anymore the highlighters the mild line um the zebra ones uh I love I have almost a complete collection a couple I might have duplicates of because somebody might buy me one here or there and a color they know I like and I am comparing this to the tasks I I had to do in April you can see how I sometimes do a little bullet next to them and I could cross it off but it most often it's easy for me to see what's been done and what hasn't been done if I literally put a squiggly line or a full cross off of the things I've accomplished or moved on to so you can see this is the April one and April was primarily devoted to writing so very little behind the scenes work got done I also do this quarterly with the same sheet I go quarter by quarter each year and I because each quarter is three months and each side of these Pages has three sections it really breaks down nicely to what do I have to do and what do I have to think about and these are very broad Strokes the need the details of getting those tasks done sometimes will hit at the monthly breakdown of that work but um I'm on quarter 2 of 2024 so I'm looking at those big broad things like um what I wanted to edit what I want to record and write and the box sets I want to do and the work I need to finish and then what's actually happening uh in the month I think is how I was breaking it down and that's all that goes into preparing for each month uh and I do change it up each month and then I do put stickers over things or Washi tapes so that I don't have to see what I don't need to see uh very often once so once the quarter second quarter is over in June I will th pull this out and throw it away because I don't need to keep it uh and I think on the the side you the far left you can see another sheet of paper I think that is if I'm remembering correctly the the tasks I have related to specific books or uh bonus tasks that I have um and sometimes I need to make notes to myself on sticky pads that can come off and I don't always keep sticky pads in this binder what is on that half that the front flap of the binder uh some sticky P some really long line sticky pads a Starbucks card that I used to cut washi tape uh and things like that and yes I do have a sticker Obsession I don't know if you've noticed uh the top one the Greek letters that is the sorority from my book Pride Prejudice and pledging there's a nanao sticker from past and then my friend uh she's a contemporary romance author High higher heat uh Elena Markham she gave me a sticker to put in my binder so I put it on all these divider Pages uh so these are a couple questions that I need to ask somebody about something I think I'm specifically addressing the Anthology story uh so what's in the front pocket uh there's I was at a cafe and they were doing a tasting for this chai blend company that um that has like a sweetened iced chai which I love iced tea and I love chai Blends um when I think of a chai blend I think much more diverse spices uh when I think of they're they are black teas in many cases but they have so much more Nuance than British T Blends don't get me wrong I love Earl gry I love I love English breakfast they are my high caffeine go-tos uh when I need to wake up uh I love cardamom it's one of my favorite flavors so um so I tend to lean into high cardamum flavored Blends um but a chai blend it seems to incorporate a slightly different spice blend more along the um Middle Eastern uh Indian Southeast Asian Blends tend to come when they're a chai blend specifically mostly because chai is I think Hindi for tea so um so a chai is a tea I don't call it chai tea but my favorite chai blend is unfortunately a very basic one it's the Tazo chai organic chai uh everything everything americanmade feels like and tastes like it has too much um clove in it and I hate clove if I can taste the clove I'm not going to drink it it's just it's not a flavor I want on my tongue so uh this this company was was letting us T it was a delicious ice chai sort of like a latte with some milk in it and it was on vegan options so there was it was not a goat not a an animal milk I also keep washi tape because I never know when I'm going to need washi tape and uh paper clips I have both a clippy kind of one and then a magnetic one with a unicorn I also do and you can see uh these little half sheets that are to-do lists these are the Martha Stewart brand specifically she does these I love them because I do a sort of few day chunk at a time of what is on my task list and it just gives me a quick thing to look at to make sure I get those things done each week so like the week I'm talking to you uh it's uh like getting a newsletter out which is supposed to go out tomorrow afternoon and I haven't written it yet I had to finish a book and I have to F focus on some background uh behind the scenes work so all of this comes out other sections of this notebook include a notes section which I think might might be uh broken up but it's where I keep sort of the five-year very broad overview of what I want to do over the next few years I include content about the brand when I think of the brand of my books I think of you know what is the pen name what are the colors what does the logo look like what's sort of the catchphrase to go with it what are the books are the book designs and colors different do they have a catchphrase that is different um what am I putting on different platforms to go with that uh and I do it for both the fantasy and the romance pen name because they are very distinctly different obviously one is full of Hope and the other isn't um and then I keep track of what audio books are made where they can be purchased where or listened to uh the giveaways the short story collections things that really don't have a place in the rest of the binder are on my notes section and then I break out into my 21st century Austin Series this is where the series specific notes um what I have to do month by month again I use these storyboard pages to do a month-by-month breakdown of things to do and things to think about because for me that brainstorming mental processing work is really critical to writing um we call it in my little circle of friends intellection process where I everything I consume podcasts YouTube videos books fiction and non-fiction movies TV shows anything I consume in the world even you telling me your stories and you being anybody who tells me a story these all become fodder for my story it's it's things that if there's you know those situations where you're like this this is so bizarre it you feel like it can't be real like I love those kind of stories I love hearing gossip because gossip just helps me put ideas together in ways that are that are happening to people these are actual things they happen because somebody has told me that story or it has happened to me I also break down the projects I have to work on they're not necessarily critical projects which is why they're not often on to-do list but they're things like making the audiobooks putting together the box sets doing content notes for the be beginning of my books cleaning up the web page I do the books a month by month that way I know what I'm doing with each book I keep notes about what book taglines dedications what I think might need to be on the cover what I want to have it timing wise like when should this be ready I like to do short story collections for these romance books I call them the a little more series and it's usually like five or six short stories that I've written uh and what what I think is going to go in the next collection because um they're they're usually connected uh and then I I I use these sections for brainstorms uh also like if the brainstorm is related to that series there's also sections for the patreon and re so I write in the release schedule the benefits the brainstorms for benefits um I content that I might want to share with them it all goes in this journal the new ideas that are coming up that I am considering and I need to plan in some capacity even if it's just giving myself space to see past brainstorms around it my mind gets of course like many people really excited at the idea of a new project and then it gives it like two days of attention and then it's it's it's put it's it's sort of spewed out its thoughts so um so it's done it doesn't need to share anymore till I'm ready to work on it and those those notes need a place uh the enduring series has its own I've been spending a lot of time looking at it these past few weeks because I've been writing that book and then of course uh I have spare paper and a pocket where I keep ideas I've seen from other people there's been uh I see a lot of authors in the world I like to see the content they share and um and so I keep those so that when I'm thinking of ideas uh yes I did have to erase something uh the page on the left right now is a um before I sit down and do this plan for each month I have this sort of just page where I take notes of like what I think I want to discuss on the newsletters I do two a month for each pen name what dates I need to have content out just the things that come to me that I'm not ready to put the plan together for the month but um but it's here and it's ready to go when I'm ready to sit down and plan I also like to put in uh more stickers always stickers I have a lot of stickers that I've designed myself for the books or just for topics that interest me and then every time nanao gave another sticker I insisted on getting it uh and it's kind of sad as I think about the fact that nanoro is going at least for me to be ending um and I I have a lot of stuff at my house because I've been doing this um for 20 years and uh I so I have all these stickers I have um because I was a volunteer for them when I first started doing this they than they're volunteers every so often with little gifts so I have like a keychain and a pen and t-shirts and posters and these things I want to keep because they're fond memories but then there are things you you still look at them and you're sort of sad that that is ending um but for me and about five years ago nanao really became about just writing I stopped being as invested in the organization and helping run it I realized that the way I the way I functioned when I was just having fun and writing for nanao and then being done with it it was just about hitting 50k words it wasn't about what would come next and now that I've been doing publishing and working to publish my books I have to keep working on things after the month is over so when I have to get to 50K I'm much more inclined for them to be good words when you're not really concerned about um what you're what you're writing because it's just a fun writing experiment or a challenge they don't have have to be good words and they tell you that when you start the program and you take on the challenge for the first time we don't care about the quality of the words we just want you to write 50,000 of them uh so don't delete don't don't worry about don't use I think the first thing I was told by someone was don't use contractions write out both words except I would have to go through an edit back to contractions because they just don't feel the same when you're reading they sometimes feel like you're stumbling over words you're hyper formal in words uh and yes I am thinking ahead as I go to what will come in June and July and August and what I might want to share with people anyway so this is the last uh minute and a half of this not even uh thank you for joining me I'm going to see if I can find the video that I thought uh I was going to share maybe you'll get both of these this month if not and you're seeing this in June uh thank you for joining me I'm not going to do Bingo because I suspect by the time this goes up there is not going to be Bingo left so if you want to see more planning videos of me planning my writing maybe even planning my life uh leave a comment let me know like and if you want to see more videos like this about my publishing business work and writing or just want to see cash stuffing subscribe because I po post three videos a week so thank you and I'll see you on the next video for

Channel: Release the Word Kraken

Views: 183

Keywords: Cash stuffing, Cash envelope stuffing, Low income, Savings challenge, Savings challenges, Dave Ramsey, Dave Ramsey method, Budget, Cash budgeted, 100 envelope challenge, 2023, Cash stuffing 2023, Budgeter, Money, Cash, Cash envelope stuffing 2023, author, books, romance books, indie publishing, self publishing, romance author, fantasy author, horror author, horror books, fantasy books, planning, plan with me

Id: Gmj5ltEgau8

Length: 24min 41sec (1481 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024