Restructuring My Personal Time and My Business

Hi Folks,

A couple of weeks ago, I figured out a few things that will help me immensely in my personal time and in restructuing my business. I mention them here because they will also affect you to one degree or another.

To restructure and make the most of my personal time…

1. I’m climbing back up on Heinlein’s Rules.

To that end, I’ve set a daily word count goal . It worked for me in the past, so I know it will work again. My goal is to write 2500 words of publishable fiction per dday (on average). This is attainable but a slight stretch for me. It will give me two to two and a half scenes and will result in 912,500 words of publishable fiction per year.

2. I’m setting new publishing goals, from November 2019 forward.

A. I’ll write one short story and publish it (or submit it to traditional magazine markets when applicable) per week on deadline.

B. I’ll write and publish one novel per month. (This one might fluctuate month by month depending on the length of the short stories and how much writing them drains me.)

C. I’ll compile and publish five 10-story collections of short fiction per year. (If I meet my short story goal of one a week, this should be easy-peasy.)

3. I’m cutting down on non-essential silliness.

A. I have Internet access on my writing ‘puter in the Hovel (for spot research) but I’m disciplined with that so I’ll keep it. Facebook has been creeping in, but I can get away from that again by simply not checking it until the end of the day on my business computer up at the house.

B. Really, my current structure is fine. I just need to actually write while I’m in the Hovel.

C. As part of restructuring my time, I have to also reconsider my approach to this blog and to the Journal. The Journal currently consumes 2 to 3 hours of every day. That’s WAY too much.

Beginning in November, I moved posting the Daily Journal to the end of the day. That makes it less important in my own mind (secondary to my own fiction writing) and makes the time I spend on it dependent on the time I have left in the day after I’ve written and taken care of various publishing tasks.

Beyond that, I’m doing a few other things. The Journal itself and this blog will both remain free, but I’m making a couple of changes:

1). This blog will morph to become a mixture of posts about writing and posts about characters and settings in my own books for my readers.

2). The Journal also will contain topics on writing less often. I’ll still write those, and I’ll still make SOME of them available free here or on the Journal. But I ALL of them will be available to anyone who signs up as a patron at any level.

3.) I recently restructured the patronage tiers. To see them, visit my Patronage page. (The thing is, my efforts are either of value to my subscribers or they aren’t.)

By the way, to me what’s important isn’t how much my donors send every month. What’s important is that they find my advice valuable enough to invest something in their own learning process.

Toward restructuring my business…

4. I’ve set near-term licensing goals.

A. I’ve identified five specific things (beyond writing and publishing more stories and novels) that I can do right now or within the next several months with my IP and what I call my “inner IP.” (Inner IP are the characters, settings, situations and worlds I’ve already created).

I’m not ready to reveal those just yet (grin), but I’m excited about them and you’ll be seeing some of them soon.

5. I’ve set larger, longer-range goals for the future of my business.

A. Under “2. …new publishing goals….” above, each of those works will be licensed to StoneThread Publishing (STP), under a legal contract, for publishing and distribution. I’ll consult an attorney who’s versed in copyright and IP to draw up a boilerplate contract for this purpose. This is in preparation for…

B. At some point (when income and taxes get big enough), we’ll establish STP as a full C corporation. (Again, with the advice of an attorney.)

C. My business-partner wife and I will attend Dean Wesley Smith’s Master Business Class in October 2020, and we will probably attend the Licensing Expo as licensors in Las Vegas in 2021 or 2022.

That’s it for now. I hope my revealing this process helps with your own process in some way.

And I seriously hope any writers out there who are serious about the craft and anxious to learn the business end of writing will consider becoming patrons of this blog and the Journal.

‘Til next time, happy writing and publishing!

Harvey

Note: As always, this Pro-Writers blog and my Daily Journal are free and funded only by your gracious contributions. If you got something out of it, why not toss a little change in the kitty? (grin) To make a one-time donation, click the Donate button at the top of the sidebar on this website.

And again, if you’d like to consider becoming a patron, click Patronage and have a look at the rewards. Patrons will always get far more value than they pay for.

If you can’t make a monetary donation, please consider at least sharing this post with your friends. Thanks!

2 thoughts on “Restructuring My Personal Time and My Business”

Comments are closed.