The Write-a-Book-in-a-Month Challenge

One of the nuggets of advice sometimes given out to Indie authors, focuses on the number of books we write each year. The consensus seems to be that less is not more, and rather, the greater number of new books we put out, the better chance we have of attracting new readers.

With this in mind, I set myself a challenge at the beginning of 2023. Having occasionally written a book in a month, I wondered it if would be possible to write a new book every month.

Okay, I hear that cry of What the..?! but let’s think about it seriously. While the process of writing the book is only part of the many tasks we must accomplish before the thing appears on Amazon et al, getting it written is surely the most important one. If we can shorten the amount of time we spend actually writing, won’t everything else also be easier?

So, in January 2023 I began writing Crucial Black, the third book in my Relic Black Thriller series. With the characters already up and running from the first book, I only had to come up with the story.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I’ve often wondered about that old Enid Blyton method of knocking out 10,000 words per day (pretty amazing, though to be fair, the quality of her writing isn’t great). In a past challenge, I tried to match Blyton’s target, but only succeeded in getting part the way there, with one of my writing sessions topping 5,126 words. ( I’ve since surpassed that target with 6,300 words in a day.)

So, with Crucial Black, and with a general word count target of around 55,000, I knew I had to average 2,000 words each day. Which seemed feasible. I found that while some days I managed to hit 6,000 words, on others I barely managed 500. I also discovered the necessity of writing every day (which I believe all writers should aim for anyway), can be a little taxing. For those of us still holding down ‘proper’ jobs, coming home after a long day at work to spend hours banging away at the keyboard doesn’t necessarily contribute to making Johnny a happy boy.

However, most days I stuck to my target and while I didn’t quite hit my write-a book-in-a-month goal, the total writing time for Crucial Black came in at 34 days, which isn’t bad.

And that’s when the problems started.

Having begun writing the book a few days into January, and having exceeded my one-month goal, I didn’t start the next new book until February 11^th, leaving me only 17 days until the end of the month. To combat this, I decided I’d write the third book in my children’s Skeleton Cove Horror series. With a general target of 40,000 words for the books in the series, I judged this to be more attainable. The Axeman of Manslaughter Mansion came in at just over 35,000 words, and took me 21 days to write.

At this point, I realised that finishing one book and jumping straight into the next one would continue to have a rolling-on effect and that even if I managed to write each book in a month (31 days or less), would never equate to writing one in each calendar month. I had also noticed my energy waning somewhat, so when I started writing the third new book of the year, Deadly Black, I knew it wouldn’t be done in one month, calendar or otherwise. In reality, it took me a little under three months, which still isn’t bad, but knocked my target of 12 books in a year out of the ballpark.

So, what have I learned?

Well, I know it’s perfectly possible to write a book in a month, but in order to stay sane and healthy, the target of 12 books per year should probably be updated to a more realistic 7. Which means that over the next ten years, I’ll be putting out at least 70 new books.

You can stop laughing now.

NB Since writing this post, my most recent tome, Shadow of the Witch, took my five months to write, which has blown my renewed target out of the window. I’m now working on my fifth book of this year, Long Walk Off A Short Pier, which I hope to finish my Christmas. *Sigh

The post first appeared as part of as a Guest Post on Between The Lines.