Hi Everyone,
It’s been a while since I’ve given an author update and a pseudo-roadmap for my book series. The past year has been a rather turbulent experience between lockdown and a brief period of unemployment which destroyed my productivity. I was surprised how much that had set me back in terms of a structured routine. But now that I’ve gotten a handle on my new job and feeling a bit more confident in my abilities, I’m slowly getting back to my previous work ethic.
Book 2 has done pretty good so far however the change in employment for a bit did make things a bit rocky in terms of setting an advertisement budget. Unfortunately, as a self-published author on Amazon, you can’t really get a lot of traction without a little advertisement spending. At least this was my experience when I dabbled in advertising my first book. Sadly, I recently had to replace my laptop so that set me back a little bit as well, but next month I’m hoping to get advertising up for books 1 & 2 to better promote them.
As anyone who frequents this blog might know, I’ve been talking about publishing a Volume 1 for my book which is a combination of books 1 & 2 for a cheaper price than buying both individually. I’m still working on the cover art and titles for the volumes as it’ll be something carried forward to the others as well. I have some rough ideas of what I want the volume artwork to look like, however it will take some time to finalize the design. I’m hoping to have Volume 1 published this summer or early fall.
Book 3 is proving to be a bit more challenging than I had initially thought. I have the rough outline in place to write the first draft. I’m more of a discovery writer so the story really fleshes itself out as I’m writing it out. However, my motivation and discipline has been rather skewed over the past year as I think most people have experienced as well. I’m hoping to finish the first draft this summer and go from there. The aim is to still have the book published in 2022 so that the series maintains a book a year structure. However, if necessary, I will delay book 3 until it is ready.
Currently the most difficult struggle is maintaining focus and my work ethic. It was key to how I was able to write and publish the first two books. I hope that I can get back into writing more consistently, but I’ve become a lot more wary of the potential of burnout. Progress has been admittedly pretty slow, but I’m hoping to try and get back to my old productive self, or at least productive enough.
Thanks for sticking with me all this time. 😊
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 