Make Progress on Your Book in 2025

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Happy Saturday. I hope everyone is doing well. Welcome to 2025 everyone. Can you believe it's already the year 2025? I don't know. Just like hearing that. I mean 2020 was a big year. 2010 like some of those like milestones. But 2025 just is crazy guys. So please if you are here, let us know where you are watching from in the chat. Don't forget that if this is your first deep dive to attend with us or if it's been a while or if you just need the reminder we do, you can say reward participation. So you are more likely to win a prize when you participate in the chat. And we've got four different areas or four different places during today's deep dive where we will be giving away prizes. Now just a couple of things with this. These do run for at a maximum of two hours. So. So in Eastern time zone for me it is 1:01pm so we will be done latest by 3:00pm Eastern Standard Time. And if you guys don't know me, I am Angela, the operations manager at Book Launchers. You might be popping on here and being like, oh, where's the blonde lady who I see in all the videos? That's Julie, that's our CEO and she does not run every single deep dive. She does do a lot of them, but not every single one. I am usually on all the deep dives though. You'll see me pop in here and there on the YouTube lives as well. But I am the operations manager here at Book Launchers and I help Julie do a lot of the business esque things that go on behind the scenes. We also have our lovely Elissa here who is our book production manager and she's actually going to be the host of today's Deep Dive which is on the topic of make progress on your book in 2025. And what a good, stellar, nice round year to make progress on your book. So Elissa, do you want to take a quick second to introduce yourself to everyone?

Sure. Hi everyone. Like Angela said, I am the production manager at Book Launchers, which basically means I oversee our entire book process from the beginning of writing all all the way through editing, design, layout and upload for distribution. So I'm very keenly aware that books don't happen if we don't make progress on them. So I'm really excited to be here today and talk about, you know, some tips and tricks that I've seen work for our authors, that I've had work for myself and other writers that I know. And hopefully there'll be something of value here today that you can take away and feel like, hey, you know what, I can make progress on my book this year.

Awesome. I'm just reading some of the chats. We've got people from all over the place. Let's say we've got Deborah Ann Martin. Hello. We've got Darla, who was the first person to comment. So hello, Darla, it's lovely to see you here today. Got people from Arizona, New York, California, someone from la, California. I hope you, you and your loved ones are staying safe because my goodness. Let's see, we've on the opposite end of the spectrum, we've got Randall, who is. Hello from all Caps Frozen, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So, so lovely to see all of you guys here. And I think, let's see, Steve Stevens, Serral. Hello, Nice to see you. Theo eto. Hello from Michigan. So great to see everyone in here.

Yes.

So if you are watching and you haven't yet put where you're watching from in the chat, we do love to hear that. I saw someone say that they are watching from Florida. I am also in Florida. Oh, another Florida person. I'm down in South Florida. Alyssa is in the lovely state of Mississippi. And what is the weather like for you today, Alyssa? Is it a little. Are you having winter weather?

It's actually very interesting. It rained last night and the high is 72 today. But the high is 42 tomorrow. Oh, wow.

Nice big jumps there.

Yes.

Awesome. Alrighty, guys. Well, let's see. I think we are about ready to get started. But I do want us to give away a prize first off the bat. So let me actually pull up our handy Dandy Stream yard giveaway tool. And for everyone, while I'm getting to open, this does pull winners from someone who has already commented in the chat. So let me tell you, this will give you a chance to say hello in the chat while I'm getting this ready. Additionally, just to go over some of the prizes that we have for today, we have of course copies of Julie's books, Self Publish and Succeed and Self Promote and Succeed. We also have two copies of some special editions of Dale Roberts books. And those are. I thought I had the. Oh, I must not have the.

The.

I'll have to pull the titles for you. But they are the first and second book of a series that he has written. So one is for, I think new authors and the other one is an advanced guide. So they're nice, they're hardback, they've got gold. Gold like Foiling on the COVID Really nice. So we've got those. We've also got our oh so soft journal and our hashtag, no boring books mug. So let me share screen. I'm going to take over here for just a second. I'm going to share screen right here if it works. And we're going to do this giveaway tool. So there are 23 entries so far. Let's see who wins. And unfortunately, Elissa and I can't win. So if we have already commented in the chat, we cannot win yet today. So let us see. Kayla tv. Awesome. I don't know that you've been a winner before unless I'm just not recognizing that name. So thank you so much for being here at the beginning of this deep dive. What you're going to do is to claim your prize. You do need to email me@teamoklaunchers.com I need to know the price that you want and I need your mailing address. So that is T E A M book launchers.com let me know your prize of choice as well as your mailing address. And I think we are ready to dive in, guys. So I'm going to stop sharing screen so that Elissa can dive in. And Elissa, it is all yours. Please take it away.

Thank you. All right, let's.

And I'm going to go in the background, Elissa, just by the way. So I'm going to. I'm going to hide while you're presenting.

All right.

Here we go.

All right. So as you can see, this is about making progress on your book in 2025. So here's a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today. I'm going to be going over, taking inventory of your life. We'll talk about utilizing smart goals, creating a consistent writing routine, managing your writing time, utilizing technology, building your team. And then we'll have time, hopefully for some questions at the end.

So let's start with talking about taking inventory of your life. So January is an absolutely excellent time to do this. It's one of the reasons why I was so excited to schedule this date dive for January this year. I think we kind of naturally begin to know, look at our year, plan ahead. Think about what we accomplished last year and what we would love to accomplish this year. And so when you're looking at what you do want to accomplish this year and what making progress on your book looks like for you, one of the key first steps that I sometimes see writers skip over or forget is that they need to take an inventory, a realistic and honest inventory of what your life looks looks like. You need to make note of any existing commitments you have, like, do you have a day job or do you have to travel a certain amount of the year? Think about family responsibilities. Do you have children? Do you take care of a loved one?

Think about your personal health. Are there limits in your number of spoons every day or. You know, one key thing that I really learned over the past couple of years is that while we may all have the same number of hours in a day, we May all have 24 technical hours in our day. That doesn't mean we all have the same number of productive hours. And even the number of productive hours we have from day to day can vary depending on what else we have going on. I think being being aware and honest about how much genuine brain space and effort you have to put toward a creative project each day will help you set goals and move toward them in a way that sets you up for success rather than disappointment.

Think also about what motivates you and what helps you be focused.

On. One example of this is that I have writer friends who do really well writing in public places. It's not uncommon that the kind of like the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop, for instance, is a really common.

Example that like, some people just love it. They function better, they focus better, they're motivated if they're sitting in a coffee shop. But then there are other people who need absolute quiet and isolation in order to be able to focus. And there are those that focus fall somewhere in between. But as you're taking inventory of your life, taking into consideration what makes you feel motivated and what helps you focus will again help you with your planning. And you're looking at, you know, what you can accomplish and what you need to accomplish, what you aim to. And then natural preferences kind of falls into that, to a similar category here. When I first think of natural preferences, I think more about time of day. So of course, we've all heard about, like morning larks and night owls. And many of us do have a very strong preference for when we have that creative energy and can work on those creative projects. So to use myself as an example, my creative energy is far superior at night than it is in the morning. And yet, you know, a lot of the code. Common wisdom that is common for a reason is that you should front load your day with the things that you want to absolutely be sure get done, whether that is, you know, going to the gym or working on your writing. Or, you know, whatever it might be. And for literal years, I tried really hard to make that happen, to be that person who caught up really early and did her writing before her day job. But for me, it just ended up being an exercise in frustration over and over again because my brain didn't turn on for that work until about 8 o' clock at night, which if I'm getting up early enough to write in the morning, I am way too tired to do it at night. So figuring out what your natural preferences are, when it's realistic for you to write, but also when it's going to actually work for you and your own rhythms is an important thing to take inventory of, because you want to be able to work within your true givens. And again, like I said, set yourselves up for success as you're planning.

So that's the foundational first step. Then we want to set the right kind of goals. So this list, smart goals, may be very familiar to some of you. This concept has been around for literal decades now, and there is a lot of good that can be taken from this idea of setting smart goals. Studies have shown that it's a lot more effective to set goals that are specific, especially and time bound. Those two pieces seem to be the most critical aspect of smart goals, but all of these pieces have value. So your likelihood of achieving something goes up significantly if you instead of have a goal that might be a little bit vague, such as I want to make progress on my book this year and instead think about what specifically does that progress look like for you? So you might say I want to finish the rough draft of my book by this date, for instance, or I want to finish the copy edits by this date and be in proofread by this date. Being able to be really specific about what the goal is that you want to accomplish, how you will determine it, how you will measure it, making sure that it is achievable. That's part of why we do that inventory step. First, making sure it's relevant to your bigger picture goals and then making it time bound, setting a specific.

Time that you want to accomplish it by. Now, if you have been in the book Launchers family for a little while, then you may be familiar with Julie's perspective on smart goals and that is that they are very effective logically and they can be really helpful if you are trying to again find that structural piece for yourself. But they ignore what is arguably the most powerful aspect of achieving a goal, and that is the emotional side of setting goals. So for Julie, she Offers a different.

Version of smart goals. She says, as you are looking at what you want to accomplish, you know, does it scare you? And this is a. This one needs a little bit of explanation. Perhaps scary in the sense that it's big and it matters and you kind of feel it in your chest.

Over the years that I've worked with authors who are writing their books, both with book launchers and for the 10 years that I worked as a freelance editor before that, what I found is for many authors, there is at least one point that they reach in their project where their emotions get really big, where it genuinely gets very real and very scary. And whenever that happens, especially for first time authors, it can be really disconcerting. But for me, having been in this for 20 years, I'm excited every single time an author is like, wow, this is scary. Like, I don't know, this feels really vulnerable or uncomfortable or, you know, really, really big. That to me is always really exciting because that means you are genuinely doing something that matters and that, that pushes you and that requires something of you. And when you put out a book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction or memoir, if it requires something of you, especially if it requires a certain vulnerability from you, those are the books that touch other people's lives. And for most of us, that's why we write books, right?

And in terms of the rest of your letters, so milestone driven, this is kind of looking at that time based goal, but breaking it down into smaller chunks that you can achieve along the way. This would be like setting weekly or monthly word counts while you're drafting or chapter goals by certain dates. So that, yes, you may have that overarching goal for exactly when you'd like to finish your first draft, for instance, but you've also broken it down into smaller chunks. Or if your goal is to self publish, perhaps your milestones include the entirety of the process. So perhaps your milestones will include things like drafting, editing, cover design, layout, and then the actual publication so that you have these markers along the way versus just saying, I want to publish my first book this year, or my second book, or my tenth book, or whatever your goal may be. So getting in the habit of breaking down those bigger goals into specific smaller milestone driven goals can really help with keeping that sense of focus and motivation and reinforcing what it is that you're doing all the time. Action oriented is another great one here, that it's giving you things that you can actually control. One of the potential vulnerabilities in goal setting for people can Be that they want to, let's say their goal is, I want to be a best selling author, for instance. That isn't something you can just flip a switch and have happen. Instead, there are concrete steps that you can take that can increase the likelihood of achieving that goal. But that goal isn't one that you can just automatically make happen, like going to the store and buying something. It is not something you have complete control over. But if you identify that as a goal and then can identify action steps that you can take that increase your likelihood, one after the other of achieving that goal that isn't in your control, then again, you're setting yourself up for success in the best possible way that you can. The R here is really easy to visualize. So this allows you to see that thing happen. Being able to put yourself in the position in your mind of this is what it looks like. I'm making it concrete conceptually. It isn't this ambiguous, amorphous thing. But I'm able to really visualize what this goal looks like. And then finally tied to a greater vision. What is that bigger reason? What is your why behind working on this book? And I think if you're able to keep that why that greater vision in mind at every stage, again, as you're taking inventory, as you're establishing your dreams and your goals and then the steps that you're going to take to achieve them, if you're able to keep that greater vision in mind as you go, you're going to be basically activating both your emotional motivators and drivers and your logical intellectual motivators and drivers. And combining those two is the most powerful way that you can take yourself from where you are right now to where you want to be as far as your project is concerned.

And then, Angela, was this one place you wanted to pause?

Yes, ma', am, it sure was. I realized I came on, just popped right in here. My mic was muted, so. Yes, yeah, perfect. And thank you. And we actually have a question from Bea that I'll put on the screen because it is, you know, you said that best selling doesn't. It's not just a light switch effect, which is true. So B's question, how does the bestseller actually happen for celebrities?

Well, it depends on how you're defining best seller, for one. So if you're looking at like a number one bestseller flag in Amazon, for instance, that's a entirely different process than being on the New York Times bestseller list or the USA Today bestseller list. So in terms of how it happens for celebrities, it Depends on the defining factor there. But the for those bestseller lists like the New York Times and USA Today, that has to do with.

Thousands, if not tens of thousands of copies of a book being ordered from a certain number of retailers within a very specific window and all of those retailers reporting it to the places that determine this status piece. And there's not a great deal of ultimate transparency on what exactly all of those numbers are or how many retailers you need. The reporting runs, I believe from Tuesday to Tuesday, which is why you'll see a lot of.

Traditionally published books for big names will publish on Tuesdays to give themselves the longest reporting window possible to make those best seller lists. But at the end of the day for celebrities, you're looking at massive marketing campaigns, tons and tons of time and energy and money being pushed into, you know, making sure those thousands, if not tens of thousands of copies are selling within a really narrow window. And if that's happening, then it will naturally get those other flags like on Amazon and places like that. I hope that answered your question.

As far as, like, even if the book isn't good, I see you say, I mean.

That just has to do with being famous, right? Like, a lot of people will unfortunately purchase a product just because they know a person or they're interested or they're curious. Like, there are a lot of different.

Reasons that marketing campaigns can tap into to try to influence buyer behavior. But with celebrities, a lot of times that is exactly what they are leveraging is that celebrity status and not necessarily the quality of the work. It's not a meritocracy for sure. Yeah.

So something I wanted to ask Elissa and I don't think you have this plan for an upcoming slide. You had mentioned setting goals for yourself. So what would for someone who's new to this book writing experience or even just, you know, it's been a while since they've written a book, maybe they have done some in the past. How do they know what's a reasonable deadline for say, copy edits or even like writing a draft? Like, how do they. Do you have any guidance on how they could figure that out?

Yeah, I mean, that is a, that's a really good question. And a lot of that for if you're first time or you're just getting started after a long break, like you said, that's going to be very individual to the person. And a lot of it's going to have to do with the answers in that, you know, personal inventory that you take because how much time and energy and effort you have to put into these goals is going to impact to a huge extent how quickly they're able to happen.

My advice would be, especially when it comes to drafting, would be to take note of your progress as you go, say for a month. Keep track of your progress, your word counts and how much you write. And every time you sit down, keep it so that you can get an idea for how quickly you tend to write, whether that is, you know, 200 words an hour, 500 words an hour, more than that. And that will help you kind of get a feel for how long your draft will take. But in terms of the entirety of the process that is going to be so personalized to each person and their project and the length of their project, a lot of that is, you know, hard to generalize, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah, it is good to keep, like, try to figure things out at first, see what works for you. And then as you go along, you might start to establish what's a reasonable with your other commitments, your family, your work, anything that you've got going on. Then you can start to refine things. And something I would add is, you know, it's okay to give yourself grace at times. You know, life happens, maybe stressful things happen. And it's okay to give yourself, you know, grace and make progress on something. You know, it's the fact that you're making progress is what's important, as opposed to just shelving it and letting it sit there. And so if that means, you know, maybe you have to put it aside for a short period of time because you're giving yourself that grace for whatever reason, just go back to it and then you have extra motivation. And actually, sometimes it is good to step away from your manuscript. I'm sure Elissa has experienced that personally as well. Is sometimes it is good to have that break and you come back at it with almost fresh eyes or new insight that you can add into it or maybe something new that you never even thought of adding, but is now, you think a very vital aspect of what you're putting in your manuscript. So, you know, it is okay. And you can always find the silver lining of things like that. And trying to, if you do have to take a break for a short period of time, coming back to it with that, with that thought process. I do want us to give another prize away though. And I'm trying to think if I want to ask a question or if I want to do another random name giver. So let me see really quickly, I would like, you know, I would like to know what are your goals? Let's go in the chat. Let's go in the chat. I think I'll. What is something based off these two slides that Ellis has talked about so far? So what is a smart goal that you will set for yourself? Or what is something that you can do to take inventory of your life? Which was the first slide that Elisa shared. So I would love to see that in the chat. I'll give you a second to write that on there and then I am going to pick my favorite one. And I do see that we have had some other questions come in.

That's great.

Thank you. If you didn't see my message in the chat as we go along, please do feel free to write any questions into the chat and we will cue them if we have a huge influx come in. You know, we will get to as many as we possibly can, but I am starring them. You can't see it on your side, but I can see it on my side. So I will be queuing them. So. Okay, we've got some, some goals coming in. That's fantastic. Keep them coming, guys, because I really would like to see. Elissa, I will let you continue as people start to write their goals in the chat and then I'll pop back on in a minute and we will give away the prize for this section.

All right, moving forward. So let's talk about consistent writing routines. So I touched on this just a little bit when I was talking about taking inventory, but let's go back and think about that. So if you've looked at your life and you figured out.

Where your commitments are that can be adjusted and where your commitments are that can't be adjusted.

What you're willing to move and what you're not willing to move, what you can sacrifice and what you can't. Because as we all know, saying yes to one thing automatically means saying no to something else. So if you are saying yes to really focusing on your book this year, it means that you won't be doing something else that you were doing before, whether that's as simple as something like, you know, scrolling on your phone or watching television. But it could be something, you know, more significant like, you know, certain social engagements or, you know, a different hobby that you had. So I think it's important to really take that inventory step seriously and then take a look at where you can set a consistent writing routine. So why is it important?

I was actually talking with our in house, like writing coach, ghostwriter yesterday about this because it is one of the most I would say almost magical things you can possibly do is setting a consistent routine. And the reason for that is there's always a certain level of resistance in your brain to doing something that you've decided to do. But when you have a routine in place, it tells your brain that when you go here to this place at this time, what we do is we work on the book and it will go a very long way to helping alleviate that resistance. It helps if you struggle with perfectionism or anxiety about your creative work or if you just, you know, struggle with getting into the zone or finding, you know, your rhythm when you're writing. A consistent writing routine is the very best thing that you can do for yourself. It doesn't mean you'll be exactly the same kind of productive every time you sit down. I know for me, it varies greatly how much I do each time I sit down to work, but I sit down at the same time every single day in the same spot and do the same thing. And by building that habit in, it has taken me from not being sure how long it'll take me to finish a rough draft, to knowing pretty much exactly how long it'll take me to finish a rough draft. Because that consistency piece means that I'm moving forward at least a little bit, at least a tiny bit every day. And that moves the needle more than you would believe over time. Again, I already mentioned this with, you know, taking inventory about, you know, your preferences and your natural tendencies. So, you know, like morning larks and night owls, for instance, like I already said.

If you are a morning person, like, I have a wonderful writer friend who naturally gets up between 4:30 and 5 every day. And so her writing routine is that she gets up, she fixes coffee and she writes before she goes to school because she's a teacher. This works perfectly for her because it is her natural body's rhythm. It is what she does. It's when her brain is the sharpest. If she tried to write when I write, which is roughly 8 to 11pm she couldn't do it. She's in bed, going to sleep by the time I'm sitting down to start writing. And so it would be really, really hard for her. And just like I found it incredibly difficult to try to get up and do it more according to her schedule. For me, my brain just stayed oatmeal. It just stays so lumpy and I can't get anything sharp or creative done. And I have tried, like I said, for years, because I was determined that that was the best way to do It. But what I found in recent years is the best way for me to is a routine that works. It's one I can stick to. It's one where I can actually make progress. And for me, that means sacrificing my evenings, not doing it first thing in the morning every day. And you may find that something different, something in between, works for you. So this is where thinking outside the box comes in handy. So another rider friend of mine that I knew in grad school, she worked at a doggy daycare for her day job. And so what she was actually able to do was she would work in five minute snippets throughout her day. And that is how she wrote like multiple books over the course of a year or two was in these little windows that she would capture when there was downtime between what she was doing at work. For me, that'd be really hard. I feel like I need a chunk of time in order to be productive. But for her, those brief windows of inspiration, she just stacked them one on top of each other. And by the time she'd get to the end of each day, she'll have written as much as I do in my block in the evenings. That was what worked for her. There are plenty of examples of famous and prolific authors who, you know, have written books while their children are at school, while their babies are napping, like we've already talked about before work, after work. So be creative. You. It may work best for you to, for instance, only write on weekends. Or there's another author that I know about who she's traditionally published. She only writes on Wednesday evenings. She's a children's librarian. She's very busy and she couldn't commit to more than that. But every single Wednesday night she writes. And that is how she, you know, wrote her first book that was picked up by a traditional publisher, and that's how she's writing every subsequent book. So, you know, it doesn't have to be every day and it doesn't have to be huge chunks of time at once. It has to be what you can sustain, what makes sense for your brain, what will work with your schedule and whatever limitations or, you know, existing responsibilities you might be working within. So be thinking about that, be creative about it. And.

One of the things that I genuinely get excited about is learning how what has worked for other writers. Because you would think, oh, there's got to be this one way, there's got to be this one approach that works. And really all you'll find if you look closely is consistency what works for authors is finding their own consistency. And it may look really different from person to person. So a couple of examples of what this looks like. Maya Angelou, for instance, she rented a hotel room. She didn't write at her home very well and she found it very distracting. And so she would rent a hotel room, she would go there, and she stayed there every day. And that is how she wrote. Ernest Hemingway got up and wrote at dawn every day. Like my friend Brandon Sanderson, at least at my last check, he writes from 10pm to 4am, which is not something a lot of us could swing. Especially like I said, if you, you have responsibilities during the regular daytime. Brandon, of course, is a full time author, so he has more control of his schedule than some of us might, but that is what works for him. The night owl in me sees the appeal, like I, that's exciting. I couldn't do it, like I said, with a day job. But 10pm to 4am Those are his magic hours. That is when he works. Roald Dahl, he wrote in a small shed on his property, as did Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf. There's actually quite a few well known authors who have small sheds, writing sheds on their property that they use as their place where all they do there is write, perhaps read, but nothing else. They often don't have Internet there. It is often just their place to go into write.

Which I think is a really lovely idea. I live in an apartment. I do not have a writing shed, but I do have a writing spot and I do have a place that I always go and I sit in the same place and I do the same things so that I can find that consistency for myself. But like I said, for others it may be best to, you know, go to another place. I have friends who write in libraries, like I said, coffee shops. Some people love to write outdoors. It is really, there is no right or wrong as long as, like I said, you're finding your consistency, you're finding your thing that you can do regularly to help train your brain that this is when we do this work.

All right, Ms. Angela, that's actually a great segue because I do want to talk about some of these goals and these have been really fun to read, by the way. Guys. Some of these are very specific and I love it. Like, someone said that they wanted to reach out to a certain number of women to include their book by a certain date. Other people are wanting to attend certain events, get parts their draft done. Like Jason Ward says, I want to get through my developmental Edit and actually use 80% of the editor's ideas. That's great. Jody says end of January, boom. I have to get it done. It's been the thing that's holding me back. No more. Love that. My favorite, though. And this goes into what Elissa just said. And this is going to be. The winner of our second prize is from Kevin Hall. And I'll tell you the piece that stood out to me the most. So his was finish my fourth book by June of this year, rearrange my work environment to be more uncomfortable to write in, redo my website by September. And it's that second sentence that really stands out to me. And, Elissa, I see you shaking your head. Why is a good writing environment so important, especially if you're writing at home? What are your thoughts on that?

Well, my first thought is that distractions are our greatest enemies, and that includes physical discomfort, visual noise, actual auditory noise, temperature. I mean, there's just. Yes, be comfortable. Make it, you know, work for you. If you work with clutter, be cluttered. If you work with clean, be clean. Like, give yourself that gift of this space. Works for me. Whatever that looks like. So, yeah, that's a great one. That's great, Kevin. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Awesome. So, Kevin, you know the drill, and I think it has been a little bit since you won, if I remember correctly. So feel free to email me at Team, I know you got that email address in the back of your pocket, so let me know which of the prizes you would like. And again, if you haven't won in a while, you might not have Dale's book, so let me know if you want one of those. But yeah, these other ones are great. If you still like to add some goals in there, I would love to read them, you guys. But we are going to get on to the next slide and then I'll pop back on in just a minute to. To give away another prize. But Elisa's got some more insight for everyone.

All right, so let's talk about. You've set your. You know, you've set your goal, your actual writing time, and you are there and you're in it.

Then the next step is to truly manage that time. And I've seen some actual. Some comments, Eric, I can see you were talking about it already. I think as well, you must protect this time. Once you have determined what your writing routine is and you have decided that this is when you're going to consistently get this work done, you must protect it from yourself as well as from others.

And part of this is picking a realistic time, right? Like if you are a mom, then setting your writing time right, like when your kids need to go to bed. Unless you have a spouse who's going to be doing that for you or partner who's doing that for you, that might be a really hard time to consistently be able to do it. So finding or like for me, if I were to set my time for the middle of my work day, that would be a really hard time for me to actually follow through and do it. So set your. Set yourself up for success by picking a time that will actually work, but then you must protect it. Put it in your calendar, make sure other people you know who might interrupt you know that this is your time so that they don't inadvertently interrupt or distract. Because again, distractions are one of the greatest enemies of creative work.

And make sure that you don't get lack. Get lax about, you know, actually following through. Like, oh, you know, I don't have to be there, right at 8, I could do 8:15. Or oh, I could spend part of my time on social media or doing some, you know, research that isn't directly related really to what I'm doing.

Or, you know, oh, I could watch some YouTube videos. I'm definitely guilty of that. Sometimes I'm writing. Watching videos about writing, it counts, right? No, not if I'm supposed to be drafting or if I'm supposed to be editing. So protect your time from yourself and from others. Be respectful of the commitment that you've made. And that's again, where that sort of understanding your emotional drivers and your really big dreams. Why. Comes in handy. Because sustaining this effort over time is a. Is a significant challenge. And sometimes we have to get back in touch with our big why in order to make this time sacrifice feel like it has the value that you want it to. Books are huge projects. They don't typically get done in a week. And so you do have to sustain this effort over weeks, months, sometimes years in order to get you achieve this goal. And so realizing that getting back in touch with your why and consistently recommitting to the routine that you've set for yourself will be really helpful. Try writing sprints. So I am absolutely a writing sprints evangelist. I love them. I use them in my own practice. I use them with our authors. I love to lead live ones when I have the opportunity to. They are a great community way to actually work in really focused time as well as you can use them, you know, on your own to explain what a writing sprint is. In case anyone here isn't super familiar, it's basically.

Like the Pomodoro method, if you've heard of that, but it's basically setting a timer for a specific amount of time, whether it's 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, a very common amount of time actually is 25 minutes. You set that timer and during that time, all you can do is whatever you've decided you're going to be intensely working on, whether that is drafting new words, editing a chapter, making a plan, working on an outline, whatever it may be. You commit intensely to keep your focus on this one target until that timer goes off and you don't stop. You don't allow yourself to, you know, get pulled into something else or to get lost in thought, or you just keep yourself laser focused for that period of time until that timer goes off, and then you take a break. My recommendation is always to actually physically get up if you're able to, and move around, but definitely look away from your screens or whatever it is that you're working on and actually force your brain to stop that intense focus and then you do it again.

This can be incredibly helpful. Again, if you struggle with.

Being very critical of your own work, or if you struggle with, you know, kind of turning off that editor brain or that critique brain, especially if you're drafting. It can also be really helpful if you're struggling with feeling, you know, tired or resistant. I know for me, sometimes I'll tell myself, do one sprint. All you have to do is one sprint, set the timer, do one sprint, you're done. And usually by the time I'm finished with one sprint, I'm like, I'm good, I'm warmed up, I'm ready, let's do another one. But it can help to know I just have to do it for this one chunk of time. I'm just committing to this piece right here and being very kind of disciplined in your focus. Expecting yourself to focus very intensely for two hours or three hours or four hours doesn't work. And what you'll find is that you burn yourself out. You'll burn your brain out over time if you continue to take. There are of course, exceptions, I'm talking in generalities here, but it can. You may find that if you have two hours and you run four 25 minute sprints, instead of just saying, I'm gonna work for two hours, you may find there's a huge difference in how much you actually accomplish in exactly the same amount of time by managing it in sprints versus steady state as you go through one key tip I have for this is to build for yourself what I call an idea parking lot. I'm not the only person that calls it this. I've heard other people talk about it that way. I learned it from one of my professors in grad school. But basically, it's when you are working on, you know, using work sprints that if you have a document or a notebook or something, where anytime a stray thought comes in or an idea, a concept, something you want to look into more deeply, you put that in your idea parking lot, you don't let yourself go chase it. Right now, like, for instance, if you're writing a book that's set in New Orleans and you're like, oh, I need to dig deeper into the history of Bourbon Street. When you're drafting that scene, that is not the time to go spend an hour and a half researching Bourbon Street. But it is a good time to make note that later you want to do that so that way you don't lose it. And it can also help with returning to your focus, knowing that you've taken care of that idea, that concept, that little spark that happened, and that you haven't lost it. Because that's another source of potential distraction within our own brains, right? Is that we can be like, oh, but I have so many ideas going on at once, and it's hard for me to focus on the one thing. One idea parking lot can help with that. A quick word or two there and then you're back to your focus. And then you can revisit it later and determine whether it really is the brilliant idea that you thought it was, or if it was just your brain.

Doing things you didn't want it to do while you were trying to focus.

And then ultimately, like we've talked about with your writing routine, you make the rules, so make sure that they work for you. Like I said before, some people need absolute quiet. They want a room where they can close the door. And you know, that's how they would protect and manage their writing time. For other people, that isn't what they need or what they want. So figuring out what works for you, whether it works for other people or not, is beside the point. What works for you? Making your own rules for how you genuinely get the most out of your writing time. Be honest with yourself about this. Don't just choose what feels easiest. Make sure it actually is, you know, the setup that actually helps you do the thing. But you make the rules, so make sure that they work for you.

Right.

Awesome. Alrighty. Guys. Well, it is time for another prize. So let me pull up our giveaway screen again and I must say, if you have already. I've seen a lot of comments come in. So we're gonna be going through the comments again for this prize. It's going to be a random drop, but if you have won already today, then we will choose another person too. And just so that we can choose share the love. Okay, so let me. Elissa, I think I might have to. Let me see if it'll let me share screen. If you're already sharing screen. I'm not sure. See, Can I take over? Ha. I can take over. Okay, well then let us draw again. And we're going to pick another winner for one of our prizes. So if you joined late, we have several prizes. Let's see. Let's see who this is. B. Yeah, you were the first question that we had answered earlier. Awesome. So please let me know what prize you like. I'll mention what they are in just a minute. I will need for you your full name as well as your mailing address and the prize that you would like. So you can email me at Team T E A M Book launchers dot com. So what are these prizes? We have several books to give away. We have copies of Julie's book. We've got Self Publish and Succeed Self publishing, Promote and Succeed. We also have two special edition copies of Dale Roberts books and they are the first two of the series. And you know what? I forgot to look up what those titles were, so I'm going to look that up and post them in the chat. But they are. One is for new authors and the second book in the series is for advanced and I've got copies of both their hardback and they have gold on the COVID so they're really nice. We also of course have our oh so soft journal as well as our hashtag no boringbooks mug. So please let me know where I need to send your prize of choice. And I think I have seen some questions come in, but I think we're gonna save those for the end. I'm not sure.

I think there are more overarching questions. So let me stop sharing. And Ylissa, I'll let you take back over because I think those can just be saved toward the end.

You're.

You're muted though.

All right, here we go. All right, so let's talk about tools and tech. This is another kind of can be foundational. You may have already found what works for you, but there are some things that you know, perhaps you haven't considered or that, you know, might be interesting for you to pursue. So let's start with the very basics you know, do you choose to type or handwrite your projects? I think that probably at this point a high percentage of people are choosing to type their manuscripts versus handwriting them, but there are very clear benefits to both options. So I want to talk about that for a minute. So.

Typing is great because many of us, I think, probably type faster than we handwrite. That may not be true for everyone, but we may be able to keep up with our thinking speed a little bit better if we are typing versus handwriting, which may mean that you are able to make more progress more quickly and get more words written in less amount of time. It also means that you have it in a form that allows you to, you know, to save it, to back it up. It can go in the cloud and it is, you know, more shareable, perhaps very quickly, than a handwritten version.

However, there is a different relationship with content when you hand write it. And this isn't right for everybody or everybody project even for the same people. But there are some projects, topics where if you're really struggling with like a deep thought translation to your hand, like for typing, that you may find that handwriting really helps. There is a different connection between your body and your brain when you are handwriting versus typing. And you just may find that if you get stuck that, you know, switching between the two can be helpful. There are authors currently who I know choose to hand write all of their books for their first drafts, their drafts that are just for them. And then when they go through and they type them up, that's when they do their first round of sort of tidying, cleaning, cleaning it up, you know, improving the content that way. And that works for people. I know some authors who primarily type, but if they get to a scene that they're really struggling with, that they'll switch to handwriting. They'll take their notebook and their pen and they'll just go back to very, very basics and that they find that really helpful.

So I think it's just good to consider, like, this is a choice. It's not a have to. I think especially for a lot of us that live a lot of our lives on the computer, spend a lot of time with technology, you know, we may be defaulting to typing or to one of these other, you know, options that not even considering that, you know, handwriting can be, you know, a really good option. I know that I have a friend who, she typically types everything, but then she got an idea for a project that was, had a historical setting and she was writing it really clearly through like a woman's voice, almost like a journal. And when she did that, she found that handwriting. It helped her stay kind of in that woman's headspace. So much better than typing because she was writing about a time period where typing wouldn't have been a thing. And so for her that allowed her to really kind of tap into that idea. And so handwriting made sense for her for that one project. And then she went back to typing when she wrote something else. So I just like to talk about it because I think, you know, a lot of what I'm going to be talking about here is very computer focused. But handwriting has a really, you know, it has its place and it still has value. If you are interested in handwriting your books, I do have some recommendations. There are some things that can help. Definitely. You want to invest in paper that you enjoy, notebooks that work for you. Hand fatigue can be a real concern. People can run into, you know, issues with your hands cramping or with carpal tunnel syndrome, which can also be a concern with typing a great deal as well.

Authors that I am familiar with who do choose to hand write their works, they use fountain pens because you don't have to apply very much pressure in order to write with a fountain pen. So you can sometimes write for longer with, with less hand fatigue if that's something that you're interested in. Plus you can have really pretty colors of ink as well, which I'm. Yeah, I've reused exclusively fountain pens for years now and I absolutely love them. They're not for everybody, I acknowledge that. But they are really helpful if you do like to handwrite with that hand fatigue piece because you just very lightly write across the page versus like a ballpoint or even a marker pen. You have to write, you have to push a little bit harder. So it's just that there then writing software. So if you are planning to, you know, type or perhaps we're going to talk about dictation programs here in a minute. But if you're planning to, you know, write primarily on your computer, you have quite a few options these days. The standby, the, you know, the kind of, the, the standard is still Microsoft Word. A great many people write their books in Microsoft Word. Google Docs works for many people and it's, it's automatically saved which is great.

Pages if you are a Apple or Mac user can be really helpful. But there are a lot of other more kind of robust writing Softwares available now. One that you may have heard of is Scrivener. And it is like the definition of robust when it comes to writing programs. It has an incredible number of features that really are aimed at people who are writing big works. They can be really helpful if you have a lot of research to track and you want to be able to, you know, tie research directly to, you know, to a chapter or what you're working on. Scrivener is a great tool for organizing a large amount of material and being able to move pieces around. One of my favorite features is that you can have a dual panel up of a previous version of a chapter and the chapter that you're reworking and look at them side by side as you go, which I think is really neat.

Another software that a lot of people use that they find really helpful is called Dabble Writer, which is kind of like a simplified version of Scrivener. It has some of the same.

Features, but not all of the same. It's definitely less robust to keep using that word, but it has a pretty ui. It, it's nice and streamlined. It is also available in your browser, so like Google Docs, you are able to access it from any computer. Be able to log in and access your writing that way in case that's helpful to you, especially if you're someone who switches between multiple computers over the course of your day or with your writing.

Both Scrivener and Dabble have helpful outline features that you can put like index cards on a cork board if you're very visual or kinesthetic, and it helps you to be able to move pieces around and see them visually.

Atticus is another program that a lot of people really love and use these days.

And there are new ones coming out all the time. And so if you are finding that like some of the more simple options, like Word isn't meeting your needs or you're finding it hard for you to kind of see the shape of your project. That is why Word is difficult for me when I'm drafting. I it later in the process when I'm finalizing and I'm going through the editing process. But when I'm drafting, I find something like Dabble or Scrivener more helpful because it allows me to process my work visually in a different way that I personally find really beneficial. Especially being able to like drag and drop scenes and move pieces around really easily and be able to.

See what I've done and where I'm going in multiple different views helps me personally. But for Other people like with Word, being able to see it on the page the way it's going to look later or closer to it is more helpful. So there isn't a right or wrong here. Just know that there are a lot of different tools available out there now and that if you haven't found something that you love, that you know helps your process or makes you feel like, you know, you are as streamlined and as comfortable as you possibly can be. Another one a friend of mine uses is called Campfire. And it is. Does not work for me at all. It completely confuses my brain. But for her it works really, really well. So I just think, you know, again, finding that, finding that thing that makes it make sense to your brain as you're working on these bigger projects and helps you manage the volume of information that you're trying to manage, especially if you're also juggling research. Finding the right writing software can be hugely helpful for that.

In terms of dictation programs. So there are.

Quite a few different options for this now.

And.

What you choose to use will depend a lot on how you use dictation.

There is one author, and I cannot for the life of me remember her name right now. But she is incredibly prolific, partially because the way that she does her writing is she goes for really long hikes and all she does is dictate the entire time. And so she gets her drafts done really, really quickly because she can, you know, get through a lot of content verbally really quickly.

I've used dictation myself in the, in the past. It can be an incredibly helpful tool. It's really great if you struggle with any issues with your hands, like I mentioned before, with carpal tunnel, or with cramping, or just with hand fatigue. Dictation programs can be excellent if you're on the move a lot, if you're in the car or if you're outdoors. Like, it can really be helpful to be able to still write and still engage that creative brain and get content down, even if you're not able to sit at a desk. I think that's magnificent. I have known people who dictated on their way to and on their way home from work, and that was their primary writing time and that's how they got their books finished. As I said before, there really isn't a right or wrong. This is all about figuring out what works for you. There are, you know, like built in tools that are very simple. Like your iPhone very likely has a voice to text option that you can be using. There are programs like Otter AI that will transcribe audio for you. And then there are more like very full fledged and quite more expensive softwares like Dragon, naturally speaking that you actually train to your voice so that they get more and more accurate the more that you use it. And there are tutorials on how to dictate effectively, especially if you are wanting to do this as your primary way of drafting. There are verbal cues you can learn to use with dictation software that will put in punctuation and some spacing and things like that so that you don't end up with this just solid block of text that you then have to spend just as much time as you perhaps saved trying to figure out, you know, what you meant to say. This is another one, like with handwriting, that if you are really stuck on something that even if you don't typically use dictation, switching to it can really help activate a different part of your brain. For me, I find it really fun to use it, especially if I'm working on a project that has a lot of dialogue. For instance, being able to actually have those conversations out loud.

Makes, that makes it sound different. I do it anyway when I'm typing. My poor husband has to listen to me talking out loud when I'm doing dialogue. But with dictation I actually, you know, can just kind of close my eyes and get into the moment and dictate a conversation out there. So there are a lot of different reasons and ways to use dictation software. Some of them it's best to have a high quality microphone and be sitting at a desk. But for others you could have like just your earbuds or a simple headset or just your phone and be able to be on the move with them. So just know that it's a.

It'S a good option. I find that my dictating voice is very different from my writing voice. So if I switch between the two with one project, I have to be really careful with my revision and my editing to make sure that the voice sounds consistent throughout and that I do tend to use sometimes more repetitive turns of phrase when I'm dictating versus when I'm writing. So it's just a good idea to keep in mind that there are pros and cons to, to all the different tools that we could possibly use. And.

Yeah, just try things if you haven't already. It can be great. So another big topic to talk about, it's come a really long way in the past year is you using AI such as ChatGPT or Claude to support your writing. So I want to start with caveats with cautions here with AI. Because I work predominantly in self publishing, that is what I can speak most directly to. So right now.

There'S a lot of, I would say division amongst readers, especially about AI generated content and AI generated covers. That's not to say that AI can't be used as tools. I'm going to be talking about what that looks like in just a minute. There's also still a lot of questions about what it's going to mean in terms of copyright and being able to protect your work. So when I recommend to authors utilizing AI, ChatGPT or Claude or other programs, my recommendation is to use them as tools and to use them in a way that supports your creative work. But that does not replace it. Amazon currently does allow self publishing books that have been AI generated with disclosure like you have to let them know that that is what you're doing. However, other like print on demand self publishing companies like IngramSpark for instance, which is a major third party aggregator for self publishers, they don't currently allow any content that has been AI generated. It violates their community standards. So it's good to be aware of what the current mindset and perspective and legality concerns are with AI generated content, but then also realizing that it can be an extremely powerful tool. So ways in which it can be very very helpful. Initial brainstorming can be really great for. Let's say for instance, you're working on a non fiction book, having a conversation with ChatGPT or with Claude and talking to them about the book that you're wanting to write, the target audience for that kind of book, discussing like what those their pain points might be or what kinds of questions they ask or people who are looking for a book like this, what are some some questions that they want answered or what would bring them to a book like this. It can just help kind of clarify your own thinking and give you some ideas to pursue more deeply in your own work. It can be really helpful with ideas for how to organize information like outlining can be a good tool to to help with that piece. It does have some limits in terms of its help with research. Sometimes it can be really helpful, but other times it can get things just plain wrong. So you've got to be careful about that.

There are still disclaimers on just about any one that you would use that the information given can be inaccurate. So if you are writing nonfiction and you're using AI to help with research, just be aware that you will Want to fact check or verify any, any research that you do choose to use that was cited or presented to you by AI. But in terms of it being a thought partner or giving you, you know, ideas, concepts, brainstorming level versus the actual like text itself being generated by AI absolutely do can be really helpful. Almost like having a, a human critique partner or writing partner that you're bouncing ideas off of. Using AI that way can be helpful and effective. But again, right now there's a lot of.

Limits, concerns and again like the idea of whether you can copyright or protect your work that are caution enough for me to say, you know, be careful about using AI to actually generate any kind of content.

But using it as a tool that supports your writing, that can be really beneficial. And then project management tools. So this varies greatly in terms of again, your situation. Some people find it really helpful to hire a virtual assistant or someone to help manage the various pieces of what they're doing. And I'll talk about that in a later slide. But the main project management tool that I want to talk about is one that I just discovered this past year and that I am really, really excited about. I use it myself. I've shared it with a few other authors who are also starting to use is free for, I believe it's two simultaneous projects. So if you tend to only write one or two books at a time, then you know the free version would work for you indefinitely. It's called Pacemaker Planner, but the website is Pacemaker Press. And basically what it is, you can use it to manage any project. It's not just for writing, but what it allows you to do is input goals that you have, like what we talked about earlier. You can input like a word count goal, a time based goal, what days of the week that you would like to write, whether you want to have like a random word count goal for every day, or whether you'd like to have it be the same amount. Every day has a lot of different variables that you can use to customize how your project looks over the course of a few months as you're working on it.

And then what you do is you, every time that you write, you go in and you can put in, you know, okay, today I wrote this many words. If that's how you're tracking it, you can also choose to track your writing by time, by chapter, again, whatever works for you and it keeps track of it for you. It'll let you know what percentage you've completed. It'll keep, it'll let you know how much you have left to go, how much you've written. You'll be able to see, like, on a calendar, how, like, many words you've written over the course of the time and on which days. My very favorite feature, however, is the streak feature. So every time I log in and I put my information in, it tells me how many days in a row I have kept to my writing routine. And there have been so many times in the past year that I think I would have broken my routine if I didn't have that streak motivating me. If I wasn't like, oh, man, I can't. I'm gonna lose my green streak. Like, it's not gonna be there anymore. That has kept me consistent this year in a way that I really struggled with before. Even though I've used spreadsheets, Dabble and Scrivener both have some tools for, you know, setting those kinds of goals and keeping them, you know, front of mind. But Pacemaker Planner for me was a huge find in terms of project management. I use it to track when I am editing and when I'm proofing, as well as when I'm drafting. And just for me, the visual data is really, really exciting. I get really nerdy about it. So if that kind of information doesn't appeal to you, you can just dismiss this tool entirely. But if you like the idea of being able to, like, look back on your whole year and be able to see kind of like a heat map of where you wrote the most and where you wrote a little, if you're motivated by, you know, percentage completed and seeing your streak of keeping to your writing routine and things like that, then, you know, can consider checking it out.

That is the kind of stuff that helps me stay on track. But like I said, for other people, that may not appeal. But I like to mention it because for me, it was. It was a huge upgrade in my own personal routine this year. It also helps me be able to plan out my entire year and see, like, what projects I'm going to work on, when, what stages I'll be at with my books at different times so that I'm able to, you know, see that plan and then work toward that plan as I go.

Yes, ma'. Am.

Before you move on, there were a couple things I wanted to point out from people who had written into the chat. So I have to show this one. Jason Ward said I text while driving. Yes. Yeah. As long as people are staying safe, life, that could be a great way to kill two birds with one stone and make progress I've heard of people doing something similar or using the time if they were like on the subway or on a bus or something, if they're commuting in some way. I mean, in a sense, whether you're in the driver's seat or you're in the passenger seat or on a train or whatever, that's time that you could be taking advantage of. So that's a great idea. There were also a couple questions that, if you didn't mind, Elissa, that were related to this that I'd like to address. So you had mentioned the different writing software programs and I know you did mention Word versus Google Doc. Can you explain though why we here at Book Launchers do work pretty much exclusively in Word, just so that people are aware in case this affects what they decide to use?

Absolutely. So there are a couple of reasons why we predominantly use Word. One is it allows us consistency across, like working with multiple editors. So when writers go through our process, they'll be working with a minimum of three different editors. And so the standard software that's used by professional editors is Word. So this allows us to make sure there's that consistency all the way through and we don't run into some of the file breaking scariness that can happen when you switch between programs. We've had very sad experiences when someone has gone back and forth between like Google Docs and Word over and over again. It can cause significant file issues. The other main reason that we stick with Word is that our layouts are done in Adobe InDesign. So when our authors get all the way, you know, to that point in our process, they are their file, their Word document is going to be prepared and then uploaded directly into Adobe InDesign for layout. If that file has been in Pages or Google Docs or any other word processor, there can be a great deal of like hidden coding in there and hidden settings that can.

Cause significant issues or require us to actually strip the entire document of formatting and then have to completely reformat it in Word before it can go into layout. So to avoid those issues and just keep things as safe and streamlined and consistent as possible, we keep everybody in Word. But if, like Angela said, like, those may not be concerns for you, depending on what your, what your process is, but for us, that's why those are the two main reasons.

Another one is is there, we do have it. It seems like we've got some fictional authors in here too.

But.

But which do you prefer for nonfiction of? I think all the ones that you listed, not just Google and Word.

Yeah, I mean, I think again, it kind of depends if you are planning to like hire professional editors. Word is a good choice for that. At least, you know, for that back and forth with that editor.

For nonfiction, if you're dealing with research, if you're juggling like trying to incorporate research into it. Word does have some research management tools in it. But in that case, my preference would probably be Dabble or Scrivener, just because they have a more full fledged toolkit for helping you track and then integrate research into your project. But again, use what you'll use. Like use what makes sense to you, but you know what's easy for you. Awesome.

And thanks. I think we've got one, maybe two more questions regarding tech and tools. Emily Romero is asking specifically about Scrivener. I think you have a Mac. I don't have a Mac, so I couldn't even shed light on this.

Yeah, so actually Scrivener was originally built for Mac only. So for a long time you could only use it on Macs. There is a Microsoft version now I have both. I have scrivener on my MacBook and I have it on my desktop PC as well. In my opinion, the Microsoft one is way less pretty and not as fun to use as the Mac version. But it is available on both and was originally only available for Mac.

Awesome. Then just really quickly before I get to the last question, have to show this is one of our lovely team.

Members.

Who is also a thriving author herself and very active in her writing community also. Okay, sorry. I love seeing, seeing our team members here.

Okay.

I think the other one was about. Let me see. I just have to go to her. Okay. Yeah. This one is from Kevin hall and I think, Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe your topics are history, non fiction books. But he's asking about the amount of research it requires beyond AI tools which he has used. And I know you're very familiar with the different ones out there. You stand in tune with that. Are there any other tips to help with the research part?

That's a hard one. So is it.

Kevin, I don't know if you're still in here. Hi. Hi, Kevin. You are. So what are the struggles with the research? Is it the actual like getting that sheer volume of research done or is it like, like tracking and utilizing that research.

When it comes time to write the chapters based on it?

Yeah, I know he's definitely still here.

Because that would be, that would be, that would be my, my biggest question in order to to answer this one most helpfully.

Getting the research done and validated. So, honestly, Kevin, in my opinion, the biggest tip I would have would be to take a page out of academia's textbook and a research assistant, a virtual research assistant would probably be what I would do. Working with.

The volume that you're talking about and wanting it to that high level, finding a, an undergraduate or even master's student who's looking to pick up extra work and work as a, as a research assistant would probably be the most helpful thing if you're, you know, doing it on your own. Like, I don't know of any way to, you know, to make it faster than what you're already talking about. The biggest challenge for me would be just to track that research and be able to clearly mark when it has been verified or validated so that you know when you're utilizing it, that you've already done those checks. And in that case, you know, using a tool that has, you know, research tracking abilities would be helpful. But in terms of actually getting the sheer volume done, I. Yeah, I mean, I think a human, a human helper would be what I would default to there.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Thanks, Elissa. That's all the questions I have for now. I know other people have got, I think four or five others start, so we'll get to those at the end. But go ahead, Elissa.

Sure. All right.

So let's talk then about building your team. So writing a book can potentially be, honestly, quite isolating. Unless you're working with a, you know, a co writer on a project. You know, writing a book, book largely is just you sitting wherever you sit, you know, writing your book. And so if you don't have an existing, like, community of writers or, or team like I'm going to talk about here, consider building one.

I think it can be really helpful to, again, helping keep your motivation and your passion and your excitement for your project live, but also helping, you know, help with some of that. That loneliness. It's one of the things that I love about what we do at Book Launchers is that we do give that sort of support to our authors. You know, there are multiple people who know about and are excited about your project as you're writing it or as you're going through editing so that you aren't on your own. And I think that can be really helpful. So let's talk about that. So let's start with family and friends because they are usually our closest circles.

And this is where I want to be Encouraging as best I can. A lot of times we have the expectation that our friends and our families are going to be the people who are the most excited and passionate about our projects alongside us. But the fact is, sometimes they aren't and that can be uncomfortable. Sometimes they genuinely they want to be and they are excited for you. But the long slog of getting a book done, or if the topic isn't particularly one they're passionate about, or if they don't really understand why you want to do the book thing that you're trying to do, sometimes your family and friends won't be that really strong support presence that you want them to be. And so I just want to be encouraging to you if I can, that that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with your project or with what your goals or you as a writer. It's just the way that it is sometimes. Now, if you are one of the fortunate that do have family and friends that are supportive and that do want to be a part of this journey with you, then be sure that you utilize them. Let them be an encourager to you. Tap one of them to be an alpha reader for you, which I'll talk about a couple points down here. Bring them in, update them, and let them kind of be a part of that motivation for you. But if they aren't, if they don't feed good energy into this for you, then, you know, allow for that and build that team with, you know, different people then that circle.

In terms of accountability partners. So I personally find this really, really helpful. It has to be the right person for writing or for working on a creative project like this. An accountability partner is usually another writer or creative who will become familiar with your work. And it's someone who knows, like, what your writing routine is, what your goals are, and they are someone that, that you know, you have to kind of be held accountable to if you don't do the thing that you committed to yourself to do. One of my college girlfriends is my accountability partner. She and I have been writing partners and friends for 20 years. At this point, I have a great deal of trust in her, but she is also the person that I have to confess to if I don't do the thing, and I don't like that these are not competitive relationships. I want to make that really clear. A good accountability partner is someone who believes in you and what you're trying to do and that you believe in them and what they're trying to do. A good accountability partner is someone who is truly you know, dedicated to helping you get where you want to go. This is not a requirement, it is not a have to, but it can be great to connect with someone else who is trying to do the thing that you're also doing and is willing to come alongside as that accountability buddy. Kind of along the same lines as like, you know, if you have a walking buddy or a gym buddy or somebody who just like usually is the person that you connect with to go do those things together to help keep you on track. It's the same idea here, just for writing.

Alpha and beta readers. So not every project needs these or would necessarily benefit from them. But I do want to talk a little bit about this because they could potentially be a part of your team as you continue to build it out. You are in the drafting phase right now. You would not be ready for beta readers, but you might be ready for an alpha reader if you have someone who is very, very trusted. So an alpha reader is someone who reads your material first before anyone else.

So obviously it has to be a very significant trust relationship. You are showing them the most raw form of your writing before it's been fixed, fixed, and they are there to ask good questions and to encourage you. Their job is not to critique or give technical or critical feedback. An alpha reader's job is to kind of go along with you and then be able to be a thought partner for you as you go. This may or may not be the same person as your accountability partner.

A beta reader or beta reader. In contrast, they usually read a version of your manuscript that's a little bit further along, not necessarily the final polished version, but usually after it's been fully drafted and perhaps you've revised it a bit and you're ready for feedback. Beta readers are typically not other writers, but instead readers or people in your field. So if you are beta looking for beta readers for a fiction book book, for instance, you would want to have beta readers who love your genre, who read your genre and would be able to give you feedback based on whether you're hitting the right tropes or whether you're, you know, your plot line or your story. They make sense if you are writing non fiction. For instance, we had an author who very effectively used beta readers when she was. She worked in a hospital and part of her book touched on departments that weren't directly hers in the hospital. So she utilized beta readers who did work in those parts of the hospital hospital to read her book and make sure that the parts that she had written about those areas were accurate. And consistent with what they themselves experienced, since they are the ones doing the day to day in that part of the hospital. So if you're writing nonfiction, it can be really helpful to have someone who knows a lot about your field also, you know, be a beta reader for you to be able to kind of check against their knowledge or expertise. This is not a required thing, but it can be helpful and it can be a tool. It can also be very encouraging. But if you pick, I wouldn't want to say the wrong beta readers, but if you, if you. It is possible to have a negative experience with beta readers if either it's your first time writing in a new genre or category, or if you've just truly missed, missed the mark, you would have to be prepared for some hard feedback.

So it's not something that's only sunshine and roses. It's definitely like only a tool to be utilized if feedback is what you need to get better or to refine what you're doing, or if you're truly ready to receive that kind of feedback. I'm a firm believer that critical feedback is absolutely necessary to getting better as a writer, but the timing of it is also breathtakingly crucial because critical feedback received too early can absolutely kill inspiration and a project. Whereas if you don't receive it at all, then you can blindly make mistakes that you would otherwise be able to learn from, or that you might only learn from when you get negative reviews or feedback way later in the process that it would have been better to fix early on. So my recommendation for the timing for beta readers is some time in the editing process.

I personally time it after editing and before proofreading. I know people who do it after, like content editing and before copy editing, but somewhere past the point of you've made, you've drafted it and you've gotten it to the point where you're like, okay, this, this is what I want it to be. Roughly speaking, I'm ready for some feedback on it.

Quality is better than quantity, and I do recommend giving them a more structured way of providing feedback for you. Some authors that I know have had a lot of success with using a Google form that's private only to their beta readers, and they all answer the same questions in order to be able to compare the type of feedback they're getting. Because you will always have people who, you know, there's just one person who saw something totally differently. It's still good to have their feedback. But what you're looking for is, you know, if four out of the six Were very confused in this one chapter. That's excellent feedback for you that something in that chapter may not quite be working.

In terms of places to find beta readers.

Places to look could be, you know, reading groups, writing groups. If you have family, friends and, you know, other connections in your real life life that read what you read or read what you're writing. Sorry, then they can be an excellent choice. But again, it can get a little tricky if they are close family and friends because you really are wanting a specific type of feedback from beta readers. And that's where again, that form comes in handy. What I don't recommend is just giving a book to someone and then saying, you know, okay, tell me what you think.

That's hard on them. But it can also give you end up you getting feedback that is not particularly helpful to you.

For me, I like to frame the questions more like were there places that you got lost? Did the journey make sense? Were the character's motivations clear in this particular scene? Any places that I've come across that I'm like, I'm not sure about.

Those are things that I'll flag in the form for my beta readers.

And then in terms of professionals that you might want to bring in, this will depend on your journey. I am of course primarily gearing my advice here toward people who are planning to.

Self publish, but this. So if you're planning to query and then hopefully be traditionally published, your need for these professionals may vary. But one thing that can be helpful is determining like do you need professionals or do you want professionals involved here? Writing coaches can be a great thing. They can function as your accountability partner. They can even function as an alpha reader if that's what you're looking for. Whereas an accountability partner and an alpha or beta readers are generally free, unpaid, obviously a professional writing coach would not be. So there is that expense there.

I do recommend professional editing to everyone always, full stop. If you're traditionally published, of course it will go through editing. If you are going to be subject to self published, I do strongly encourage professional editing. Everyone, regardless of how gifted a writer they are, needs an editor. And even editors who write books need editors. They will see things that you don't, that you can't. And they'll help ensure that the end product by the time you self publish it or if it is traditionally published is, you know, professional, polished and more likely to create a really positive reader experience is what is what we're going for. And then also determining whether you want to work with a professional designer or not. I Have friends who are self published who have been working with the same designers for years, and I love them. And then I have friends who are self published who.

Either are already were designers or became skilled in design in order to do their own book covers and layouts and things like that. So your journey here will be individual to you, your skill sets, your time and things like that. So just to keep it in mind that, you know, your team can consist of, you know, multiple levels of people. And then I also like to, you know, mention having a street team or a launch crew. These are usually people who, they may be pulled from your beta readers, if that's you have. They may be family and friends, but these are the people who are interested and invested in your project and then they are there to kind of help promote your book for you on the street, so to speak. When your book launches, whether it is to leave reviews or to post on social media to recommend to their friends, these are the people who kind of support that in stage, part of your process. So if you are early on, it's okay to start thinking about who these people might be and how you might utilize them. This is often something that authors build as they go through their careers with multiple books. But that doesn't mean that with your first book you can't build one. It just might be smaller than someone who's been building it for years over time. But it's good to have people who you know will help you promote, will help you spread the word and give that social proof that a lot of readers are looking for, especially if you're a new or unknown author to them, they want to know that other people, other real human, read and enjoyed your book. And then finally it's readers. So you might not initially think of your potential readers as part of your team, but if you're choosing to self publish, they definitely are. And so beginning to think, regardless of where you are in the process, who your readers are, keeping them top of mind as you go through every part of this process. Where do they hang out online? Where can you connect with them that human to human relationship? Building with potential readers for your book can go a really long way toward building that platform and that audience that you're looking for. This holds true for both nonfiction and for fiction authors. I think for nonfiction authors especially, you know, looking for places to join the conversation online for readers who are in your target audience, you know, where they are, what they're talking about, what their concerns are, not only allows you to start building relationships with potential readers, but it also may feed into the work that you're doing and help you, again, have an idea of what they might want or need from the book that you yourself are working on. So beginning to think about where they live, where you can find them, not literally live. Please don't stalk your potential readers. I mean, where they hang out online, whether that's Facebook or Instagram, places like that, you know, where can you connect? Where can you start a conversation and start building sort of a. A relationship with this readership as you go through your process?

And that's it. That's all. My biggest thing, just my personal closing thought is just.

I firmly believe that if you have a book that you want to write, you should write it. Whether it's your first book, your second book, your tenth book, you should write it. And I am absolutely. Everything that I talked about today comes from a place of wanting you to be able to achieve what it is that you're setting out to do. And it may require sacrifice, it almost certainly will require sacrifice, at least of time, energy, perhaps money.

But your contribution in this world is one that only you can make. So I'm very excited. I hope that I'll get to do this next year and that there will be that chance for those of you who are here today to come back and tell me all the things that you accomplished in 2025. Because, you know, this can be it. This can be your year. You can do the thing. All right, miss Angela.

That's it.

Oh, and I don't know.

I frantic text. My wi fi went completely kaput. So I am on my phone right now.

Sorry. So this.

This is a fun level of multitasking, but thank you. Elisa, you have. Looks like the mobile is still fairly good, but we do have a few questions that we will try to get to. And we do have another couple prizes. So, you know, with this. We want to help you with this. Oh, it looks like my wifi just turned back on, so this is awesome. I'm going to pause that thought that I was just sharing, folks. Sorry, let me get back. Logged into everything, so I am in my comfort zone. But let me pull one of the questions for you, Lissa, to answer while I'm getting back on. So I don't know if I can you show share it with this? Let me see if it'll let me now. I don't know that I can.

There it is. Yay.

So this is a question from B. If we're trying to support indies, doesn't be. Oh, so this was from earlier doesn't becoming an Amazon bestseller defeat the goal?

That's a really good question. I would say no to being. Selling enough copies to be number one in a category on Amazon is how you get that best seller flag. So all that means is that you sold enough copies in a certain window of time to rise to number one in the ranking and that, you know, you were more visible and that people could see you. It doesn't take away from being independently published. It's still a book, a product that, you know, someone put out on their own, published on their own, still very much an indie. And so I think, you know, achieving that, you know, having sold enough copies to achieve that flag in a specific category or categories.

To me that's a completely separate from, from being.

You know, from the. From the choice to be independently published or to support indies. If I missed your question, if I misunderstood it, be pleased. Please don't hesitate to put a clarification in the chat for me.

Alrighty. Yes. And I'm back to normal guys. I like working in my normal environment. So one of the things that I wanted to add before we get to some of these other questions is I have if you were on the holiday deep dive, I have plentiful of some of our swag and some of that is some of Julie's books. So I would like to give away two copies. These are paperback copies of Self Publish and Succeed. So if you have not read Self Publish and Succeed and you would like a copy, please put specific instructions. In order to win, please put SPS1 in the chat and then we will do a random draw for anyone who does not have a copy of of Self Publish and Succeed. Again. I will write it in there just so you can see exactly what I mean. Hashtag SPS1 and that will help you win. So I will pull up the giveaway tool in just a minute. I'm so glad I'm back online, Elissa, because I was going to have to like try to walk you through how to pull up that giveaway tool. So Amy, it looks like you put st. It's SP for publishing. There you go. Perfect. I see. Yes, for anyone writing st, it is sp Self Publish and Succeed. And it's her first one. So SPS one. Okay, let's go to some other questions while people are putting that in there. And then we still have another prize to give away aside from that. So this one is a broad question, so prepare yourself. Elissa, what is the difference between books or ebooks? And Hildy, I'm not sure, if you're still here, but. But Elisa might need some additional context. This is all that I saw. But if you know what this means, Elissa, take it away.

Sure. So I think if I'm understanding the question, when we talk about books or ebooks, it's usually just the medium that they're available in. So the content itself should be exactly the same. But.

A book would be like the print version, like paperback or hardcover, and then the ebook would be the digital ebook or epub, Kindle Nook version that's available online. So it's usually the exact same content cover, things like that, but it's just whether it's available as a digital file or as a print book.

Awesome.

Perfect.

And we've got a lot of comments coming in for. For Julie's first copy of the book. So again, I'll give you another minute. I don't think capitalization matters. I think it's just making sure that the correct letters are there. So we're gonna answer one more question before we do that. So this one is from.

Jose. Are some of these. And this is going back to the list of different tools that you had mentioned, Elissa, Are some of these programs Screen reader, acceptable?

That one is an excellent question, and I don't know the answer to it. Angela. This would be one we'd need to save and follow up on. I'd have to do some research. I'm sorry. These I don't know for sure.

Yeah, and I wasn't sure either. I wanted to see if you knew as well. So, Jose, please put a pin in that. We'll need to try to do some research. And if you have any ideas, feel free to put those in the chat. Okay, so let me take over. And we are going to do the SPS one giveaway. So let me share screen.

And.

Let'S see, let's start collecting comments. Yeah. Okay, so we have 11 people. I'll try it both ways, just in case. One in case you did capital, one in case you did lowercase. Again, I don't think it matters, but we'll find out. So the first winner of a physical paperback copy of SPS1 is.

Deborah Ann Martin. Fantastic. So, Deborah, please email me at team t e am book launchers.com I will need your mailing address. So that is fantastic. So let me. Let me see if it makes a difference. If I put in. If I put in capitals.

See, it should be the same. But let us see. Oh, so it is the same. Perfect. Okay, so let's choose this second Winner.

If you've already won today, I will choose. Oh Deborah, it shows you again. This is your lucky day. Clearly you need to go do something you've been thinking about doing today. Go do that today. I am going to choose another winner though, just so that we can share the self publish and succeed. Love. So let's see who our true second winner is.

We need music. Julie always said that S Owen. Awesome. So I don't know that you have one before so. So what works? Awesome. So please email me just the same@teambook launchers.com I will need your full name as well as your mailing address and I will get a copy of this sent back out to you. Okay, let me stop sharing. And we do have a couple other questions and then. Oh, we've had some that have come in but we'll get to those in a minute. One of the other questions that we had was I'm not sure if you answered this because this might have been in the debacle with my Internet. This is from Jack and Heather family account. How do you send the manuscript to the beta reader?

So I give two file options. I offer it either as a word document or PDF, usually PDF or an ePub. I'm able to do that because I personally do my own layouts. So I'm able to do a really quick layout and give an EPUB option. So that may not be realistic for other people. And then I share it with them either through email or. A lot of my beta readers are on Discord and so I will just send it to them via. Via Discord. But I do offer it as usually a PDF or an ePub for their preference because some people like to be able to put it on their phone or their tablet and read it that way.

Awesome. Yeah, thank you. And then we have another one and this is a big question. So if you don't want to tackle this, Elissa, because it is so large, we do have some YouTube videos that Julie has put together on this very topic, but this was one from.

Quite a bit toward the beginning. Which is better, traditional publishing or self publishing?

Yeah. So definitely go and see what Julie has to say. But I will say there isn't a better. There's a better for you. So traditional publishing versus self publishing, they're very different from one another. Traditional publishing comes with certain perks. They're definitely like they will do the editing for you, the design cover that will be at no expense to you, out of pocket.

Sometimes they'll also give what's called an advance against your royalties, which is money paid to you up front.

And then potentially there is some marketing support. For many books that come out each year through traditional publishing, there isn't a great deal of marketing support, and you are expected to do.

A lot of that legwork still yourself, unless your book happens to be one of the top few being promoted that year through that traditional publisher. But it does allow you to get into.

Brick and mortar bookstores more easily. It still makes TV and film and those kinds of adaptation connections easier than it is for self publishing. Though that has slowly changed and improved over time, traditional publishing still has that advantage.

You do have less control. So one of the perks to self publishing is that you do maintain full creative control of your project. You are in control of the timing, all of the words on the page. You get to decide what your title is and what your cover looks like. And with traditional publishing, you may or may not.

You are of course responsible for your own marketing, but that can be true for traditional publishing as well. What I find for those who choose to traditionally sell to self publish instead of traditional publish, that the big deciding factors are creative control, a higher percentage of royalties. So while you might get a small advance or a big advance if you're very, very fortunate with traditional publishing, the percentage that you'll make per book is very small compared to what you make with self publishing, where you'll make usually between 40 and 70% of the retail price per book that you sell. But it's that creative control, it's keeping the majority of your royalties and then just kind of being able to decide what you do and when. And having that complete ownership of your project is what I find to be really big motivators for people who choose to self publish. But again, it requires a lot more of you in some ways, so I, I wouldn't say that one is best. It really depends on you, your goals, and what's important to you in terms of publishing your book.

That was an excellent answer. I did post the link to some of the videos that Julie has put together on this. Okay, another one that I don't think you had answered. This is from Chris. Except for Microsoft Word. Are there editors who help with formatting challenges?

I think that might have been connected to an earlier comment from him. But when you say editor, do you mean like an editing software or do you mean like an actual human.

Editor?

That part I'm not super clear on. Editors, yes, will help with like, you know, the formatting in your, in your document. If you're asking whether There are like softwares that help with it. The answer to that is also yes. So it does depend. I'm not sure what your question was, but either way, yes, there are, there are software editors and there are human editors who will help with formatting.

And he was asking about human.

Human.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And then I think this is the last question so far.

I don't think you answered this one either. Again, this might have. This came in while I was like offline a bit from Rick. I'm looking for an option to Scrivener because I have such a hard time syncing between my Mac and my iPad.

Gotcha. Yeah. And it can be scary. I haven't done it with Scrivener in a while, but I know that it can be. You run the risk of having overwrites happen when you sync between, which is why I stopped doing it because it scared me off, Rick. So I'm not terribly surprised that you struggled with that. In that case, you might consider checking out Dabble Writer. It is browser based so you would have to be accessing it through the browser on your iPad. But it should otherwise look exactly the same regardless of where you open it. It because it is a browser based software versus an app.

Awesome. Thank you. Okay, well we have one more I would like to have participation in the chat for this last prize. What is something that you have learned today that you will take forward into 2025 for making progress on your book. So please put in the chat. I would love to see what you guys learned today. And we'll be taking into this new year and I am going to pick my favorite and then we are going to be heading off after we pick this last one and we do have another deep dive next month. It is on February 15th and that one is going to be a fun topic where we talk about different trends. This is one that Eric has been asking about. Also something that I wanted to mention if you have not yet heard. We do have a free community that we already have several people on the. You know I know several people here today watching are in our free school community. So what this community is and I will share a link to it is we are helping you answer questions that you might have around writing, editing or designing your non fiction book. There's also free training inside there as well as calendars of events like like last week or the week before Elissa did writing Sprints live with people. I believe there are going to be more upcoming. I don't know that they're on the calendar yet, but those are planned for the future. And then it's just a great community. We've had people, other authors that are in there answering questions, providing tips, tricks, advice, and it's just already a lovely community. And I think we just started it. Time is kind of flying. So I think October. I'm not even sure now at this point, but it's lovely. We would love to see you in there. So I'm going to post the link for that. It is in a system called School, so let me make sure I'm getting you the proper URL. I'm going to post this into the chat. We would love to see you in there again. It is free. And this one is surrounding writing, editing, and designing your nonfiction book. So let's see what some of these, what some of these things that you learned today learn today. Tracking. Let's look at this one. Tracking my words per day writing rate as an objective measure.

Yes.

Scheduling writing time and protect it. And to do two writing sprints. That's awesome. Oh yeah, this one's good. This is something that Osiris learned. Regardless of self publishing versus traditional, you are responsible for the marketing. That info is paramount. Amy loved learning about the tips of typing, writing and recording. These are fantastic. Awesome. Keep them coming. Guys, I'm going to give you another minute just to add those in there. And if we could just take a quick second to applaud Elissa for taking time out of her Saturday to present some fantastic tips and tricks for you. I know she loves being put on the spot like this, but if you would just take a quick moment to thank her for all the lovely advice, answers to your questions, and just great content that she put together for you guys, that would be lovely and I'm sure that would make her day even better. Ooh, another one is coming in. While you guys are showing some love for Elissa, protect your writing time.

Yes.

That is so important. Oh, this one is for you, Elissa. This one's actually a question. Can you please put the exact spelling of the software for writing books? I think they're talking about that pacemaker one. I did put that further back, but you would have to go a little further back to. To find it. All right. Awesome, guys. Well, let me see. I am going to.

Oh, goodness.

I think my favorite one is. Oh, these are great. Let me just see. I'm going to give you guys just another second to add in some stuff in there. Oops, sorry. Let me stop sharing this one. I think my favorite one is for Jack and Heather family account, schedule my writing time and protect it and do two writing sprints. So Jack and Heather, you are our last prize winner for today. Thank you for being here and for participating. Please email me@tem teamoklaunchers.com with your prize. So that's the word team. @book launchers.com the prizes are a copy of Self Publish and Succeed or a copy of Self Promote and Succeed Dale Roberts books which are. I wrote down the titles. Self Publishing for new authors or Advanced Self publishing for authors. And then we also have our noboringbooks mug or our oh so soft journal. So please let me know which of those you would like and I need to write down your name. Forget that you guys were our last winner. So thank you guys so much for being here on your Saturday. Again, we do have our new school community. I put the URL in there and it does have a handy dandy calendar feature in there as well. So you can see upcoming trainings that we have that not only are public, but there are some that are exclusive to the school community, like the writing sprints that Elissa did a couple weeks ago. So some added benefits in there. So have a lovely rest of your weekend, guys. Thank you so much for being here. Elissa, thank you for leading an awesome deep dive. You're amazing. And everyone, we will see you again soon. Bye everybody.

Bye.