3 Writing Strategies that Helped Richard Lowe Publish 7 Books in 30 Days

This is episode six of Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time for you to shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and in inviting you into my community for a behind the scenes look at what's working for authors just like you. My name is Shelley Hitz. I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy. The most rewarding part of my job is helping others get results and to reach their goals. In this episode, I want to position the spotlight on one of my members, and that member is Richard Lowe. Welcome, Richard.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Richard is one of the most prolific members I have and he's going to be talking about that soon. But I just wanted to briefly introduce you. Richard, from your bio, Richard has spent 33 years in the computer and information technology industry. So you just told me you're a computer guy, right?

I am a computer guy.

He decided to take early retirement to pursue his dreams becoming a professional writer and published author. We'll hear more about that soon. Richard is a leader in the computer industry, serving as VP Consulting at two companies, then director Computer Operations at Trader Joe's. During his 24 year tenure at TJ's, he focused on computer security and preparing for the possibility of disaster. So he's written hundreds of articles and actively works as a professional ghostwriter. So if you're looking for a ghostwriter, you might want to check out Richard. And he's done a ton of other things. He's published books on his own and he's written a short ebook on the aspects of freelance writing and so much more. So welcome, Richard. I'm so happy to have you.

I'm happy to be here.

So one of the things I really wanted you to teach about in today's Center Stage Spotlight training is about being a prolific writer and what really helped you to reach that writing zone where you've been able to just really write a lot of books. How many books have you written recently? I've lost track.

In the last 30 days, I published seven.

That's amazing. Seven. Seven books in 30 days.

It's about 150,000 words.

Did you write all of those books too, or were some of them already written?

I wrote them all.

Wow.

And I've got three in progress.

Yeah, it's amazing. I'm excited for all of us to learn from Richard today. And his success strategy that he's going to be sharing is just what he's learned about writing quality books fast. So tell me just a little bit about just your journey in this last month and some things that have really helped you in getting this much writing done.

While I was writing the computer book, the first one, and I got a bit into it and I was scattered all over the place writing a novel and writing some other books and didn't really know what to do. And then I saw your email pop up that said, hey, come to my teleseminar. And I said, okay, fine, what have I got to lose? It's going to be another one of those just demands, money, blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out it wasn't that, actually. You turned out to be an awesome speaker. And you gave me information even in the teleseminar that I could use, which is kind of different than most of them. Most of them don't do that. So by the time the seminar was over, I had already bought the thing before it was over. And I'm like all happy and stuff. And I'm already starting to take the courses while you type, while you're talking. And it was quite funny.

I got all excited. And what motivated me about the course is you talked about short Kindle ebooks, and I was busy trying to write much longer, harder, more researched paperbacks that were taking months to write because of the research involved in interviewing people and all that. And something clicked. It was just like, oh, yeah, you know, it's a lot less risk to spend. You know, for me, it takes actually three days to write one of those Kindle ebooks of about 10,000 words.

Wow.

But however long it takes, it's a lot less risk than spending whatever writing a paperback. You write it. If it doesn't sell, fine. You wasted a few days or a week or whatever it takes to write. You didn't just waste six months. And that really motivated me.

So I started writing and then boom, boom, boom, boom. They just started coming.

And they just come fast and furious because I've got a lot of ideas. I got a lot of experience in different areas, and the course is really good. I've kind of decided. I've gotten through the first module and I decided to stop, finish my. Get the ideas out, write the books, then I'm going to pursue the second module, which is, you know, kind of how to sell them, which is the next part.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about. You were mentioning how it really helped you to schedule your writing. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Well, that was one of the things that I decided to do was to set a calendar and say from, in my case, from 4pm to midnight. And other people have different times is my writing time. And I actually do two things. So every day my calendar beeps and says it's time to write stupid. And that's what it says.

Oh, no.

So I get up and I go start writing and write, write, write, write. But also I set my timer to write for 45 minutes, and then I take a 15 minute break and go do something else. And then I come back, set the timer for 45 minutes so I'm not writing that entire time. And that really helps because I found I get what I call square eyes if I stare at the computer screen for too long.

You know, that's really, really smart because they talk about that, you know, giving yourself a set period of time. I think it's the Pomerano technique. I think theirs is like 20 minutes or 30 minutes. But that's really, really smart what you've done, because you give yourself a period of time and you tell yourself you have 45 minutes to write. Go. And your brain takes that and it's like, okay, 45 minutes. What can I get done? And then you give yourself a break. That's good physically. I used to be a specialist in ergonomics when I practiced as a physical therapist. So it's good for us to get up and stretch, but it's also good for your mind to give yourself a break. And then you come back another 45 minutes. So that's a great tip. And it sounds like it's really worked well for you.

Well, what I do in that 15 minutes is usually I go jump on my exercise bike and watch some TV at the same time, something different, something not writing. And it works very well.

Yeah, that's really cool. Now, you have also found that you really have a lot of success with speaking books. Tell me a little bit about how that's been working for you.

That came as a total surprise. I read it in your course, or listened to it, whatever. Yeah, and you said dictation. And I thought, well, I have Dragon. Naturally, I've already paid for it, so I may as well give it a shot. And I've never had any luck with it, but I decided to give it one more try before deleting it from my system forever. And suddenly I found myself, Instead of writing 200 words an hour, writing 1500 words an hour, because I could just speak them now, of course you got to go back and edit it, but that's a whole different pass.

Right.

And just bam. I can write a 10,000 word book literally in one day, and then I spend the next day editing it. And then the third day I edit it again just to make sure. And then I send it to a proofreader. And that technique seems to be working very well.

Yeah. And you know, every person is different. So what will work for you may not necessarily work for me. But I love that you're sharing these techniques because some of our listeners may resonate with one of these tips and someone may just realize, oh, I haven't tried that before, I want to try dictating as well and see how that works for me. And they may find it works really well. I find that even just using the built in dictation on my iPad or my iPhone is pretty accurate. And I can dictate even sometimes I've done it while I'm out on a trail walking. And obviously it can't be too technical of a trailer. I would probably trip, but I've dictated things when I'm out and about even sometimes too. So it's a great technique. And I'm really, really happy that you have found a zone and that you're really finding success with this and I'm excited to see what's next for you. I know that you have a ton of writing to do, but I know you'll, you'll do well with the marketing too, because you're definitely a go getter. I love seeing you in the forums and you've been very active in the forums. I remember you saying one day, I can't believe how much more productive I've been just being in the forums, writing my take action plans and interacting with people. Tell me just a little bit about that.

Well, I tend to be very active on forums anyway because it's a great way to get data from people and to contribute and stuff. And I just jumped in and started talking. I just started introducing myself and asking if people needed help and mostly talking about I was having all these wins and then people started blah blahing and it was great and it produces energy and the energy grows. And then somebody said something, oh yeah, that's a good idea. And I'm off doing that thing. And maybe it turned out not to be a good idea or something, but at least it was an idea.

It's funny though, how the energy picked up just bam. And it really helped.

I had more things in the forums than anybody else. But somebody passed me recently.

Yeah, there's a leaderboard in our forums@authoraudienceacademy.com and so Richard's been at the top for a while.

I got passed. I gotta catch up.

Yeah. So it is, it's really, it's encouraging and motivating to have a place, I'm in there daily interacting with everyone and to have a place where you can post your goals every week, but then also post your wins and you know, have other people encouraging you and offering input and advice, you know, getting input on book covers or book titles, that sort of thing. So thank you so much for being such an integral part of that forum. And you were there right when it was starting, so it was just exciting to have you part of there. Well, as we're wrapping down today's session, I want you to share with our listeners and a take action tip. What is one thing you would recommend that they do that they take action on this week as a result of the training you shared?

Well, actually, I thought of two, if that's okay.

Yeah, that's fine.

The first one is make your calendar set some time in the day, whenever your best time of writing is, and create a calendar every day or every Tuesday or whatever you're going to write. And set the calendar up exactly that way and then follow it. So when it says it's time to write, close the door, kick the cat out, tell the wife to go away, whatever, and that's your writing time, and follow that religiously, but put it on your Google calendar or whatever you've got. So you get prompted and it says it's time to write now and then write. And that works very well because then you don't have any excuses.

Yes.

And then the second one was a problem that I found that I had was.

I used to write and edit at the same time. So I'd be writing, delete, delete, delete, writing, delete, delete, delete. And that's something that the Dragon Dictionary solved, which is one reason why my rate went up, is now I'm just writing. So the second takeaway is write, doesn't matter what it says, edit later. And that really helps because you don't need to think as much. It's a whole different exercise. It's a hat, It's a different hat. It's a different job.

Yes, yes. And that is such good advice, everyone. That from Stephen King to, to, you know, to you and I, we do better when we just let it all flow. The first draft and the first draft is never the final draft and then do the editing. So those are both really great tips, Richard, and it's just obvious why you're getting so much success and you're having so much momentum because you're definitely putting those things into place. So thank you so much for being here today. Where can people find you online if they want to connect with you or if they want to find out more about what you offer with your ghostwriting services? Thewritingking.com thewritingking.com I love it.

That's my website.

Awesome. Well, thanks again, Richard.

You're welcome.

Excited to see what's ahead for you. Before we end, I want to give you a backstage pass in this week's Godly Gains segment, which is all about keeping Christ at the center of all we do. Now. Listening to Richard's story and his strategies may have you feeling a little bit overwhelmed, or you may be comparing yourself to him and saying, I could never do what he's doing. However, I want to encourage you today. God has gifted each one of us individually and uniquely for exactly what he wants us to do. The scripture I want to share today is James 1:17. It says, whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. I love that part. Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father. I encourage each one of you today to ask God what is the gifts that he has given you and how can you most wisely use the gifts he's given to you instead of comparing yourself to someone else? Use Richard's success as a catalyst, as a motivator, and see what you can apply from what he has shared to the gifts God has given to you. Richard mentioned in today's interview about my live webinar. He called it a teleseminar, but it's the same thing. I love giving tons of information and also having you come away from the webinar with something you can apply. If you'd like to join me on my next webinar, simply sign up@authoraudience.com.

I would love to see you there.

Don't miss next week's episode, which is about book launches. I'm excited to share with you next month about this topic because I know that it's a topic a lot of authors are interested in. In fact, I did a survey of my authoraudienceacademy.com members and book launches was at the top of the list of what they wanted to learn about. So I'm excited to share more with you and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.