Okay, buckle up, folks! The weekly statistics are rolling in! (Cue a long, overly detailed litany of my workflow that most people won't care about.)
For the last week (September 22-28, 2024), these are the statistics in my records:
Words Written (Total): 24, 588
Words Written (Towards Published Novelettes): 14, 800+
Words Written (Towards Drafts): 5,880+
Number of Hours Worked: 42.2+
Number of Hours Spent on Writing Novelettes: 15+
I keep this record to help me measure my progress and see where I need to change things up, switch strategies and efforts, and to feel a sense of accomplishment.
Here's the breakdown:
Words Written (Total): 24, 588+
This last week, I published three new novelettes under my undisclosed penname, and also wrote two drafts for another two novelettes that will probably only take about an hour or two each to extend, edit and publish.
Besides that, I also penned a blog post about why writers who are having problems getting started with self-publishing their first book should consider publishing novelettes rather than novels. That ran 1, 630 words.
This statistic also includes some outlines for stories I wrote, as well as the content I wrote for my landing pages. This last week, I launched my Playing Human: Stella White and the Seven Hockey Players exclusive first-look preorder community, which was quite a lot of work. I didn't calculate the exact number of words I wrote for the preorder community (which includes the sales page, the pricing plans, the welcome blog posts in the membership portal, etc.), but it very likely added up to 2, 000+ words.
The 24, 588+ figure is actually a low estimate. When you factor in all the peripheral writing I did for the business, not just the published novelettes, the total probably runs to about 30k words.
Words Written (Towards Published Novelettes): 14, 800+
I published three novelettes. If they were under my Stella Lovegood or Penrose Evergreen pennames, I'd link them. One was 5k words; another was 5.8k words; and the last was 4k words.
I took about 3-4 hours to write, edit and submit each of them for publication (including creating the book cover on Canva, writing the blurb and dealing with the metadata details).
Words Written (Towards Drafts): 5, 880+
I actually planned on getting five novelettes out this week. Very likely, I'll get the other two drafted novelettes out tomorrow, but that's technically counted towards next week's stats. I have 2, 900 words written towards one novelette, and 2, 269 words written towards another one. I also wrote a bonus scene for my Goodbye, Princess: Stella White and the Seven Hockey Players re-release.
Number of Hours Worked: 42.2+
As you can see, I made my self-publishing business a full-time job. I'm working full-time hours on this venture, seven times more hours than my day job.
Yup, I really want to turn my indie writing projects into my main source of income.
This week, I was working on a lot of different projects simultaneously. I still had to get a number of my old backlist up on my own store, Kobo, and D2D (where I usually distribute to Smashwords and maybe Apple Books and other retailers like Barnes and Noble, etc., depending on whether they accept the specific erotica I write). I'd planned on going through and editing them all again, but it was just too time-consuming and September is nearly up. Instead, I just added a blurb and trigger warnings to the front matter, and slapped on the updated back matter I drafted one or two weeks before. I'm constantly still editing the back matter though; it's a never-ending process.
Here's a breakdown of each day's workload:
Sunday, September 22: 8.8 hours
- I got My Soldier in the Zombie Apocalypse live. One of my favourite stories, honestly. Was glad to see it back up again. (1 hour)
- Finished that first published novelette (I'd already written part of it the previous week) and got it live on Smashwords (2.5 hours)
- Did a deep full re-edit of Goodbye, Princess, the Prequel in the Stella White and the Seven Hockey Players series. Added in some extra scenes and a sneak peek into the sequel. Also updated the book covers for both books. (4 hours)
- And other random administrative things like testing the purchasing process for my books, etc.
Monday, September 23: 6.7 hours
- Set up a Pinterest account to make storyboards and promote my work (1 hour)
- Was inspired and brainstormed a bunch of outlines for future works; sometimes, I get lost in epic daydreams (1 hour)
- Wrote part of my second new novelette for the week (2+ hours)
- Also got two other stories in my backlist back up: Female Orgasms in the Zombie Apocalypse and A Sacrifice for the Undead: The Zombie Bride. What can I say? I was on an apocalyptic bent. (2 hours)
My collection of zombie apocalypse erotica, uploading to Kobo. I love it!
Tuesday, September 24: 5.7 hours
- Finished my second novelette and published it (1.5+ hours)
- Worked on the bonus scene for my Stella White prequel and finalized building my landing page for the preorder community. It went live in the middle of the night, but at least that's finally out there in the world! (4+ hours)
Wednesday, September 25: 1.75 hours
- This was an off day for writing because I needed to run some errands. Life gets in the way sometimes, but maybe it's also good to take a break and step away from the computer...
Thursday, September 26: 6.75 hours
- Wrote a third novelette, but only got an incomplete draft of that done. Probably needs another 1-2 hours of work. (3+ hours)
- Wrote a fourth novelette, and got that one published on the same day (3 hours)
- Got another of my backlist up: In a Crypt with a Vampire (40 minutes)
Friday, September 27: 5.65 hours
- Throughout the day, I managed to get three of my backlist titles up! Serving the Genie; Faeries, Inc.; and Mental Asylum Orgasms all went live today. I had to add the new back matter in and redo some of the book covers. (3.5+ hours)
- I also worked on building the landing page and community for Project Sleepwalker. I already have 10k+ words written for that from a few months ago, so I'm stoked to release that preorder option soon. (2 hours)
Saturday, September 28: 6.85 hours
- Edited my website, played around with some of the design and organization (1 hour)
- Got The Professional Cuddler live (50 minutes)
- Wrote a draft towards a fifth novelette (will take probably another hour or two to complete and publish) (2 hours)
- Published another old backlist title under the new penname (40 minutes)
- Wrote that aforementioned blog post to hopefully bring some more traffic to my website and help other authors out along the way (2 hours)
These statistics don't even take into account the unclaimed hours I spent scrolling through social media trying to learn more about the self-publishing business or engage and self-promote. If I factored those other peripheral marketing activities in, the real number of hours I spend on my self-publishing business would likely be more like 45-50 hours. I live and breathe this beast.
Number of Hours Spent on Writing Novelettes: 15+
This figure represents just the hours spent writing the three published novelettes and two nearly-there novelettes and the draft for Stella White. So, you can see that it only makes up a sliver of the whole picture of self-publishing. I spent more time on the administrative side than the actual writing side. Still, I expect the numbers to change in October once I finish getting all my old backlist and future preorders up and can simply focus on writing new novelettes and publishing them in rapid succession.
If you have any questions about the self-publishing life, drop a comment! I'm happy to answer. I hope that gave you a snapshot into the life of a prolific smut author. :)
Take care,
Stella
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