“Deadlines are conniving constructs. They give you the satisfaction of completion before you have actually done the work,” wrote Tom Kuegler, a writer I admire.
I used to love deadlines. Deadlines act like a whip for me to make me gallop harder and faster than I typically would. When I have a deadline, nothing matters more than finishing the project on time, even if the quality suffers.
But Tom’s observation has a lot of truth in it. Deadlines play a trick on your mind.
It is like getting a dopamine bump when you tell your goals to others, and they praise you for it. That feels great. You get the satisfaction of achieving your goal without doing the hard work.
The trick to meet the deadlines of your never-ending To-Do list is a Pomodoro Method. The Pomodoro Method is a time management technique where you budget your time on each project in short increments and take breaks periodically.
Work a little bit on your project each day, even if all you can spare is 15 minutes.
The cumulative effect of 15 minutes every day is not just 1 hour and 45 minutes at the end of the week but much more than that. Because even when you are not actually working on the project, your mind is busy planning, finding solutions, coming up with ideas.
Try it. I write this newsletter in snippets of 15 minutes all through the week.
Authorpreneur Journey Step 15
Three types of lead magnets.
Lead magnets are basically a free something you offer readers to entice them to join your mailing list.
More often than not, a reader magnet will be an ebook. But there are actually many other things you could try. Here's a list of some common magnets for fiction and non-fiction readers:
Non-fiction:
An Ebook
Email course
Video course/training;
Checklist, template, or cheat sheet;
Exclusive webinar;
An audiobook; and
Free software.
Fiction:
Novella or short story set in the same universe as your main series;
Character backstory or deleted scenes;
Exclusive epilogue or alternative ending;
Free audiobook (you can use Authors Direct to deliver it); and
Special art/illustrations related to the story (this can work particularly well for sci-fi and fantasy).
And now the third one mainly for fiction readers. Interquel magnets.
Interquel magnets are free downloadable epilogue or interquel short story after the end of each series.
Reading that short story wouldn’t be a requirement to understanding the events in book three, of course — but it’d help understand the hidden motivations of some characters, add more depth to the plot, etc.
Interquel magnets are not only a great way to turn casual readers into superfans, but they can also provide you with invaluable read-through data to understand your readers, particularly where each reader is in your series (i.e., which book they just finished).
Your homework this week:
Choose what will be your first (or next) lead magnet.
Once you have a magnet, make sure to feature it in as many places as possible, including:
Your website.
After every article, you write.
On your social media posts.
Your Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook bios.
Your book's front and back matter, or ideally right after "The End."
Writing Industry News
I am very excited to bring you the following news:
After three grueling years of development and testing, Reedsy has developed an AI tool to generate an entire novel in 30 seconds.
Having analyzed over 10,000 bestsellers from the past fifty years, Reedsy's proprietary AI system can now instantly generate novels to rival some of today's most celebrated works.
Don’t believe me. Try out Reedsy's Instant Novel Generator.
[Once you have tried the link, let me know what you think about it in the comments section.]
What Am I Up to?
March has ended. We are already into the second quarter of 2021. It is time to review my Author Business Plan of the year. I am mostly in line with what I set myself to achieve at the start of the year.
Currently, I am focused on finishing the first draft of the novel “Guilty Wife” (working title) and submitting it for workshopping by the middle of this month. I may only get 80% done because other projects are taking a big chunk of my time, but I will fill all the story gaps, which is a big achievement for me by any account.
On the Business Plan, I have listed six small ebooks to write this year. They have been revised. Some of the content and titles have been improved. As my writing and ebook compiling skills improve, I am getting confident I will get them done this year.
The week's most important achievement was, starting a new lead magnet, a free ebook for new writers. Proposed finish date: Mid-April (don’t laugh).
What Intrigued Me This Week?
Writer Alice Lemee claims she found her vocation through Internet Self-Actualization.
The term intrigued me.
As a 20-something, Alice applied to job after job in search of validation and security.
“I was paying a monthly $29.99 for LinkedIn Premium, only to repeatedly feel the sting of rejection. One time, an artists’ services company turned me down for a coordinator position. They claimed they had gone forward with other candidates.
I logged onto LinkedIn to begin the job search from scratch, only to see the exact job listing up moments later accepting new applications.”
She created her own career as a freelance writer. Now she has companies asking her if she can work for them. She is now Internet Self-Actualized.
Internet Self-Actualization is the recognition that the democratization of the internet allows for the complete realization of one’s potential.
Prashant Abhishek’s writes in his essay “Internet Dream,”
“The internet is the land of opportunities. We can build our digital estate, our reputation, our economic engine, our tribe — and it doesn’t matter where we come from, what our race or background is. If we have access to a computer connected to the internet, then the only limitation is our imagination, curiosity, and skills. Using the internet and a bit of ingenuity, anyone can move up the economic ladder.”
With no gatekeepers, credentials, or elitism, the possibilities the internet provides are boundless.
Alexandra Botez makes over $100k a year playing chess on Twitch.
Dickie Bush runs Ship 30 for 30, a successful online writing school.
20-year-old Dayton Mills, continuously rejected from software engineering positions, started is his own company. Today, every company that rejected him is on the waitlist to use his product.
These professions — chess player, writing teacher, software developer — have existed for years, but the internet has allowed them to become professional independently. They didn’t need college degrees. They are self-taught.
That’s it from me this week.
Take care.
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#18: How To Dodge Deadlines
👍Beautiful piece this week as usual .. Thats why I follow u
Beautiful piece this week as usual