Publishing A Book: Day Three Progress Report

This post is to report in on my latest progress in writing my first book.  I figure I can remain accountable if I record my word count progress as I go.  I also publish some of these posts on LinkedIn but I try to remain neutral in other comments I post there. 

Writing Christian content is challenging.  Where does one publish their Christian content in a secular world?  Who may want to read it and where does a Christian blogger increase their readership on sites such as LinkedIn, which is designed for secular living, jobs, webinars and whatever other income-related topics?  It seems believers in the Lord Jesus Christ can find few opportunities to write, get published, and find readers.

That’s why I write; it fills a need to share my heart with those that have the same Christ-mind, who want to be fed by Christian content, and who are saddened by the way the world is now going with the fallen nature of humankind.  I am not alone in thinking this way, but by cultural standards Christian views are commonly squelched.

I know I’ve gone off track a time or two here, wanting to add something to the world because I knew I’d capture the wings to fly if I only can capture the Spirit of hope that the Lord Jesus Christ can bring, and put some small part into the world that speaks to the reality of and encouragement I find in sitting quietly with the Spirit of God comforting my heart.  

Hoping that my writing would be a way to both express my gratitude and love of Jesus Christ and move into more successful ways of life, stir my thoughtful to creating more lucrative lines of work that have an impact of people, instead of doing the same administrative jobs I’ve been unfortunately, performing. 

So I’m entering into a new phase of life; do what the Lord brings and maybe start running in the near future; onward to new goals.

Speaking of which my word count goals are being met with my surprise, the ease of which I did not expect.  My initial word count goals were far less than what I am actually producing.  I am doing better than expected.  

As a continuation of the blog post where I began describing the basics of the word count needed in book publishing, writing approximately 15,000 words totals about 60 pages.  Writing more words is what’s going to happen, so that dictating my words at a pace of about 3,000 words per day would equal 12 pages a day, so it would take 7 days of dictation to finish a book in draft.  Editing is the chore I don’t look forward to because I know I will become verbose, and this add far more to any book I would write, and takes time.

So far, for the last three days here are my stats:  

6/29/2019: dictated 1,398 words to equal approximately 5.5 pages in under one hour.  This exceeds my planned word count for one chapter.  By end of the day I increased my word count to 2,030 words, totaling 8 pages total.

6/30/2019: dictated 5,318 words to equal approximately 21.25 pages, at approximately one hour’s time.

7/1/2019:  dictated 2,974 words equaling approximately nearly 12 pages.

Total word count in these three days equals 10,322 words set down on text, unedited.  This means I have 41.25 pages already written, needing to be filled out and edited.  

If 40 pages is the halfway point, I have gone over that point.  I know once I begin editing my content I will add far more words than planned.  Writing in complete sentences, explaining a story in a way that makes sense, will create far more words than I have now.  I just have to finish dictating notes for more of my chapters.  This will be the easy part.

A dictation machine is not necessary; I use an app called “Speechnotes“.  As I talk into my phone the app converts it into text.  All I do then is save, rename, and send the text to my email where I cut and paste it into my WORD document.  There I have it saved in a couple of locations to not lose it.

At the end of my dictations I will hunker down and start editing.  From that point I will learn about where to self-publish at no cost.  This will be easy, it is having time to dictate and think about things I want to write about after mind-mapping my book and each chapter.

Good content is the key: why would I publish a book that is not well-thought-out and provides nothing to the reader?  We become enlightened by reading someone else’s ideas and imaginations, their experiences and travels through life.  We may want to feel better so we read someone’s essays about how they overcame problems, or poetry to gain insight and thoughtfulness through life’s journeys. 

Writing provides an outlet to produce more transient ways to gain knowledge through reading someone else’s experiences in a situation that hits close to home.  We may gain knowledge through a “how to” book or become friends with a book’s characters.  Whatever the reasons we read books for can create enlightenment just by reading from a book.   

Wanting to add to that mental muscle that is the cause for people’s buying books in whatever media format one chooses; electronic, audio or on printed paper,  book buying today is a very good way to spend one’s time to share and increase the knowledge we possess. 

For those of you out there that want to try it, writing books may be the beginning of a new career where we become experts in the field we write about.  People have talked about having a “passive income” if they want to do this and make some extra cash.  I want to publish a book where I can share my experiences with God, and know that I have a testimony that may be found helpful to someone else.  

Any way you look at it, authoring books is a great way to share knowledge and our expertise for people to actually appreciate and benefit from, and that is an exciting prospect!