Dealing with Publisher Deadlines: 4 Steps for Putting Business Before Art

As you may or may not know, I don't *just* write zombie books for a living. Instead, I am a full-time freelance writer, specializing in ghostwriting full-length business, health, and other fiction and nonfiction books. But I often learn lessons in my "day" job that lend themselves to my "zombie" job, and this is one of them:

Recently I had not one, not two but three VERY demanding publisher deadlines. One publisher was gracious and gave my ghostwriting client three months to write a complete book. Two more gave us only two months to complete our respective books.

Now, keep in mind, a traditional book for a traditional publisher (in this case two of the books were business and one was self-help) typically weighs in at between 45,000- and 60,000-words. Some are even higher. In our case the word counts for all three books were typically around the 50,000-word mark.

Now, this post is not to look for pity or have you marvel at my speed writing skills, but merely to say that when your dream of writing for a traditional publisher finally comes true, be prepared for some hard realities about the business of writing for a living.

One of those realities, it seems, is that publishers often give you firm deadlines that are less than generous. I know; I know – you treat writing as an art. Hey, so do I! But occasionally compromises must be made and when a publisher is paying you to create that work of art one of those compromises is often that art comes with a deadline!

Here are four simple steps for dealing with deadlines:

 

1.) Focus:The worst thing you can do in the face of a deadline – even a stiff one – is to panic. You must remain focused and have a clear goal in mind. For instance, typically by the time I’ve been given a publisher’s deadline I have written at least a sample chapter or two (from the book proposal) that the publisher has approved. This is my starting point; these one or two chapters let me know what, exactly, the publisher likes about the project and how they want it written. It also gives me a starting word count. So let’s say the publisher wants a complete, thorough 50,000-word manuscript in the next 60 days. Wow, okay, after taking a couple of breaths I do a quick word count on my two sample chapters and realize, hey, I’ve already written 8,000-words. Now the words I have to write has gone down from 50,000-words to “only” 42,000-words!

2.) Prioritize:Most writers DON’T write for a living; I get that. Most of us have day jobs, families, schedules to keep, bills to pay and only so many hours in a day. Still, this is what you dreamed of, this is what you wanted and you can’t give up on that now simply because 42,000-words seems extremely intimidating. Instead you must prioritize your schedule to make the time you need to write the book you want. How do you do that? First you need to figure out a schedule:

3.) Schedule:So, let’s be clear – you have 42,000-words to write in 60 days. What? How? When? Why? First, don’t panic. Now you need to prioritize what needs to be written first and how long it might take. Do some quick math. The book is nine chapters long but you’ve already written two of them; that leaves seven. Dividing 42,000-words by seven chapters leaves you 6,000-words a chapter. Okay, now at least you know what needs to go into each chapter. How long will it take you? If you were to do a chapter a week it would take you 7 weeks to get done. Great! That leaves you one week to not do any writing but simply to read the book from start to finish and make sure it’s clear, coherent and up to your – and the publisher’s – standards.

4.) Clarify:Finally, your book must be clear. One of the biggest challenges with writing a big book fast is that you can work so quickly, for so long that you lose track of what the book is about in the first place. You have to avoid that trap and bring clarity to the process. Build re-reading time into your writing time. For instance, if you’re doing 6,000-words a week, don’t just slack off all week and do all 6,000-words on Sunday! Instead, shoot for writing 1,000-words a day and give yourself Sunday to read over what you’ve written and clean it up so each page, of each chapter and each chapter of the entire book is clear, focused and stays true to the pitch you made the publisher – and the promise you made to your reader – way back in the book’s Introduction.

 

Meeting deadlines is tough, but when you follow these four steps you can safely turn in a good, well-written, clearly polished book on time while still wearing your artist’s hat.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty