Finding time to write is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of being a new author, especially if you are working. If you have not yet completed your first book, it is all the harder. The doubts creep in, and you wonder: “Am I wasting my precious time?”
Most of us write because we enjoy it. I love getting lost in a story, thinking up scenes and ‘trials’ to build my characters. This is the fun part. I can lie in bed and be entertained for hours by my imagination. The hard part is writing it down, taking those scenes from your mind and typing them out. It takes time, often time we steal from other places. It is all too easy to simply neglect this step and carry on with life. In my life, there is always something else I could be doing (if you saw the state of my house, you would have no option but to agree with me!) But if we fall into this trap, our stories will only ever be a brief moment of entertainment that gets lost in the jumble of our everyday lives. Even if you never want to publish, that great story you had in your mind could be captured and read to your children when they are old enough. Something of yourself they can take and treasure, and a reminder to yourself at a later date of times past. Each story has its own feelings and emotions, and for me, writing is a way to capture these feelings and relive them at a later time. I often read the story and see not what is written in the words, but the emotions and moments that fill the spaces between the lines.
I have unfortunately been neglecting my writing lately. Even though I really enjoy writing, and it helps me to relieve some of the emotions I am feeling, something else always seems to be more important-or I just feel like I am too tired. I am a firm believer in ‘you can make time if you really want to’, and I know that if I was not just writing in my spare time, and if I had definite deadlines-that I was held accountable for by a third party-I would manage to find the time to write.
The trick is, how to get people to hold you accountable if you miss a deadline? Many of the successful Authors have a large following that hound them for their next book, ensuring that the Author does the necessary to stick to their deadlines. The thing is you need to write in order to build your deadline demanding readers. So, while you are building your reader base, how do you get that little prod when you do not meet your deadlines to ensure you do not succumb to every other excuse not to put your pen to paper?
What if I told you I had found a way to do this? Not only that, while you are motivated to meet your deadlines, you will also be exposing your work to readers and even have subscribers just waiting to read your work? How is that for incentive! But that is not all, what if you could get all the above and then also be PAID for each person that subscribes to your story? Too good to be true? I thought so too, until I received a little tweet, and was introduced to Channillo.
Basically put, Channillo allows authors to submit what they call a series, and their readers (who pay a monthly subscription) can then choose which series they would like to read. The Author receives a portion of the site’s earnings relative to the number of people who are subscribed to any of their series.
A series can be similar to your typical TV series, that has no ending (a great way to build up a readership and explore different story ideas by inserting them as mini plots into your ongoing saga). A series could also be your book in chapters, with each chapter being an ‘episode’ in your series. You can even submit a group of poems, with each poem being an ‘episode’. As Channillo’s subscribers pay to view the content, your work in progress will not be available for free on the web, so your future sales will not be hampered by a freely available version.
When you submit your series to Channillo, you choose how often you will update your series. If you do not update it on schedule, or not at all, it can be removed from Channillo (along with your potential income). They will send you reminders before they remove your series, so you do get that all important prod to write.
This gives you an incentive to ensure you write often. Each episode needs to be uploaded and provided to your waiting subscribers on schedule, thus breaking your book down into manageable pieces until it is a completed masterpiece.
I am sure, like me, you can see the potential in such an arrangement. The drawback? Once your series is approved, you need to subscribe to their site as a reader, but considering all you could be gaining from the arrangement, the cost is negligible. You also then get to read ongoing work from other Authors and who knows, you might learn a thing or two from the process of watching another Author’s work in progress.
If you are an Author who battles to find time to write (in fact any writer can benefit from this service!), I would recommend you visit Channillo (Click to view the Channillo site), and have a look at what they offer. I will be heading there to submit my series to them as soon as I have made up my mind which of the many works in progress I want to commit to finishing.
NB: I did battle a little to find the form to submit a series on their site, if you have the same problem, you can click here to go directo to the Submit your series to Channillo page on their site.
– I hope this helps you make the time to write 🙂 –
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