Don't give your book a release date

 

For my first few books I gave them release dates and did my very best to meet the dates or have the book done early. It worked in the beginning and then the days started to suffocate my writing as I was forcing myself to finish a book in a certain amount of time. I could see my book quality wasn't the best and that my writing was becoming a chore. Stupidly, I tried to put out a short story every month with each book being somewhere between 120 to 150 pages and done with no break. Two books went by easily and then the third story fell apart as I was writing it. I gave myself almost no time to plot the story and even less time to actually write a story worth paying for or reading for free. Of course I should've known that quality needed to be my number one priority, quantity is nothing when the product doesn't provide anything for the consumer. So I cancelled all of my pre-orders and gave myself a 3 week break before I went back into writing. Now I choose to put out a book every two or three months after the last, giving myself more than enough time to spend hours giving a novel or short story everything I've got. But your production depends solely on you and you might be able to write books back to back without a problem. Usually I try to write at least 15 to 20 pages a night, but I fail at that sometimes. What i'm really trying to say is don't rush yourself and don't feel like you need to keep up with someone else. A novel a year or every two years, any amount of short stories a year should be entirely based on how you write. The quality of your book can determine whether or not a reader comes back and rushing a book hurts your growth as a writer. Slow down, take breaks, read other books, watch shows or movies for inspiration and give yourself some grace.