Tonya D. Price holds an MBA from Cornell University. She has worked in the Internet industry for over 15 years in online marketing and project management. She is the author of the popular Business Books for Writers series including The Writer's Business Plan and The Profitable Writer. She started the series to share her knowledge of entrepreneurial business skills with indie publishers because writing is serious business.
Tonya enjoys sharing her knowledge on her website www.BusinessBooksForWriters.com where she posts helpful information and business resources for writers. She points authors to the latest blog posts on entrepreneurship and business conferences for writers in the free Writing Entrepreneur newsletter.
Tonya is also a full-time fiction writer and writing entrepreneur who has published a number of short stories in magazines and fiction anthologies. Her Fiction River story, "Payback," originally published in Hard Choices, was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2019.
Missing your Indie Publishing goals? Losing money by delivering work late to sub-contractors? Struggling to write more than one book per year? Spend a weekend with Meeting the Writer's Deadline and learn to deliver your work on time.
Meeting the Writer's Deadline teaches you how to:
Be a writing entrepreneur – and reap the business benefits that come with meeting your deadlines.
I accidentally give Tonya deadlines whenever I do a bundle. I ask her if she has a book available, and she tells me she's about to finish one. Inevitably her personal deadline occurs about one week after I need the book. So she speeds everything up for the bundle—and of course, being Tonya, usually hits the new deadline early. Tonya has founded three successful companies, and advised many more, including Fortune 500 Companies. People pay a lot for Tonya's expertise, which is why I'm always thrilled to include her work in one of my StoryBundles. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"Are you new to the writing business and still trying to figure out how your going to make your publisher's deadlines ? Or worse: your own deadlines? Are you an experienced writer looking for ways to tweak your current process? Then look no further than Tonya Price's new book Meeting The Writer's Deadline. It is practical, and contains advice you can apply to your work right now. I highly recommend it!"
– A.A. Alvarez, Author of the Kidnapping Anna trilogy"Meeting the Writer's Deadline is a must read packed with many productivity tips for not only writers, but anyone that does creative work. Great book filled with workable ideas to organize your work while not infringing on your creative flow. Clear and easy to follow, without technical jargon, it provides a blueprint for avoiding the stress and embarrassment of missed deadlines."
– Rob Oakes, Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Professional Project Management ConsultantIntroduction
Finishing your book by the designated deadline is so important for your professional reputation that it is the subject of the second book in the Business Books for Writers series. If you struggle with deadlines, and find yourself often missing due dates for your book, blog, or article, this book will provide strategies, tips, and aids in getting you on track to complete your book project on time.
Many writers find that while they have the goal of publishing books, they never finish their books. The key to achieving any goal is to set a deadline. Research studies have shown if you commit to a deadline, announce the deadline and track your progress toward achieving that deadline you have a significant chance of hitting that deadline.
How this book builds on The Writer's Business Plan
The first book in the Business Books For Writers series demonstrated how to create a business plan with specific goals so you could build on your success throughout your career.
Now you need to execute your plan, and that means you need to write books on a regular basis, year after year. You can't succeed in this business if you don't set deadlines for your goals or if you consistently miss those deadlines.
If you have a co-author, you need to hit your agreed-upon deadlines, or they will lose interest and move your joint project to the bottom of their to-do list. They set their schedule based on when you will send them your part of the book. You can put your co-author in a difficult situation if you miss your deadlines. Also, they make commitments with their graphic artists, copyeditors, and possibly other co-authors based on your project's deadline. If you miss your deadline, they may drop out altogether.
If you have sold a book to a traditional publisher, you have a deadline by which you need to deliver a final manuscript. If you are late, you will not endear yourself to your editor or the acquisitions department. However, if you meet your deadlines, book after book, your publisher will respect you and tend to buy more of your work.
It is very rare indeed that someone gets wealthy writing just one book! It can happen. It does happen, and I hope it happens to you but the typical path is that writers make their money by writing numerous books. The most successful self-publishers know the more books they have for sale, the more money they make.
When readers find a book they love, they seek out more books by the same author. Many authors like to write within a series, using the same characters. Series books are quite common, and for good reason – readers enjoy going on multiple adventures with characters they like.
The more books you have for readers to buy, the more money you make. Money you can put into marketing, better cover design, etc. In other words, the more money you will have available to get more people to buy your books, and the more money you will have to produce audio books, book bundles, and other revenue streams. Increased revenue also creates the potential for offering discounts or free give always, and taking advantage of other marketing and advertising opportunities.
The key to selling more books starts with the goal of writing more books and finishing by designated deadlines. This includes all the tasks that go into producing and selling your books. Cultivating the ability to meet deadlines is one of the greatest assets any professional can possess.
So let's get started!
Checklists and example sheets
Tracking your writing is easier if you have the right tools. Business Books For Writers has provided a number of checklists and sample aids on their website to help you keep your book project running smoothly.
Website resources for this book
New tools are constantly being released to help professionals meet their deadlines. To keep you up to date we have provided a resource page for this book on the Business Books For Writer's website.
Tips, helpful hints and warning boxes
A number of readers wrote to say they liked the tip, helpful hints and warning boxes in The Writer's Business Plan, so they are included throughout this book as well. Below is your first Tip box!
Tip: Read for ideas, but find what works for you
This book identifies why deadlines are important and presents a number of ideas of how you can improve the process you use to write your books and to produce your books if you are an indie publisher.
The GOAL of this book, is to help you develop a process to complete your book project by a deadline.
Try the ideas presented here on small projects – a blog post or a short story, even if you don't believe they will work for you. You might be surprised and find out these ideas work quite well! If so, expand them to a book project.
You will try some ideas that do not work for you. Great! Now you know more about your writing process. Don't be surprised though if you find some value in these ideas. If so, experiment – retain those aspects of the ideas that do work for you.
Your GOAL while reading this book should be to develop a process that works for you. You may discover bad habits that are limiting your ability to meet a deadline. Work on eliminating those bad habits rather than rejecting the information.
In the process of researching and writing this book I have had a number of writers tell me that just the thought of doing any organization or tracking of their time makes them nervous. You have to commit to wanting to pursue a writing business to benefit from this book. It is perfectly fine to write just to tell yourself or your family your stories. You don't need to worry about deadlines if that is your goal. If you want to make enough money to cover your writing bills and no more, then you can probably get away with not worrying about deadlines, but if you want to make enough money to live off your writing, if you want to be a professional writer, then learning how to consistently meet your deadlines is a requirement.
This book was written to help professional writers be successful in meeting their deadlines.
If you want to be a professional writer but are afraid the business side of writing will harm your creativity read M.L. Buchman's book, "Managing Your Inner Artist/Writer."
