How Long Will It Take to Write This Book?

Finished chapter 1 of the Boob Book today, and started on chapter 2. With all the research done, it took about a day and a half to write the first chapter.

So I’m wondering how long it will take to compile the 800 pages or so of research material that’s stacked up on the table into a single coherent book.

The book will have nine or maybe ten chapters (depending on whether I decide to break one of the projected chapters into two) plus six short appendices.

If nothing gets in my way, I can get through about a chapter in a day, or maybe two days. Chapter 1 is 2800 words, not an unreasonable amount to crank in one day. Some chapters will be shorter. But let’s say that realistically it takes two days to write a chapter: that would give us about 20 days to write the main body of the book. Each appendix should take less than a day, although the glossary may be lengthy. So maybe a day apiece for those?

That adds up to 26 days: about a month.

But, of course, as a practical matter “nothing gets in my way” will not happen.

My best paying and most reliable client just resurfaced, asking if I’m up for more copy of his. This is a guy that you don’t say “no” to. Probably not even if you wanted to…but most certainly not when he pays you so handsomely to read such entertaining material.

The online summer course is just heading into its most intense period, with three major rafts of stoont papers about to fly onto my desk.

The Latina studies journal is in full production. We’ve moved a set of academic papers but not seen the reviews, the creative work, or any of the front & back matter.

And I should be preparing my fall courses as we scribble.

We await the artwork for the next two installments of my self-publishing empire, and I’m in the process of laying out 18 serials of the Fire-Rider story, which I also will convert to .mobi files and post on Amazon. All of these will need to be marketed, something that I find quite the challenge.

The proposed porn empire awaits. My friend and I are still studying the possibilities. But to make that work will also require cranking at least 3,000 words every day or two.

As soon as I finish chapter 2, I’m sending a proposal to one of my former publishers, for whom (some years ago) I once wrote a best-seller. Unfortunately, like most other American publishing houses it has changed hands and been consolidated into unrecognizability; as far as I know, none of the old editorial crew persists there. But still, I hope reminding them of that former glory will at least get someone to read the proposal. And once anyone with even the vaguest sense of marketability sees it, it will sell.

The median advance on a single book deal today is around $25,000. That’s more than I need to live on for an entire year.

So if a publisher manages to offer even a modest advance, I intend to stand down from teaching for at least a semester, and to farm out the editorial work to subcontractors. Even if it only takes a month or two to draft the Boob Book, I may need the time for rewrites; but it looks unlikely that an advance will get me out of enough work to let me give my undivided attention to the Boob project.

But…if a miracle happens and I can move the thing to the publisher within two or three months, then if I don’t teach and I farm out the editorial jobs, I’ll have another three or four months in which to get 20 existing bookoids online and to begin experimenting with sales of racy fiction.

It looks like a phenomenal amount of work. But around here, that’s nothing out of the ordinary. I already work any 18 hours of the day I choose, by and large for poverty-level wages. It would be mighty nice to work 18 hours of the day for something resembling a middle-class income.

😉