@LifeHappens, actually I have a publisher, and it's the only reason I was able to reach lots of readers. On my own, it wouldn't have happened. And yes I will let the data speak for itself. I have a good number of readers emailing me about when the sequel will be released, so that's a good sign, but you never know until you see those first week sales.
@Smokystache, 1) Hmmm. Maybe. I know that's the trade off. "Going for it" would give me SO much more time to write, but yeah the pressure goes up tenfold. I'll circle back to the data. And yeah I would consider PT legal work, but that's not easy to land.
2) So I do have a publisher, so I need to go through them, but they don't require changes; so basically there's no mandatory editing, but it does take a few months to get it to market from the time I get it to them. And my first novel was 160k words, and Part 2 will be around the same length, so they are pretty huge and take a lot of time. Writing one of them per year, and getting it to market during that 12-month window, would be pretty challenging, but doable. Doing two per 12-month window might be possible, but it would probably involve 50-to-60-hour weeks (of writing) at the very least. I average about 500 words per hour when I'm humming along, but I currently only get to write in 2 hour chunks, so at 1,000 words per writing session, and then all the numerous edits required, you can see why it's taking so long.
And thank you so much for your kind words.
@Kerowyn, Hey! My fellow non-programmer/engineer Mustachian! Right now, I am putting my royalties into IRAs to pump up our investments. If Book 2 does well next year, I might open up an Individual IRA, but I'll have to wait and see. I totally agree about saving up cash, and I'd probably want about $42,000 tucked away (a year of $3,500/month household expenses).
Yes my progress is verrrrry slow and it's verrrrry frustrating. This is my window of opportunity, but I feel it will close if I don't get Part 2 to market by the end of the year. People start to get impatient or move on to other things. The issue is time.
Wake up at 6:30, take kids to school, get to work by 8:00, work until 5:00, get home by 5:30, homework/dinner/kid activities/getting them to bed stretches until 8:30, and then I have that two-hour window until 10:30 if I want to get writing done for the day. Some days that works, other days my wife would actually like some of my time, so no writing those days. On weekends, I try to create some 3 or 4-hour blocks, and that happens much of the time, but not always because of all the tasks that pile up during the week. And some Sunday mornings, I have to go into the office for a half-day to catch up (on my legal work).
So I am jealous of YOU because you're getting so many books out! And I really think that's the key - to keep writing, keep publishing, keep improving, and keep building your library.
Thanks for all the resource links - they sound helpful! And I need all the help I can get. I'm pretty good at the creative parts of writing (I love world building and writing dialogue), but the "craft" of writing is something I never studied. Some folks in my writers' group have MFAs and such, and they talk about stuff I've never heard of.