Current Word Count: 56,311

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is officially over with the ending of November. I wrote 35,029 words from 11/1 – 11/30. While the goal was 50K words, I am very happy with my word count. I wrote very little during the holiday week because my family had off from work and school. It was incredibly important to me to spend time with them. I regret none of it.

NaNoWriMo accomplished one of its goals – I got back in the habit of writing every day. It also gave me the chance to understand how I should schedule writing days and analyze priorities. I will write Monday – Friday, with a goal of 1,700 words per day. Generally, this would allow me to complete a 90K novel in about 2.5 months.

The novel I am currently working on (Book 3 in the Divine Land of Illur Series) is set to be complete by January 10th, 2023. To be clear, that date is when the writing will be finished. The next task after writing is editing. I am not sure how long that will take or the final publication date. I promise to keep everyone updated as I continue moving forward.

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As you may have seen from the previous blog post, I ran a free promotion on Rescuers From Illur. It has been fascinating to see the results of other’s KDP Free Promos, so I thought I would share mine with all of you.

The promo dates were November 16 – 20th, 2022. The following info shows the free books sold during those dates:

• November 16 – 208 books
• November 17 – 251 books
• November 18 – 441 books
• November 19 – 100 books
• November 20 – 149 books

I gave away a total of 1,149 copies of Rescuers From Illur. During the promo timeframe, there was also a surge in Kindle Unlimited (KU) page reads. Please notice the rank and ratings below. During the promo I did well in the free Kindle category, as well as the specific genre categories for my book. Overall, I was very pleased with the results.

It is also important to know the marketing techniques I used to get these numbers. Please understand, even with this knowledge, you may or may not be able to get the same results.

• November 16
  • Free Kindle Book Posting (fkbt)
  • Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, & Nano tag/post
• November 17
  • Fussy Librarian – YA
  • Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, & Nano tag/post
• November 18
  • Fussy Librarian – Sci-Fi
  • Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, & Nano tag/post
• November 19
  • Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, & Reddit
• November 20
  • Facebook groups, Instagram, & Twitter

My guess is that the Fussy Librarian’s email roster is much larger for Science Fiction than Young Adult, which is the reasoning for the higher numbers on the 18th.

Hopefully, this information is helpful!