Progress Report 2022 Week 36

Last week, I had planned to get 80% of Evolution’s Hand Book 2: Dying Breath’s third draft finished. My stretch and super stretch goals were, respectively, finish the third draft and incorporate the feedback from the beta readers. Did I hit any of those goals? Did I sneak in another? Let’s find out after we look at the numbers!

Progress Report 2022 Week 36 By the Numbers

Well, at least you know that the third draft is finished! And I experienced a net loss of 105 words for the week.

I am happy to announce that I finished the third draft of Dying Breath! I ended up with 197,959 words. When I started the third draft, the manuscript had 198,018 words. Even though I added some passages, I ended up with a net loss of 59 words. I think it’s a tighter manuscript now!

Progress against Last Week’s Goals

Since I gave away my progress against the first two goals, I’ll jump straight to the third. I did, in fact, finish incorporating the results from my beta readers into Dying Breath! One of the beta readers also proof read Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action, and their comments comparing the two books were extremely helpful.

Do you ask beta readers to read your manuscripts? This is the first time I’ve done so, and I have to say it’s well worth it. I had worked with two providers from Fiverr: alvenecus, who had read the previous book, and nadened. I can highly recommend both. They were professional, prompt, and reasonably-priced.

Since this is only the second novel, I really wanted to hear what they liked about it. What helped even more, though, was hearing what they did not like. In both cases, their feedback helped me fine-tune the manuscript. And now I’m one step closer to hitting my December 1, 2022 target release date!

Ramping Up for Release Day

I’ve been giving my e-mail newsletter list some attention. If you haven’t joined yet, please do! You can only get the short story Code Blue by subscribing, and my intention is never to release it any other way. The short story takes place in the same world as Evolution’s Hand, and it follows two characters that show up in the novels: Thato Dlamini, TransStell’s VP of Human Resources, and a doctor who becomes more important in Evolution’s Hand Book 3: Primary Target.

I just finished a new graphic for a Facebook advertising campaign. I based it on the cover of Executive Action. I ran two ads: one as a boosted post, and one as a stand-alone ad. I used the same audience demographics, same budget, and same graphic (the one below). The ad got about 30% more impressions. Can you guess which produced more clicks?

Photoshop came in handy!

It was 25 to 1 in favor of the ad. I was surprised. I thought the ad would do better, but not by that large a margin. So, I guess that’s the path I’ll take going forward!

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2022 Week 36

I have a decision to make. I mentioned before how I like ProWritingAid because of how well it works and because it can directly read and edit Scrivener files. I used it after Dying Breath’s second draft and before sending it to beta readers. Now, I want to decide: do I put that manuscript through one more pass, or do I send it to the proof reader? I’m going to state my goals as if I choose the latter.

My goals for the coming week are:

Use Scrivener to generate a Word document suitable for sending to a proofreader
Use Fiverr to select a new proof reader (I want some more data points) and send them the manuscript
Continue work on the plot for Evolution’s Hand Book 4: Blind Exodus

I’d like to spend at least another week on plotting. I’m getting close, and the characters and scenes are getting more and more clear in my mind. Plus, I don’t want to start the second draft of Primary Target until I’ve let it sit for a solid month. So, taking this coming week to work on plotting seems like the right thing to do.

What Do You Think?

What service to you use for proof reading? Have you found one that you’re happy with? I’d love to hear about your experiences! Just leave a comment!