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Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

fivehundredwordsaday.com

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Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#91

Post by thot_experiment »

saberience wrote: post #71

Or you could just 750words which has been around for 15 years I guess now and does the job amazingly.

Storytime! I used 750 word a lot about 10 years ago and then they lost all of my data somehow, it was my journal and I had used it to process some deep trauma. Losing it made me lose all faith in SaaS as a concept and since that moment I haven't kept anything important anywhere where I don't have access to the bits directly. It's probably kinda like self driving, maybe in reality data loss is really rare, but losing data when it wasn't your fault just feels so much worse. I imagine just like dying when your self driving car malfunctions, even if on average it kept you safer.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#92

Post by yojo »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #66
yojo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having just self-published a book that capped out at 10 sales, yes. For me, the hardest problem is even getting the word out. I’ve used a few different platforms to get my book in front of people. And by and large, the ones who start it also finish it. But even giving away content, it is surprisingly hard to connect to an audience of any size. Pick any kind of writing, and you’ll find the marketplace is incredibly cr…

Could you link the book? I'm interested because I'm considering self-publishing a book as well, and I definitely don't enjoy marketing.

Sure, here's the Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63250637-the-anshar-gamb...

I'll probably write a blog post at some point covering the things I've tried, which is admittedly not a lot. There are vanishingly few free marketing channels, and paid marketing typically only makes financial sense once you've got at least a few books to increase your revenue per reader. Otherwise your customer acquisition costs exceed your margins.

If you're writing fiction, the best freebie I've found is sending advance review copies through Voracious Readers Only. They limit you to twenty without paying, but that at least got me a pair of reviews on Goodreads (sadly nothing on Amazon).

If you have specific questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Whether you want to take advice from the guy who only sold ten copies is up to you.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#93

Post by nickagliano »

andrewpbrett wrote: post #87

I wrote 500 words yesterday but the calendar date is still blue... any chance you can take a look @nickagliano? The text appears when I click on the date.

I made a change which should hopefully fix any calendar date staying blue problems you were having. Let me know if that's not the case :)

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#94

Post by nickagliano »

thot_experiment wrote: post #91
saberience wrote: post #71

Or you could just 750words which has been around for 15 years I guess now and does the job amazingly.

Storytime! I used 750 word a lot about 10 years ago and then they lost all of my data somehow, it was my journal and I had used it to process some deep trauma. Losing it made me lose all faith in SaaS as a concept and since that moment I haven't kept anything important anywhere where I don't have access to the bits directly. It's probably kinda like self driving, maybe in reality data loss is really rare, but losing…

That sucks, I’m sorry you lost your writings. That sentiment is part of the reason I built the site myself. But that does make me think that when I build an exporting feature there needs to be a “download a backup” option.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#95

Post by nickagliano »

nickagliano wrote: post #94
thot_experiment wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storytime! I used 750 word a lot about 10 years ago and then they lost all of my data somehow, it was my journal and I had used it to process some deep trauma. Losing it made me lose all faith in SaaS as a concept and since that moment I haven't kept anything important anywhere where I don't have access to the bits directly. It's probably kinda like self driving, maybe in reality data loss is really rare, but losing…

That sucks, I’m sorry you lost your writings. That sentiment is part of the reason I built the site myself. But that does make me think that when I build an exporting feature there needs to be a “download a backup” option.

To be transparent, there is database backups on this site, but letting people download their own backups feels like a nice to have. So everyone can have their bytes.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#96

Post by andrewpbrett »

nickagliano wrote: post #93
andrewpbrett wrote: post #87

I wrote 500 words yesterday but the calendar date is still blue... any chance you can take a look @nickagliano? The text appears when I click on the date.

I made a change which should hopefully fix any calendar date staying blue problems you were having. Let me know if that's not the case :)

Yes that worked!

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#97

Post by k__ »

klelatti wrote: post #57
komali2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite videos is when George RR Martin asks Stephen King on stage, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 Stephen King answers basically with the same advice he's always given, as you said, he tries to write 6 pages a day. In the video, he says he tries to get 3-4 hours of work a day, and get to that 6 pages. He breaks it down, "if the manuscript is…

Thank you for this post, which captures what I think is a key issue for many. I wonder though if there is a reluctance to adopt an approach similar to King's because people are wary (possibly subconsciously) of killing their enjoyment of the process: 'Don't turn your hobby into a job' is advice that you hear a lot. Perhaps those who are prolific have their eyes more on the end result (a good book in 3 months) rather…

You have to get something out of it.

It's the best when the process alone makes you happy, but this isn't usually the case 100% of the time.

The next best thing is getting results. Either because you like what you created or other people like it.

Writing my 50 blogposts in 2017 wasn't always fun, but some of them got thousands of views.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#98

Post by throwoutway »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #68

I found that a good exercise for me, was the idea of a “mini-saga,”[0] which I first heard about, in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind . It helped me to be more concise (which I need —badly). I have no problem at all, writing a lot of words. The challenge, for me, is writing fewer words. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minisaga

This reminds me of when (attributed) Ernest Hemingway was asked to write a short story with six words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_wo...

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#99

Post by iLemming »

reidjs wrote: post #14

Does anyone else have the problem where they write a lot, but it all seems to go into the void and never produce any tangible benefit? How do I produce writing that people want to read?

There are two biggest tragedies of all time. The thoughts that were never written, and the scribbles that no one would read. For some reason, only people who don't frequently write think that the latter is real.

Re: Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day

#100

Post by RobKohr »

In my daily task list template in Obsidian I create a task formatted like this:

- [ ] [[slop/2023-01-04]]

and I go into that and close my eyes and just type stream of consciousness, sometimes about a certain subject, and without editing, until I get to 500 words. It helps to get the flow going with little pressure on doing it right. I call it slop to emphasize that none of it is going to be good.

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