Seven Books in 30 Days: The Three Strategies That Made It Possible
Featuring Richard Lowe on Author Audience, Author Audience Academy, hosted by Shelley Hitz
TL;DR: What This Conversation Establishes
- Richard published seven books in 30 days using three strategies and one mindset shift.
- The shift: write short Kindle ebooks. A few days on a 10,000-word ebook is far less risk than six months on a researched paperback.
- Strategy one, scheduled writing: a daily calendar block with an alarm, and 45-minute sprints with real breaks to avoid burning out.
- Strategy two, dictation: speaking his books with Dragon took him from 200 words an hour to about 1,500.
- Strategy three, separate writing from editing: write first without stopping to fix anything, then edit later, because they’re different jobs.
What You’ll Learn
- Richard published seven books in 30 days using three strategies and one mindset shift.
- The shift: write short Kindle ebooks. A few days on a 10,000-word ebook is far less risk than six months on a researched paperback.
- Strategy one, scheduled writing: a daily calendar block with an alarm, and 45-minute sprints with real breaks to avoid burning out.
- Strategy two, dictation: speaking his books with Dragon took him from 200 words an hour to about 1,500.
- Strategy three, separate writing from editing: write first without stopping to fix anything, then edit later, because they’re different jobs.
Richard Lowe, The Writing King, joined Shelley Hitz on the Author Audience podcast for a behind-the-scenes spotlight on a sprint most writers would call impossible: seven books written and published in 30 days. He’s quick to credit two ideas from Shelley’s own course for the breakthrough, and the rest comes down to three concrete habits.
Shelley: Seven books in 30 days, did you write all of those?
Richard Lowe is The Writing King, a professional ghostwriter and author who has written more than 113 books under his own name and ghostwritten over 54 more for clients.
Before writing full time he spent 33 years in enterprise IT, including two decades as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s.
Full transcript of the conversation follows.
From scattered to seven books
Shelley: Seven books in 30 days, did you write all of those?
Richard: Every one, with three more in progress. Before that I was scattered, grinding on a long, research-heavy computer book while a novel and other projects pulled me in every direction. Then I took your teleseminar, half expecting another pitch for money, and instead got something I could actually use. What clicked was the idea of short Kindle ebooks. I’d been killing myself on long paperbacks that took months because of the research and interviews, when it’s far less risk to spend three days on a 10,000-word ebook. If it doesn’t sell, you’ve lost a few days, not six months. That lit a fire, and the books started coming fast, because I have a lot of ideas and a lot of experience across different areas.
Scheduled, timed writing
Shelley: Tell us how scheduling your writing helped.
Richard: I blocked my calendar from 4 p.m. to midnight as writing time, and every day it beeps and tells me, in those words, “It’s time to write, stupid.” Then I run a timer: 45 minutes writing, 15 minutes doing something else, and back again. I’m not glued to the chair the whole stretch, which matters because if I stare at the screen too long I get what I call square eyes. In that 15-minute break I hop on the exercise bike or watch a little TV, anything that isn’t writing. It works beautifully.
Dictation with Dragon
Shelley: You’ve also found real success speaking your books.
Richard: That one surprised me. You mentioned dictation in the course, and I already owned Dragon Naturally Speaking (these days I no longer recommend Dragon; Microsoft Word 365’s built-in dictation works well), so I gave it one last try before deleting it forever, because I’d never had luck with it. Suddenly I went from writing 200 words an hour to 1,500, just by speaking them. You still have to edit, but that’s a separate path. I can draft a 10,000-word book in a single day, spend the next day editing, edit again the third day to be sure, then send it to a proofreader. The technique works extremely well.
Separate writing from editing
Richard: I used to write and edit at the same time, type a line, delete, delete, delete, type again, delete some more. Dictation broke that habit, which is a big reason my rate jumped, because now I’m only writing. So the lesson is to keep the two jobs apart. Write, and it doesn’t matter what it says, edit later. They’re different exercises, a different hat, a different job entirely.
Two things to do this week
Shelley: What’s one thing listeners should act on this week?
Richard: Two things. First, make your calendar. Pick your best writing time, set a recurring entry, daily, every Tuesday, whatever fits, and have it prompt you: “It’s time to write now.” Then write. Close the door, shoo the cat out, tell everyone to leave you alone, and follow it religiously, so there are no excuses. Second, stop editing while you write. Get the words down first and fix them afterward, because writing and editing really are two different jobs.
Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.
Quotable moments
It’s far less risk to spend three days on a 10,000-word ebook than six months on a paperback. — Richard LoweShare on X
My calendar beeps every day and says, in those words, ‘It’s time to write, stupid.’ — Richard LoweShare on X
I went from 200 words an hour to 1,500, just by speaking them. — Richard LoweShare on X
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Frequently asked questions
How did Richard write seven books in 30 days?
By writing short Kindle ebooks instead of long paperbacks, then applying three habits: scheduled timed writing, dictation, and keeping writing separate from editing.
How does scheduled writing time help?
A recurring daily calendar block with an alarm removes the excuses, and working in 45-minute sprints with real breaks prevents the burnout Richard calls “square eyes.”
How much faster is dictation?
For Richard, it took him from about 200 words an hour to 1,500, enough to draft a 10,000-word ebook in a single day and then edit it over the next two.
Why separate writing from editing?
Editing while you write kills momentum. Writing and editing are different jobs, so Richard gets all the words down first, then switches hats and edits afterward.
Related Reading
Your story could be a book
The conversations I have as a guest all circle the same idea: the people doing interesting work usually have a book in them. If that is you, let’s talk about turning your expertise into the book that outlasts the work.
Part of Richard Lowe on Air, his complete run of podcast, radio, and video guest appearances.