The Big Plan
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The Big Plan
Published on October 24, 2020
Index under commitment, creative legacy, creative life, mental health, the big plan
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Published on October 24, 2020
Index under commitment | creative legacy | creative life | mental health | the big plan
Join the conversation! There are 0 comments so far.
(This Scribtotum article is cross-posted with Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick episode 25. Listen to it, and / or read it here.)
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
That’s a question usually posed to would-be employees by recruiters and hiring managers. It’s lazy interviewing, don’t do it.
For an independent creator and self-employed “knowledge worker” like myself, however, asking yourself that question is useful.
Which is why it’s almost unforgivable that, other than in the vaguest sense, I didn’t have a long term plan until a few days ago.
Scribtotum is for teaching by example from the perspective of an experienced beginner, so I’m going to tell you why I finally figured out The Big Plan.
Since Scribtotum is also a node of my offboard brain… the place, as I once wrote, for “getting to know my own head…” I’m going to share the plan with you. That’s for accountability, too, so be a dear and read on…
“There Is Only So Much Time To Be Alive”
I sang that lyric, from my song “Brian Wilson,” in the band PIGBAT in the early nineties, when I was in my mid-twenties. Here’s the only recording I have of it, from a 1994 rehearsal. Enjoy, or, be amused, or something.
Brian Wilson
by PIGBAT feat. Matthew Wayne Selznick | Triple Bind Knot
https://www.mattselznick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/08_brian_wilson_triple_bind_knot_pigbat.mp3
Can you hear the youth? I knew the concept of mortality. Knew it. Didn’t understand it.
Now, I’m in my early fifties. My parents lived into their mid-eighties. I’m in comparatively better health than either of them were at my current age, so I can reasonably expect that I’ve got another thirty-ish years on the planet.
Except… I can’t reasonably expect that, or anything, when it comes to how much time I have left. I might as well have sung, “There is only x time to be alive.”
I’ve mentioned my late colleague P. G. Holyfield at least two times in the last few episodes of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the companion podcast to Scribtotum. He died in 2014 at the age of 46 with many creative works left unfinished and unrealized, including things we were going to do together.
In episode twenty four of Sonitotum, I talked about Grant Bulltail. He and I were going to work together to bring his one and only novel to fruition and to publication.
We were to begin this month.
On October 1st, 2020, Grant died of coronavirus.
Grant was eighty years old. While his contributions as an honored storyteller and ethnographer of the Crow people were invaluable and extensive, he died before seeing his own novel experienced by the world. That’s affected me deeply.
In my twenties, I was still too young to really grok what I was singing. I hadn’t lost anyone other than grandparents.
In my forties, when Patrick (P.G.) died, I had lost a few friends — some of them creators, including Kris Shine, whose guitar playing you can hear on “Brian Wilson” — and my niece. I was starting to get the message, but still, it was abstract.
It’s 2020 as I write this, I’m fifty three years old, and I’ve survived over a dozen friends, colleagues, clients, and relatives. Artists, writers, musicians, many of them. Count among them my mother, who left behind scores of poems, vignettes, fragments, paintings, and other writing, not least of which was her extensive genealogical research.
Okay. I get it.
If a Tree Fell On Me Right Now
I’m sitting in a park, writing this. A strip of bark the size of my torso just fell off a tree and onto the path about thirty feet from where I sit. Nobody was jogging by at that particular moment, and if it had hit anyone, it probably wouldn’t have done more than give them a good scare and a scratch or two.
Still, it was a reminder of the very randomness and uncertainty driving me more and more the last few years.
If a tree fell and took me out right now, I would leave unfinished and unpublished (in addition to this very blog post)…
Five novels, four novellas, two serials, and an undetermined number of short stories in my Shaper’s World storyworld, plus secondary material like role-playing game setting guides.
Four novels, five serials, at least two short stories, and secondary material in my Sovereign Era storyworld.
Three novels and at least two short stories, plus secondary material in my Daikaiju Universe storyworld.
An unknown number of novels in my as-yet-unrealized pulp / thriller series The Dent Method.
Three novels, an anthology, a screenplay, and at least three short stories that are not canonically part of any of my storyworlds… “literary” projects, if you will.
That’s at least thirty five projects… not counting any music I might want to make. And I do want to make more music.
The Math Speaks
Thirty five projects. Less than thirty years… how much less, no one knows.
So we have a variable (the time I have left to do productive work) and a real number (the work left to do).
We do have one other number… my rate of production to date.
First novel: 2005. Second novel: 2013. Third novel: 2020.
Seven years between major works.
Clearly, that’s unacceptable. At that rate, I would need to live to be 158 to finish all the planned novels, never mind all the other stuff.
Happily, my rate of production is a variable I have some measure of control over.
There is much to do, and only so much time to be alive.
So.
The Big Plan
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
I’ve got a different goalpost: my sixtieth birthday on July 14, 2027.
By that time, I will be making at least $75,000.00 a year on my creative endeavors alone. I will have phased out my services business and will be a full time creator.
How will I get there?
The Work
Here’s the minimal production schedule:
December 4, 2020: LAUNCH: “The Perfumed Air at Kwaanantag Bay” (Shaper’s World novella)
July 13, 2021: LAUNCH: Shadow of the Outsider (Shaper’s World novel)
December 3, 2021: LAUNCH: Untitled Shaper’s World novella)
July 13, 2022: LAUNCH: War of the Outsider (Shaper’s World novel)
December 2, 2022: LAUNCH: Walk Like a Stranger: “Passing Through Home” (Shaper’s World serial)
July 13, 2023: LAUNCH: Thraal (Shaper’s World novel)
December 1, 2023: LAUNCH: Untitled Shaper’s World novella
July 13, 2024: LAUNCH: Invasion (Shaper’s World novel)
December 2, 2024: LAUNCH: Untitled Shaper’s World novella
July 13, 2025: LAUNCH: The Shaper of the World (Shaper’s World novel)
There’s a lot of padding there. If I can move faster, I will. Remember, my current reality is that I spend 80% of my productive time working for other people. That needs to flip, gradually.
By my 58th birthday, I will have at least ten more titles in the Shaper’s World cycle on the market, plus a freebie serial in the same series, and possibly a few other minor works.
The Projected Result
What does that mean in terms of projected revenue? How will I get from where I am now to $75,000 in less than six years and eight months (as I write this)?
Where Am I Now, and What Do I Need To Get Where I Want To Be?
First of all, where I am now ain’t pretty.
I’m not literally starting from zero. I have one Shaper’s World book published, and I have six Sovereign Era titles out there, and a handful of other things. Thirteen titles (counting novels, short stories, non-fiction… everything) on the market.
My revenue from Amazon in 2019 was… $170.56. I had eleven titles on the market most of that year, so I earned, on average, $15.51 per title.
In 2020, of course, I released a book (and a short story, but it’s Light of the Outsider that’s really made a difference). I also started investing in advertising., and finally, after two months of figuring it out, I’m making a little more than I spend.
I’m projected to earn $514.46 from Amazon royalties this year from thirteen titles. Or, about $39.57 per title, on average.
The reality is, releasing Light of the Outsider and investing in advertising beginning in August (for Brave Men Run, for reasons I’ve detailed elsewhere) had the biggest impact on revenue this year. But let’s keep it really simple: bottom line, adding another book resulted in 2.56 times the revenue.
The objective is to release at least two titles each year — a novel and a novella. If you run some spreadsheet calculations to see what happens if you add two books a year and assume x2.56 revenue per title each year…
Well, you might get pretty excited.
I just did it. It shows me blowing past my $75,000 / year goal in 2025 and bringing in
