As announced, I’ve started releasing one short story per week on Amazon for the next 52 weeks — all available for free. In the spirit of full transparency, here are the download numbers for my first two stories:

STORY52 No. 1 of 52: Black Market Dreams | (US – DE)

STORY52 No. 2 of 52: The Last Portrait | (US – DE)

I write all my stories in German and then translate them into English which is why there are always two version of each book.

Let’s see how things develop — but for someone with no existing audience, it’s a start. And all it cost me was some time and imagination. Hopefully, a few of these free downloads will turn into loyal readers. Hopefully the promo numbers will grow as the project gains momentum.

I think I’ll include these stats in future monthly “Author in Progress” reports.

Publishing short stories and giving them away for free on Amazon has been the most effective strategy I’ve found so far. If you don’t already have an audience, a following, or a network, offering something for free is often your only real option.

Sure, you can rely on luck and hope your writing finds an audience on its own. But for 99% of writers, that simply doesn’t happen. It certainly won’t happen for me.

That’s why I’ve come up with a plan: I’ll write 52 short stories, publish them as Kindle books, and give them away using Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited promo tools.

I just finished my second attempt at this. My test run brought in 28 downloads for the first book and 35 for the second. Not huge numbers, but still — that’s 63 readers I didn’t have before.

The great thing is that I can reuse these books in future campaigns. The first one was only downloaded 28 times, but as my platform grows, I might be able to double that next year, triple it in two years, and maybe even attract thousands of readers over time — from that book alone.

These stories are designed to be giveaways, and once created, they can be used again and again as evergreen promotional tools that neither cost me money nor time.

Amazon allows you to run a free promotion with a book every three months. That means I can promote each book up to four times a year. With 52 books, I could be running free promos year-round — without spending a cent on marketing.

I haven’t seen anyone else trying this strategy, so I can’t guarantee that it will work. But it’s worth a shot. It doesn’t cost me anything. It doesn’t cost the readers anything. And I get to tap into Amazon — one of the biggest search engines on the planet.

Of course, it will cost me time to write the stories. But writing is fun anyway.

So far, this is the best strategy I’ve come up with. I plan to stick with it for a year and see what happens.

That means: My current plan is to write 4 full-length novels a year, plus 52 short stories on top. Wish me luck — and cross your fingers that this strategy helps me build an audience.

I never really made a big plan. When I decided to write 1,000 words every day, I just started — and whatever idea came to mind first, I worked on.
This, as it turns out, was not the best approach. Some ideas I abandoned halfway through; others I finished but chose not to publish because they didn’t work well as standalone novels.

I quickly realized that having a plan isn’t just important when writing a single book — it’s essential when you want to write multiple books every year.

I have dozens of series ideas stored in my swipe file. They all look intriguing, but I know I shouldn’t start them all at once. Instead, it makes more sense to tackle them one by one.

My plan for now is simple: focus on a single series until it’s finished.

In that series, I’ve nearly finished editing Part 1. I’ve already written first drafts for Parts 2 and 3, and I’m currently writing Part 4. Overall, I’ve outlined at least 20 parts, which will eventually bring the series to a satisfying conclusion — or at least a conclusion that I personally find satisfying, tying together the major plotlines that start in Part 1.

The series is called 17, named after the main character.

It’s a crime-thriller-action story in the spirit of Bond, Reacher, Hunt, and Holmes, where the protagonist solves a new case in each book, while a massive conspiracy unfolds across the entire series. I’m blending in elements of conspiracy theories, aiming for a tone that is dark but also has moments of fun.

Whenever I need a break from the series, I’ll work on a standalone novel — not a new series. Just a single novel, perhaps in the sci-fi, mystery, or western genre, something different to refresh my creative energy.

The only other major project I’ll allow myself is a lifelong work I’ve been outlining for years: It began when I watched Disney mishandle Star Wars and HBO rush Game of Thrones to an unsatisfying end. I started thinking about how I could do it better. The result is a sci-fi opera I currently call The Eye Sees It All.

This will be a lifelong project — something I want to build slowly, one page at a time. Honestly, I have no idea how large it will eventually become.
Unlike the 17 series, where I can already estimate that I’ll be able to publish multiple books each year, I might only manage one book for The Eye every couple of years — if that.

So, my loose publishing plan will be:

1. A 17 part
2. Another 17 part
3. A standalone novel
4. A part of The Eye or another 17 part

That’s the current goal.

If I can successfully set up the system that I have in mind, new books will be out every March, June, September, and December.

I think it’s possible. Hopefully, I’m right.

I recently looked through Stephen King’s bibliography. So far, he has published 65 novels—which is actually fewer than I would have guessed. He started in 1974 with Carrie and scored a hit right out of the gate. Lots of bestsellers followed. It’s 50 years of writing. Impressive—not just because of the hits, but because of the consistency.

King’s Twitter is a mess, his politics a joke. But I still admire him. I want to get there too.

My goal is four books a year. One every three months. It’s possible. But to get there I need to do more.

Last year, I wrote a lot. I started a simple experiment: write 1,000 words a day. I stuck with it for almost all 365 days. The result? Four finished books—and several more that never made it past the halfway point. The main issue: I didn’t take the time to edit any of them. I treated it more like a writing exercise than an author’s workflow.

But being an author isn’t just about writing—it’s about writing something you’re confident putting out into the world. That’s where plotting and editing come in. Two things I haven’t really focused on yet.

To consistently release a new book every three months, I need to work on both, establish a working process, optimize it, and invest the effort. Simply put: I need to do more.

I’ll continue using the 1K-a-day method for writing. But on top of that, I’ll dedicate at least one hour a day to plotting and editing. Will that be enough to fully prep a book for release every three months? I’m not sure yet. The next few months will tell. I’ll report here on the tools I use, the time it takes, possible adjustments, and the final results.

So stay tuned…

I like to think I have good ideas. I also believe I can write fairly well. Not everyone will agree, of course, but there have been moments in my life when friends, family, and even complete strangers have complimented me on both.

There’s definitely a lot to learn about writing—it’s one of those skills where the learning never really ends. By writing more, writing regularly, and publishing my work, I should improve over time. Practice makes perfect, they say. And until perfection is achieved, there’s still improvement.

That said, the writing itself has never really been my weak point. My struggle is with marketing.

I’m terrible at self-promotion. And since nobody else is promoting me as a self-published author, my writing isn’t getting the attention I’d like it to get.

If you want to become a successful author, writing books isn’t enough. You have to figure out how to sell them—otherwise, you’re just another office drone or factory worker with an unfulfilled dream of being an author.

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to figure out how to actually reach readers. I don’t expect to sell millions of books overnight, but over the course of months and years, I’d like to see some growth. So far, that hasn’t happened. The first two books I’ve published aren’t really selling—I get a small handful of readers each month, mostly through Kindle Unlimited. It’s been that way since the beginning, and more than a year later, nothing has changed.

Just putting my work out there wasn’t enough. If I don’t spread the word, nobody will find my work.

I once read that around 7,500 new books are published on Kindle—every single day. It’s certainly even more now. And with AI improving rapidly, that number will only increase.

That makes my books feel like a single raindrop in an ocean of new releases. It’s my job to make that raindrop stand out and get readers interested in what I’ve created.

One way I might do that is through blogging—preferably daily blogging.

These days, most people consume content on social media only. But if there are people who still read blogs, they should also be book readers. So daily blogging might be a good way to find an audience for my writing.

It’s a long-term strategy. It might take years to grow a blog—if I can grow one at all. But it’s a cost-effective promotional tool, and one I actually enjoy using. I like writing fiction for a reason. For the same reason, I should enjoy blogging too.

So, this blog will be one of the tools I use to promote my work. I’ll keep you posted on how effective it turns out to be.

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