Resources and tips for the self-published author.

Track Your Word Count Every Day

by Auburn Seal •  December 8, 2016  •   Follow

Published in Publishing Tips  •  No comments

Did you know that if you track activity connected to a goal, the odds of achieving that goal go up extensively? dailygraph2

It’s true. Goal setting is an activity enjoyed by authors all around the world. And this is the season when we naturally evaluate our past year and publishing projects and then turn our attention to the next year. We begin to ask ourselves questions like “How many books do I need to publish in 2017?” and “What does that translate to in word count each month, week, and day?”. Or at least that should be the next logical question.

One year after completing National Novel Writing Month and realizing that the daily input of my word count on NaNo’s site was a key factor in my motivation to write every day, I began looking for a way that I could keep doing that, in December and beyond.

I was pleased to find a site call Wordkeeper Alpha. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I tell all my writer friends about it. And they all love it. It’s a completely free system that lets you keep track of word count not only daily, monthly, yearly but also per project! Fantastic, right? Just like in NaNo, you can see your actual word count compared against your goal to see if you are on schedule. But, even better than with NaNo, you get to set the goal. So maybe your word count goal every month is 25K, you can set that. Or maybe you have a different word count goal each month. That’s okay too. You get to pick. It’s fabulous!

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You can create several different projects on Wordkeeper and then as you build up your word count in each project, you can enter those numbers. What this means is you can then peek at their handy-dandy graph reports and see what you’ve written and where. At a glance you’ll be able to see if you are ignoring any of your projects! Here’s an image I grabbed from Wordkeeper’s site that shows what a sample report looks like. The different colors represent the different projects. Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

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If you plan on taking your career to the next level, Plan on using a tracking system like Wordkeeper Alpha to help you achieve your writing goals.

And for your publishing goals, Bibliocrunch and LearnSelfPublishingFast will continue to offer you support. Want to know if self-publishing is for you? Check out our FREE mini-course to help you decide.

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About Auburn Seal

Auburn Seal is the author of eight books including historical fiction, cozy mystery, paranormal romance, and science fiction. She doesn't believe in dipping her toe in the water of experimentation, but rather jumping in and making the biggest splash possible. Her first book, Roanoke Vanishing, was published in 2013. Discover more about Auburn and her various projects at www.auburnseal.com