Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
A new year and new, or perhaps old, writer plans beckon. Naturally, this time of year is perfect for setting out what you want to achieve as a writer/author/publisher in the year ahead.
What is your main goal this year? To start a book? Finish a book? Increase your daily word count? Sell more books? A combination of all of this.
Whatever it is, this main goal could be seen as your milestone and in order to set out a plan a great way is to break this down into mini-milestones, easily digestible chunks of focused work time to keep you on track. If you can throw in accountability with a fellow writer or group, all the better. There’s no better motivation to complete your regular tasks than a watchful but supportive eye.
So one example of a milestone might be starting and finishing a novel. Depending on the genre, you might be looking at 50k words – 100k or so. If your target is a 60k novel then just break that down into monthly word counts (5000), then weekly (1250) or daily. Just 160 words a day. Write down those milestones on a board, a big sheet of paper in place wherever you spend your time at home. Make that habit.
My personal author business goals go something like this:
Book Projects for 2022
Fiction: Projects under Jay Tinsiano:
Publish Black Horse (Dark Paradigm #3) (This has been written and is in the editing stage)
Write and possibly publish Pale Horse (Dark Paradigm #4)
Look into another fiction project(s) (undecided):
My options:
A new Frank Bowen book or volume. A recent poll of my readers indicated they wanted more Bowen stories.
A Cold War Thriller for a Digital First Publisher. This idea is appealing. A fresh brand new world in an area that I’m fascinated by.
A Dystopian/PA/sci-Fi series I’m toying with that ties in with the Dark Paradigm Universe but hundreds of years in the future.
Whichever route I take I will need to do a lot more actual writing this year than I did in 2021!
Other considerations related to book marketing:
Rebranding the Frank Bowen and Dark Paradigm series with new covers is tempting as I’m not sure they 100 per cent hit the mark in terms of market positioning. This would take considerable investment though so is a bit of a block.
Other Non-fiction Projects under Jerry Holliday
Expand Indie Authors Roadmap and publish as a paperback and Audiobook.
Work on second Author Business related project.
The Business
I want to continue building Bonafide Media into a company and find a small trusted team to work with. This company is the umbrella to imprint brands such as Dark Paradigm Publishing and in the future other focused imprints. There’s a lot of potential for creative projects here and I still yearn to return to the drawing board and somehow link my love of scribbling into a project or two.
Online Brands
Build up Author Help Hub with additional eCourses and services as well as possibly branching into video/podcasting to grow our audience there.
This could all change, of course, but it’s better to put some kind of take on the ground. Momentum wins and making plans is the start of that process.
What’s your author plan? Get scribbling!
Resources that might help:
In case you were wondering, this planner is for you!
As writers, we know, developing an accountability routine to keep on schedule and meet your goals can feel like an uphill climb. That’s why this planner was written for authors by authors. Call us your muses because inside these pages, we’ll be guiding you every step of the way. We’re here to help, encourage, and keep you on task as we scale that narrative mountain together.
