Time to Evaluate Goals!

Issue #14 January 2015

Just Setting the Goals Isn’t Enough

We often hear that time is the most precious commodity we have. Well, that’s doubly true for writers trying to earn a living with their craft. That’s you and me. If the genre you write is fiction, it’s even more challenging! So, those of us who write fiction must monitor our precious time and make it count toward completing our publishing goals. Since another New Year is upon us, it’s time for us to evaluate the goals we set for ourselves last year, account for how much of the goal was accomplished and set our goals for the coming year to be both challenging, accomplishable and focused on publishing. In an attempt to do just that, I went back to the goals I set in January 2014. They’re below in a table, but I do want to discuss a few things about them.

Goals Set, Accomplished & Reset
	2014 Goals Set	2014 Goals Accomplished	2015 Goals
Blog & Newsletter Goals
Must Read Must See Books and Movies	6 blog entries	5 blog entries	6 blog entries
Prodigal Writer	4 blog entries	4 blog entries	4 blog entries
Contributors’ Corner Newsletter	12 newsletters	10 newsletters	12 newsletter
Science Fiction: An Analytical Approach	6 blog entries	Cancelled this blog to focus on other writing; may turn this into short books to be distributed for .99.	0
New Blog about novel research	Begin & write regular entries	None	0
Write & Submit NEW Stories or Essays
	12 short stories	10 short stories (may have been more, but data lost off disk in April)	12 stories/essays
Novel Goals
Icy Thoughts Book 2	Finish novel by October, publish by December	Currently contains 20,971 words – about 17% of the end product	Write 4,000 words per week on Book 2
A Long Winter’s Night Sales Goals	75,000 distributed by November	365 books sold or given away free	Wishful thinking, NOT a goal
Find & Use Editing Service			Contact 2 editing service per month until finding the best match
Have a new book cover created			Contact Arts Alliance to find a suitable illustrator
Marketing Goals
Education	Continue learning & using marketing techniques	Completed Digital Marketing Course: How to Launch Your Ebook in 14 Days	Complete another course in marketing
Application	Use marketing funnel to promote novels	None – I really don’t understand this concept enough and don’t have the auto responders needed
			Apply the Launch Your Ebook principals to promote A Long Winter’s Night AFTER completing the goals for it below
Author Facebook Page	Build a following by writing regular entries	None	1 entry per week, either from the blogs, the website or something new
Character Facebook Page	Build a following by writing regular entries	None	1 entry per week entered as a diary or journal
Goals Accomplished, But Not Written
Author Website		Created author website linked to blogs and containing a PRIVATE members only page for other working authors	Maintain weekly updates on the author website via the blogs or new info on the home page

First of all, I was pleased to see that I reached at least some them. Not as many as I think I should have, but then, I’m pretty hard on myself. Maybe you are, too. Just remember that we do to push ourselves, but not to the point of breaking. We also want to celebrate our successes, too, even if they’re small ones. So when I looked over last year’s goals and accomplishments in the table below, I saw that of the 12 goals I set, I only accomplished four. That’s one-third of my own goals. I immediately asked myself why I didn’t accomplish more. I know it’s been a busy year, with many family health issues that consumed my time. But that’s life. There’s always something to distract us from our goals. The next thing I considered was whether the goals I set will really help me earn a living with my writing. So I took those goals, divided them into categories and tried to determine their importance to getting published. As you can see, I came up with four major categories: Blogs & Newsletters, Writing & Submitting NEW Short Stories and Goals for both my Novels and Marketing my novels.

I looked at the blogs and newsletters I had been writing and determined that SciFi Analysis was a useless tool to get me to my goal. Likewise, the new blog about researching my novel seemed a useless tool. Both of these goals were nixed for 2015. However, Must Read, Must See, Books and Movies has proven to be a useful tool to help me know what a reader is looking for in a novel and therefore how I should alter my own writing to make it more appealing to potential readers. Prodigal Writer and Contributors’ Corner are both essential to keeping me focused on my own writing goals. You see, as I try to motivate you and keep you focused, I’m also doing it for myself.

Next I looked at my writing goals for Writing & Submitting NEW Short Stories/Essays. I did submit 10 of the 12 stories from my goal. It may have been more than that, but I lost my “Writing Tracking” spreadsheet when my flash drive got erased in April. Writing & Submitting is an essential goal for getting your name out to the reading public, so it has to stay for 2015. Notice that that goals we’ve discussed so far are written with measurable outcomes. However, my Novel Goals for writing the next Icy Thoughts novel are NOT written with a detailed, measureable outcome…maybe that’s why I didn’t accomplish it. So, I broke the larger goal of “finishing the novel” into an easier to measure weekly goal. With this more focused goal, I could easily have any novel finished in six months. By July, I should have Book 2 completed, if I maintain the writing momentum. The goal of 75,000 Sales for A Long Winter’s Night, though focused on a specific number, was unreasonable. It was really more wishful thinking than a true goal. Any increase in sales will only result from better marketing practices, which takes us to the next set of goals.

The Marketing Goals were a bust! I only completed one of the goals. I finished the online course about launching an ebook and I plan on taking another course this year either through the Digital Marketer or through the Office Team website (since I’m still listed as an active member). Applying the marketing funnel was vague and unrealistic, considering that fact that I really didn’t understand how to apply it and I didn’t have the tools needed to use it. That goal will have to wait a while longer. The goal of using Facebook may end up being the best marketing tool, but I HAVE to actually write something on the pages in order for anyone to read them and become interested in my books. So I made the goal measureable: one entry on BOTH the author page and the main character’s page per week. With this specific goal, I will know immediately whether I am accomplishing it and whether Facebook is actually working to promote me as a writer. On the up side, I did get my author website set up even though I didn’t list it as a goal. I’m happy about that because my hits per month are actually growing!

Now that you’ve seen how I set my goals and analyze their effectiveness, I hope you have learned something you can apply to your own goal-setting efforts. I hope that 2015 is the year that you make a breakthrough in your writing goals. I also invite you to join us at Contributors’ Corner for help with your editing, encouragement with your writing and the challenges to keep you on task. Which reminds me, we have a new Writing Challenge for you!

Writing Challenge #14: Write, Edit, Submit!

Start your New Year out right by selecting one or both of the contests listed below. Write your piece, then submit to us by January 19^th so we can read it and help you smooth out the wrinkles before you submit it to the publisher.

Writing Deadline: January 19, 2015

Your piece will be shared in the February Issue of Contributors’ Corner, where we’ll help you polish your writing before you submit it. You’ll have your response prior to the contests deadline so you can make the changes you agree with.

PLAYBOY FICTION PRIZE

https://playboymagazine.submittable.com/submit

Fee: None

Genre: Fiction

Words: 5,000 or less

Pay: 1^st Prize $3,000, 2^nd Prize $300, 3^rd Prize $150

Due: February 13, 2015

To be published in the October 2015 issue of Playboy Magazine

WAGS REVUE 2015 WINTER CONTEST

www.wagsrevue.com/submit

Genre: Fiction, Essays, Poetry

Words: 10,000 or less for fiction & essays, 10 pages or less for poetry

Pay: 1^st Prize, $1,000, 2^nd Prize $500, 3^rd Prize $100

Due: February 28, 2015

Fee: $22

Until next quarter, live well, love fully and write with all your heart!