Planning for the year ahead
An author I follow recently shared that she doesn’t set new year’s resolutions. Instead, she chooses a focus word for the year. That one word guides her activities for the year, keeping them in line with her goals. This is an intriguing idea. And it’s one I’m keen to try out.
This year
Visibility is the toughest challenge I’ve faced as an indie author. Much of my effort this year has been focused on enabling readers to see my books. This blog, my social media posts, promotional sites, and advertising campaigns, have all been used to spread the word. And they’ve been moderately successful.
What I haven’t done is complete another book. There have been numerous challenges to getting my work in progress finished. And they’re not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. If it’s going to have any chance of getting published in 2023, I need to prioritise my current project.
Next year
The focus word I’ve chosen for 2023 is writing.
This might seem strange to the non-writers reading this. But the authors will understand. There are so many other aspects to being an author that sometimes the writing itself gets pushed aside. So this year, I’m going to prioritise the writing. Which means spending a little less time on everything else.
Blog posts may be more ad-hoc rather than adhering to the usual schedule. And much as I love to use book titles as the basis of my blog post titles, it does take up a lot of time. That’s time I could be spending on writing. So the titles might get a bit more… functional.
Social media may be restricted to certain days or times. The whole year’s promotions and ads could even be scheduled in advance.
I have a limited amount of time. I’m choosing to focus on writing.
What will you be focusing on in the coming year?
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Deborah Grant-Dudley 