The last time I checked my goals was late April, and since I have always tended to make goals in August, when school starts, I thought I’d take this time to check where I am compared to where I wanted to be.

The first goal I made back in September and updated in April was advertising. I still do not have Amazon ads running. While my income has risen, I’m not comfortable risking the extra I have on ads. You’re supposed to test ads to see what works best, and that means losing money, and I can’t go there. I have boosted some Facebook posts, and plan to run an actual Facebook ad in the near future. One of my Patreon goals is advertising, but I’ve been putting the money back that I get from my patrons to pay for the website in November, which is another of my goals. If there’s money left after I pay for the website, I may run an Amazon ad for a while. We’ll see. 🙂

I have completed four Kobo promos so far, and have applied for several more. As I said previously, Kobo promos are hard to get into, but I took a Reedsy course that taught me that sometimes, the people filling the promo spots run out of space before they get to your books. I had been wondering about that, because I never get feedback on why my books are declined, so that must be it—they ran out of spots before they got to me.

The website has been running smoothly for months now. I have a book page up, but I don’t like the format of it. I think I should have a page per book instead of all of them on one page. It would allow me to share specific book pages.

Next was my Gumroad store and increasing traffic to it. I am happy to report that I’m getting regular visitors, and occasional sales. I get more sales when I use it like a preorder and send the link to my mailing list while I’m waiting for the book to go live on the other stores. I didn’t do that with To Save Elizabeth, and only got one sale. I still get most of my sales at that store when I have a new release or offer a sale code, but I confess I have been distracted in the last six weeks. I’m planning on keeping that store at the forefront of my promos on Facebook. I also think I might run a Back to School code/sale. We shall see. I have to do it ASAP if I’m going to.

Books written is the next goal. In April, I had released two books: Darcy’s Surprise Betrothal and Darcy’s Bodie Mine. A month ago, in July, I released my third book of 2018, To Save Elizabeth. I stated that I wanted to publish every six weeks and planned four more books. Well, as always, deadlines and sticking to a schedule are difficult for me, so I’m now hoping for two more books this year. I have lots of books that I want to write, but I’m not going to get them all done this year. 😀 Completing five books in one year is not bad at all.

One of the things we did at our end-of-year meetings at the online school was to make a list of what we wanted to continue, what we wanted to start, and what we wanted to stop. I thought that activity would be a good way for me to redefine and revamp my goals, now that we’re more than halfway through the year.

Continue:

• Writing 1,500-2,000 words per day (this did not happen in July and the first 12 days of August, so in one way, this is a start item, but since I was already doing it, I’m putting it here)
• Doing web posts, if I can
• Redoing covers
• Making large print versions
• Boosting two posts per new release

Start:

• Recording short stories to add to my YouTube channel
• Running the occasional Amazon and Facebook ads
• Writing a non-fiction book
• Spraying roundup along the fence to keep weed-whacking to a minimum, thus reducing the time spent on yard work
• Writing two stories at once

Stop:

• Push mowing the grass. This takes too many hours every week in the summer. Of course, buying a riding mower takes more cash than I have at hand at this point, and I need a new truck, too, so we’re trusting God for this one.
• Trying to be on all the social media networks all the time. I have to be on Twitter for my RWA chapter, because I’m the V.P. of Communications, but for me and my books, we’re going to back off it. I do try to be on Pinterest once a week for a few minutes, and I’ll try to send off a pic of my dogs to Instagram once in a while. Facebook once or twice a day. Of course, I’m on MeWe all day, but few readers visit longer than the time it takes to sign up and friend me. That’s ok, though, because I like the quiet. 🙂
• Taking vacations. Seriously, I spend enough time not writing when I’m editing and publishing a book. It took me four days to prep for a four-day vacation, and I was so exhausted afterwards that I slept most of the day every day for a week. Between the editing, publishing, vacation, and recovery, I lost the entire month of July. It was ridiculous. I’ll stick to not working during races as a way to relax and recharge.

So, those are my updated goals. Have you checked yours lately? Are you where you want to be? What have you had to change to help you meet your goals?