Welcome back to Austen Promises and the Writer’s Journal!
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We have finally reached the end of the first quarter of 2019. The sun is finally shining after two or three days of cloudy, cold, and rainy weather. I can’t tell you how much I need that sunshine at this point. Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to look at my 2019 goals and see how I am doing with them.
The first part of the above-linked post was about what I intend to stop this year. There were two things on the list: selling books at festivals and doing book signings. So far, I have avoided the temptation of both. I may sell books at a local library event later in the year. It remains to be seen if I will or not. So … so far, so good. 🙂
Of the things I wanted to start, I first mentioned Dragon and dictation. I still have not begun that. I really need something better than my phone to dictate into, though that’s not all that holds me back. A large part of it is trying to fit that practice into my morning routine.
I wanted to increase word counts. I don’t write large amounts every day, and maybe I just need to accept that. When I do write, I write a lot; it just doesn’t happen every single day.
I wanted to add a Friday race story feature to my blog, and I did that. <3
I wanted to buy my own print ISBN numbers. I have not done that yet, but am hoping I can, come July.
My mailing list has, I believe, improved. I have asked mailing list members to tell me how often they wish to receive emails from me and tagged them to match their desires. Each member of my list only receives an email when they want to, either weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. Not every email is a “buy me” plea, and some have no links whatsoever in them. In my opinion, this is a great improvement. Feel free to tell me if you think I’m wrong.
Next on the “start” list was videos for Patreon. That has not happened yet, either.
Then there is the list of things I wanted to keep doing. First on that list was doing Facebook Live videos every Friday night. I have kept that up, though this past Friday, Facebook could not find my camera and I ended up doing my live via YouTube.
I have not recorded more short stories, though I did begin one a couple weekends ago. I have also not promoted Gumroad overmuch.
I am selling signed print copies of books from my website, and I have been doing more advertising on Amazon and Facebook. Funds have been limited, so I have not been able to do as much as I’d like, but I’m doing more than I was.
I have continued the blog features I did last year and added both the Friday thing and a Monday Austen-oriented post. I have improved my Pinterest activity just a bit.
Professional development was next on my list. I confess I’ve not listened to The Creative Penn podcast as often as I was. She’s had a lot on the broadcast this year that either has not applied to me or that I don’t care to learn about.
I am about half done with the Ads for Authors course. I think “Bookbub ads” is next. I have listened to a couple SPF podcasts recently, but as with The Creative Penn, I’ve not really been interested in most of what they’ve said so far.
I do have a ticket to the 20BooksTo50K conference in November. I have my room reserved and my airline ticket purchased, and I have a budget laid out that tells me how much I need to save to pay for dog care that week and eats and parking at the airport and all that.
And, that about sums up my goals. To me, it doesn’t seem like I have accomplished much, but I’ve been told more than once that I am too hard on myself. I think I want to focus this next quarter on recording the short stories, doing the videos for Patreon, and increasing my advertising. If I can, I’ll stick a couple more things in there.
What about you? Have you assessed your progress on your 2019 goals? How are you doing with them?
