Long time readers will know that I don’t like RESOLUTIONS. There’s too much focus on one day in the year, and there’s too much looking back on a previous year with regret, with a false determination to DO BETTER next year.
And it’s all too easy for the resolutions to fall flat.
Like: “This year, I’m going to lose x weight”. It’s a focussed target, which might appear to be good, but it’s a digital target. You will either succeed, or you will do the ‘F’ word – FAIL. And failure is a destructive state of mind.
We don’t like destructive things – we only like constructive things. So my resolutions are NOT resolutions – they’re aims, or goals. If I don’t reach those goals, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, because as you will have seen if you’ve read my ‘looking back‘ post, there’s still a lot to celebrate.
So let’s get started.
BOOKS – FICTION
Book 2 of my ‘Body’ series will be published in the Spring of 2021 – Body In The Hut. It is at first draft stage, and in the next 3 months, it will be edited, proofread, beta-read, re-edited, re-proofed, and published.
Book 3 of the ‘Body’ series will be published in the Summer of 2021 – Body Under The Pier. This will temporarily conclude the series, although if feedback is good, it might continue.
Book 1 of the ‘Death’ series – Death In Print – will be published in the Autumn of 2021. This new series will feature D.C.I. Danni Monroe, and will be more of a police procedural. A crime author finds people close to him are dying.
Book 2 of the ‘Death’ series – Death At Christmas – will be published before Christmas 2021. D.C.I. Danni Monroe investigates a serial killer.
BOOKS – NON-FICTION
I shall be writing a book on efficient storytelling and publication. It will be based on the publishing schedule of this year, and it will show how a novel can be planned, written, rewritten, edited and published in 3 months. It may or may not be called “The Efficient Author: How to Write and Publish Four Novels a Year”. Similarly, there’s another non-fiction book on the back burner on the subject of “How To Rescue Your Manuscript”, showing how I took old, unworkable manuscripts and made them publishable.
Of the two, the Efficient Author book will take precedence.
BUSINESSES
Each of the businesses will continue to offer writing support services, although the publishing offer for Hard Pressed Books will be promoted. I presume we’ll be running the course which was cancelled from Swanwick last year – “Being a Full-Time Author in the Gig Economy”. Booking is open for the summer school, so the organisers are assuming we’ll be able to go ahead in August.
MARKETING
For 2021, I want to concentrate on newsletters:
- A personal monthly newsletter (me: future, present, past – books coming out, what I’m doing, what I’ve done)
- A monthly newsletter (business: for HPB / Novelmakers / Writer.Support – self-publishing and publishing business)
Both newsletters will need funnels to encourage readers to sign up.
I will also investigate direct sales through the website and BookFunnel https://bookfunnel.com
VLOGS / VODCASTS
- Continue with the Afternoon Tea weekly vlog with Anita
- Move forward with the lighter Lone Star Reviews – amusing, light-hearted look at one-star book reviews. AND use YouTube #shorts for 1-min videos of Lone Star reviews, designed for viewing on phones. Maybe even feature these vodcasts on Patreon?
- (Maybe) progress the Opening Pages Vodcast – reviewing the opening pages of books, although there is a danger of offence to the author. I need to think about this.
- Think about what content I can push over to Patreon, maybe on a ‘per-story’ basis. Maybe also include Ko-Fi as a means of selling my writing, as Joanne Harris has done. I think we need to move to a ‘begging bowl’ income stream for small fiction.
WORKFLOW
I need to work smarter – sometimes, my own personal deadlines slip. No deadlines for contract work have slipped, but I need to have a strict, calendar-based schedule for marketing and promotion.
FINANCIAL TARGET
Royalties: without revealing numbers, 2019 showed an increase of 33.5% in royalties over the figures for 2018. 2020 showed an increase of 67.3% over the royalty figures for 2019, which is double the increase seen over the previous year.
So next year, I shall be looking for a similar increase on the increase. Which means, I’ll want to see at least a 100% increase on this year’s figures.
I want to double this year’s royalties in 2021.
That’s my target.
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