Quick Review of 2016 Goals

Before I start, Good, Bad & Sexy is up for pre-order for 99¢ at all the vendors now!

Amazon Kindle / B&N Nook /  ibooks / Kobo / Google Play

I’m going to do a quick review my two main goals from my 2016 business plan,  including where I met my goals, exceeded them and where I fell short.

Okay let’s go:

Books: FELL SHORT

I planned to write three full length books and a novella.
I succeeded in writing and releasing one novella. SUCCESS
I wrote one full length book, but held off publishing it until June of 2017 in a revised marketing plan. SUCCESS AND FAIL. I decided that the one book I was writing was too long for a single novel and decided to write three full-length connected books. (My editor agrees and thinks it’s my best work yet—we’ll see if that’s true.) Changing the strategy midstream was a creative decision, but there’s cost to that on the business side of things. It slowed my production for 2016 significantly.
I failed to write Ram’s book, Primal Magic, in the Wing Slayer Series. FAIL. And it bothers me every single day, but I have to finish this Savaged Trilogy.
My conclusion? Pretty plans get shot to hell by creative needs sometimes. But more seriously, business plans are a document meant to guide, not lock us in. I think writing the Savaged Trilogy will work out long term, but there will be some short term pain to make it happen. And this is part of taking the big risk for big rewards.

Financial Goals: SUCCESS.

My 2015 income had a projected drop. So for 2016 I wanted to increase that by 25%. I exceeded this goal dramatically.
The reason? Marketing and Strategy. A chunk of that marketing and strategic plan began in 2015, so much of this is long term planning.
My conclusion? Marketing and strategy are important to a long term career. But it’s not as important as the books themselves.

Some thoughts:

I believe in a business plan. I have mine in a less formal format this year, but it’s still written out. My publishing plan, financial plan and marketing plan. It’s all fluid and can change, but I know what I need to be doing and what goals I’m working toward.
I believe in big goals. I hate failure—it’s painful, scary and sometimes humiliating. But I have learned how to succeed from my failures.
I have too many “rabbit holes.” Rabbit holes are the things that distract me from what I should be doing—writing. This year the whole election was a nonstop series of rabbit holes. I kept clicking on news articles to read and videos to watch instead of writing. Avoid Rabbit Holes at all costs! Right now, Wizard will walk by and call out, “Rabbit Hole” if he sees me doing it.
Life is not a Rabbit Hole we can avoid. 2016 was filled with medical crap and one major scare that turned out fine. This year is starting out with Wizard having surgery at the end of the month. Life happens and we just have to change and adapt as it comes, and so should our business plans.
Marketing and Strategy are even more important as the e-book market is slumping and sales are falling off dramatically for most authors I know. Readers aren’t just one-clicking anymore. We have put that book in front of them and that takes marketing and strategy.
I will always wish I could write faster and more efficiently.
And this is for all of you. Dream big, then break that down into goals and go for it. You can do this!