How do you decide what goals to set?

For my next installment of 

The Authorpreneur Almanac:

365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship

I'm still on the subject of goal setting. 

How do you decide what goals to set for yourself?

The Vision: 

Ask yourself where you'd like to be in future. What does success mean to you? What does it look and feel like? It will be different for everyone. Allow yourself to daydream for a moment. Think big but not massive, the point is to change your own reality, not the world.

For me it's about freedom. It's about using my writing as a gateway to travel, live wherever I like and not be tied to someone else's schedule (except perhaps the airline's). It's about exploring my creativity, sharing it and enabling others, through those experiences, while still able to have a few luxuries and not to worry about comfortable shelter and good food.

Ask yourself what you are passionate about? If you didn't have to think about money or responsibilities, what would you do with your life? This is a great starting point to establish a clear vision. For you it could be music, or art, or games, or food etc.

Don't burden yourself with questions of why, or how, just imagine it and focus on it. However it is important to be practical and pragmatic and to accept that it will never be what you expect or what you want right now. 

It will change as you grow, develop and learn but that in no way diminishes having a vision for the visions own sake.

Themes:

Are there different elements to the vision? Are there multiple routes to get there? Identify the possible paths that could take you there, but be sensible and realistic - winning the lottery is not allowed to be on your list. Only pick one theme, you can choose another one once you finish the first.

This Way:

Choose a path that you can break down into lots of small tasks. You can't do all of them and shouldn't beat yourself up about it, the point is regular, focused, action. Sweat the small stuff in this case, less is more and one last cliché just to slam the point home (see what I did there) it reminds me of the old adage; 'Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.'

 

Daily actions:

Here are some examples of small, simple actions that I completed during Operation Author:

·   Scheduled plenty of tweets up to the New Year so I don't have to think about it over the Christmas break.

I also completed NaNoWriMo

My third action was to order copies of the book - they'll be delivered mid October.


How do you decide what to prioritise?

Serials and decisions...

Last week for:

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming a Successful Author

I started to serilaize Solomon's Secrets. I didn't quite keep up with a daily update, other things got in the way. However, I did still complete my seven actions for the week.

As well as publishing the first 5 chapters on here I also finished the second draft of Solomon's Secrets and made some decisions.

I made a decisions about the crowdfund. I'm not afraid to admit that I bit of more than I could chew when I set my original target! After meeting with Fundsurfer and looking at the options, I've now reduced the fund amount to £1,000 and extended the deadline to 28th July. The event is cancelled and I'm focusing on publishing alone.

https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/independently-publishing-solomons-secrets-event

I've done a new update on the blog on here too:

https://www.fundsurfer.com/node/77/updates

If you know anyone who likes mystery adventure stories, with some history, archaeology, suspense and surprising plot twists, tell them to check out #SolomonsSecrets and help me get it publsihed by getting advanced copies through the crowd fund: https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/independently-publishing-solomons-secrets-event

Print books: £10 (inc P&P)
E-Books: £3

In the meantime, look out for more chapters here as I 

continue to serialize the first part of the book.

Thanks :)

Keys, Wine Cellars, Crowdfunding and My Number One Fan...

This week I've found any excuse to be outside in the sun and away from the computer.
My seven actions for:

 Operation Author: 365 Actions to Succeed as an Author 

have mostly involved preparing for my crowdfunding pitch to publish Solomon's Secrets and host a big event celebrating independent creative talent in Bristol .

I started completing the fields on the form for my Fundsurfer crowdfunding pitch. 

It's not yet published on line, I'll be starting the clock on 5th May which gives me a couple of weeks to get the rest of it together.

I went out into Bristol with my camera and took lots of images of locations featured in the book to use in the video. I also had a look at some venues for the launch event.

I've provisionally booked Averys wine cellars for the event and planned it for Friday 5th September at 8pm. 

Averys are a wine merchants that have been operating in Bristol since 1793. Under the shop they have this amazing 18th century brick cellar that I guess would originally have been used to store barrels of wine. It's really atmospheric and would look awesome lit up with candles.

This is a picture from their website of the space. 

My event wouldn't be a sit down affair like this, it would be more of a mingle and a few tables dotted about.

I've been doing the sums and working out what's possible so I can add it to the pitch. The event will include plenty of wine (sourced from Averys), food (provided for by local caterers), some live music (by a local band) and pop up theatre performing short scenes from Solomon's Secrets (by a local acting troop).

I've been recording audio and some short video clips to stitch together for a video pitch. I'll be including some sketches of my characters. Here's Sasha Blake:

And here's a short piece of audio about Sasha, unedited, to be stitched into my video pitch.

 https://soundcloud.com/amy-morse-2/meet-sasha-blake

I've enlisted my husband Graham to help make the video, I'll share it here too when it's done.

Other actions have been: 

I had an idea about some guerrilla marketing for Solomon's Secrets and went around some junk shops to find some old keys. I have been making tags with them. I'll be leaving them all over the place and asking people to tweet me if they find a key for a chance to win a copy of the book.

Another action:
I had previously had a Facebook page for The Bronze Box and finally got around to having a Facebook Author page. Check it out and like it for regular updates:

https://www.facebook.com/AmyCFitzjohn

Action 6: 
I read a really useful e-book  'A Weekend of Book Marketing' by Duolit and followed their tips. I've created a profile for my Number 1 Fan. By having an idea of who my ideal customer/reader is I can then be a lot more targeted in my marketing. I can select blogs to guest for and publications to write for based on the sort of things that may appeal to my target customer. Here's a profile. I've highlighted keywords:

Action 7:
I created a CV just for my writing and have registered with several freelance job boards

What marketing advice would you offer to other writers?