Writing, Blogging and Sales Goals

With the new year upon us, I have come up with some goals for writing, blogging and sales. I have decided to forego the usual resolutions this year and set goals. My long-term goal is to be able to only work part-time or not at all on my now full-time job by the year 2015. That goal had originally been set for June of 2013, at the time my youngest would graduate but I don't feel at this time that this is an attainable goal. In other words, I need to have books supporting me instead of me supporting them in order to quit my job or cut back to part-time hours. So I have set the following goals for both my JGDS series (you can check out the JGDS blot here or the JGDS website here for more information) as well as my other writings:

1. Blog at least twice a week. (CORRECTED SCHEDULE)
(Blogging schedule will be something like this:
Mondays and Thursdays - Writing announcements and other info.
Tuesdays - open or repostings or linking back to other's blog postings of interest
Wednesdays - special postings from students (Wednesday Weekly Young Writers Writing Questions (WWYWWQ) - I will try to answer students' questions about the writing process or problems they encounter during their writing class, writing club or just in general to their personal writing.
Fourth Monday and Wednesday of month - Guest posts
Fridays - Book reviews

2. Have guest bloggers at least twice a month as well as appear on other's blogs throughout the year - (I'm scheduled to be on Barbara Ehrentreu's blog on the 26th of this month; will have a promotional post for Karen Cioffi up on the 3rd of January and am trying to have Leslie Dubois author of Ain't No Sunshine guest in February, who will also be an exhibitor with me at the SCASL conference in March. I'm trying to schedule the other who will be at the SCASL with Leslie (aka Sybil Nelson author of the Priscilla the Great series) author, Sarah Renee for February as well. This will be a bit trickier since I'm late on schedulding guests for January but hopefully starting in February I will have at least two guests a month.) Schedule will be guests the last week of the month, Monday and Wednesday, and I'll have librarians, teachers, YA and children's authors (hopefully).

3. Hold more contests to hopefully draw in readers and boost sales.

4. Write the next four state stories in the first three weeks of January (clear the table of what will be coming out for the year)

5. Write something every day - whether it be 15 minutes or an hour, but I will write every day. (I started a new story on Friday, December 30th, that I'm anxious to see where it goes, so that may be something I'll work through and possibly publish later this year).

6. Do whatever it takes to have consistent monthly sales of 15 of each title available. (This number seems low but considering my sales goals last year for the 10 titles available were extremely low, this is jumping point. I'd really like to see 25 of each title sell each month but I don't want to be disappointed too much when I don't meet my sales goal. The biggest problem with my numbers is that I can't accurately gauge my total sales since two of my books are still under 4RV Publishing and won't come out of contract until May of this year and June of next year, so the only sales I can depend on right now with those two titles are actual in-person/email/paypal sales directly through me. I'm hoping by having my QR codes available at live events for instant availability of the stories will help boost the sales some as well as offering a giveaway related to the book if purchase is made from the QR code at the event.)


I was shooting for five goals but ended up with six. This will be a start to the year and in six months, I can always re-evaluate and see where I need to make changes or adjustments.

What are some of your writing goals/challenges this year? Leave a comment and be entered for an ebook version of one of my non-state books - "The Proposal" (an April Fools Day story), "The Tulip Kiss", "Bride-and-Seek" (available soon), or "Butterfly Halves" (available soon). Comments made through the middle of January will go in the random drawing. The more individuals who comment, the more drawings I'll do - up to 4 total. See you in the postings - E :)

Happenings for October/November

During the next 4 to 6 weeks, there will be a lot occurring for both the JGDS series (see that blog) as well as for my other stories.

I will be participating in a sort of blog tour several times in October and November, hosting authors from the Honey Bee Authors blog as well as have some postings about my upcoming releases there; Geography Awareness week, the Sugarfoot festival (where I hope to announce that Finally Home is in proof copy order status), the SCISA teachers' conference in Columbia, SC; GIS Day in Charlotte, NC; the Savannah Children's book festival in Savannah, GA; and of course the release of four other short stories that had been previously published as ebooks. This is exciting because it means Heather will have four more covers for my stories in that time and I will be getting my name out there more and more.

I am still participating in the Writers on the Move monthly blog postings and this month's article is on revising/revisions (keeping in theme with my almost completed revisions of Finally Home. Check out that article on Wednesday on the Writers on the Move blog. Hopefully you all will gain some insight into the revision process.

Next month's posting will be tied in to Geography Awareness week which is November 13 through the 19.

Revisions are almost completed on Finally Home and I hope to have to Heather this weekend for formatting for both print and ebook. I hope to at least get the story ebook published by the 21st of October and print published shortly after that (at least proof copy ordered by then so that I can release it right before Halloween, since it is set around that time). I am trying to come up with a contest for the release of Finally Home to tie it in to Halloween, but am at a loss right now. I will continue working on a contest and make that announcement as soon as I can. Please just keep checking back to see what is going on with Finally Home and release contest. Spook you all in the postings - E :)