4 Seasons, 4 New Year goals for authors

Here’s my New Years resolutions, but to help make them a reality, I’m setting due dates on them: each of the four seasons. Feel free to steal them and make them yours.

1. By Spring: Stop throwing money into the void

First things first: I need to trim the fat. (And not just the bit around my waist earned from too many Christmas parties.) For example: I’m never buying another facebook ad. Its ROI was -100%. That’s right, I spent money and got 0 sales from it. But I’m not the only author with that issue, so I have come to the conclusion that facebook ads are not good for me. (They might be good for you, though, and that’s cool.) One problem I and many authors have is the sunk-cost fallacy, where we assume since we’ve already put so much into this thing, that if we give up now it’s not worth it. But that’s a trap we have to dig out of. We don’t. Cut ties, move on.

2. By Summer: Narrow down my target audience.

I am bad at this. As a new author I used to try to get my books in front of so many people that it sorts backfired: I ended up losing out in the long run because I had spent so much energy I should have just focused. I started narrowing down my audience a bit and it helped pretty much immediately. Now I’m going to try and narrow it further so I can reach more people who want to actually read the nonsense I write. I’m pretty sure I can get this done by the time beach season rolls around.

3. By Fall: Have a plan for 2021

Does that seem too early? I mean, When summer’s ending, I should be getting ready to cozy up and put on warm sweaters and curl up with a keyboard, right? I mean, yes—but I should also be setting next year’s goals. Set them early, make them detailed, and make them realistic. By summer’s end, I’m going to have a plan for the next year already ready to go. Beat that, autumn blues!

4. By Winter: Learn to market better

I have a marketing background. But even so, I’m going to take take a class, get advice from authorities, do some market research, and tweak my tactics. And then of course there’s blogs like The BookBub Partners Blog, Digital Book World, and Copyblogger. These are all great resources. I’m going to be a better marketer by this time next year.

What’s your author goals for the coming year?

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