Yearly Bookish Goals

The tail end of 2016 was a pivotal point for me in SO many bookish ways! Some sort of switch flipped with my outlook on life, and my permanent take on goal setting. I’ve been writing for years, but kind of just kept to myself about the whole shebang. Aside from a few friends and family members, not a soul in the world knew my name as an author.

It wasn’t until I released Aggravated Momentum in the Fall of 2016 that I got a boost of confidence in my writing and decided to start putting myself out there. (It’s still my favorite book of all my works too BTW!) At the end of October 2016 I started this blog. Then at the tail end of November 2016 I started my Twitter account, my FB Author Page, my Amazon Author Page, and an Instagram account, AND I actually started logging on and updating all of my reads on Goodreads.

To shorten my story… At the end of 2016 I started building my Author platform!

I can’t believe it’s been a full year since I decided to center my toes on that exhilarating starting line to a real writing career!  Now more than ever, I completely understand the concept that, ‘successful writing a marathon, not a sprint.’ In so many ways I still feel like a toddler, taking tiny little calculated baby steps every single day toward the finish line. It’s a slow climb, and I’ve enjoyed every single pebble in passing. I still have a long way to go, but the difference one year has brought is insanely exciting!

Just about this time last year I sat myself down and actually wrote a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in 2017 and beyond. It was the first time in my entire life that I’d actually done that! (I know, I know… why did it take me until my 30s to figure this necessity of life out?)

Anyhow, my list wasn’t a resolution at all.  I was already set to work at my goals, and if anything they were more of a lifestyle change… This pivotal point just so happened to fall at the very time of year that people set utterly unpractical New Years resolutions that they usually don’t stick to for more than a couple months, if that. I even wrote a post a bout it called Why make resolutions when you’re already making your dreams come true!?

Looking back now in reflection I actually nailed EVERY SINGLE thing I set my mind to for this year! I set my goals as challenging, yet practical. It all felt like a lot at the time, but that was totally fine, because if it wasn’t big goals then I knew I’d slack off and let my progress grow stagnant. Here’s a short list of the goals I had set for and accomplished in 2017:

• Read at least 50 books.  I set the magical 2017 TBR number at 50 because there are 52 weeks in a year, yet that’s kind of an ugly number. I wanted a nice even clean number lol. I get that tons of book bloggers shoot for a hundred in a year and try to read a book every couple days, but come on now. I said practical goals, right? Being a mom of two young kids who aren’t yet in school all day, but are still old enough for T-ball, swim class, toddler time, preschool, and summer camps… along  with my part time ‘day job’, dedication to wifelyness, and book writing… lets just say I figured that reading a book a week was pushing myself.  I’m proud to say that as of today Goodreads announced my year of books at a shining number of 51!!!  Wahooo, go reading goals!
• Finish and publish my (at the time) work in progress Search For Maylee. On Oct. 6th 2017 Search For Maylee was released, but I didn’t stop there!  I also wound up releasing a two book short story collection called the Time Wasters as well as the first Vol. of a suspenseful short story collaboration The Suspenseful Collection.
• Build up the Blog to over 1000 followers and Twitter to at least 2000. This goal was tricky. I actually had started these accounts the same time as my Facebook and Instagram accounts, but I knew that it would be way too time consuming to build them all at a rapid pace. So I picked the two that I felt where more important to work on right out the gate and focused mainly on that. Awesomely enough, I nailed these goals too!  As of today I have 1220 WordPress followers, and 2495 twitter followers!
• Look into and dabble some with Freelance. I actually ended up landing my very first ever Freelance job, and I love it more than I ever would have imagined loving a job!!!  The Conscious Talk Magazine is a fresh new mag that I’ve been writing for since the very first issue was released on the last day in Sept 2017.  So far I have 23 articles published. The fellow writers for the Mag are ALL so amazing, and I’m so excited to watch it continue to grow and flourish!

Now, for 2018… What shall my goals be?  I’m thinking something like this:

• Read: at least 50 books AGAIN for the second year in a row.
• Write and Publish: books two and three of the start in my New Age Lamian Trilogy.
• Freelance: Continue to Grow at the Conscious Talk Magazine, as well as finding and working on a local project of sorts. I’d like to try writing copy, but will definitely explore my options, before settling on a goal that particular!
• Social Media Growth: I’d like to continue a steady incline here on WordPress as well as Twitter, but plan to spend more time growing my Facebook and Instagram presence.  I want to see each of those accounts at least double in size and interactive activity. My biggest social media goal for 2018 will be in Goodreads though!!  I want to triple my friend list as well as my followers (wish me luck, and if I’m not already your friend there then please oh please let me know!  Lets connect on Goodreads friends!!)
• Book Marketing:  This is my MAIN FOCUS FOR 2018! My audience has had a steady growth in 2017 so I really want to really focus marketing my stuff in 2018. I’m officially making it a goal to grow my email list, book tours and promos, Social Media collaborations and book campaigns, build a strong presence in book clubs, volunteer for a youth event of sorts, do at least two signings, schedule/sign up for local events to show a face in (be it Library or otherwise), get back to querying agents for future works, and again… spend much much much more needed time on Goodreads!

There we have it!!  I hope I haven’t left out anything big lol!!

Good luck with your goals, book nerds!!  I know I’ll need all the luck I can get too!!