Quarterly Goals Spring/Summer 2021 for Authors

Katlyn June 29, 2021

Video Transcript:

Today, I’m going to talk about quarterly goals. If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you will know I love my goal setting. I find it keeps me on track with what I want and need to accomplish, to keep my author career productive. For a little bit now I have put out videos of every quarter, I recap what I did the quarter before based on those goals.

[00:00:25] And I also reviewed what I am going to do in the next quarter. So the first part of this is my recap from a quarter two of 2021. So my first goal had to do with my indie books. I am moving from traditionally published books into the indie space, starting with the reverted series that I received back in 2020.

[00:00:50] This is my debut young adult paranormal series. And I am so excited to start republishing them, myself. I decided early on in this process that I am going to redraft books two and three. Book three really needs an overhaul, but I did want to finish the first draft of book two and I did that sort of, so I took a course recently by Steph Green.

[00:01:17] It’s called something about skeleton drafting. I don’t know the exact name of the course, but I will give you the link anyway. So. I had a great time with this course, and it was a little different perspective for me, for, for straps. I really struggle with first drafts. They usually, it’s usually the longest part of my process.

[00:01:39] I love outlining and I love revising. I just have an issue getting the draft down. So usually I’ll get bogged down because I am a linear writer and I’ll get bogged down with all of the details that I need to put in dialogue, setting, and character movement within a scene. So I did it a little differently this time.

[00:02:01] So I did a skeleton draft, which is basically getting everything on the page that I needed to. I skipped so many scenes, but I finished this draft so quickly. So that is a nice check mark for this goal. Part of that goal was to send it to my editor. So at this point I wanted to have a complete draft. And gone through a self-edit before sending it to my editor, which I did not do.

[00:02:26] And I also wanted to have a what’s called a lead magnet or reader magnet done as well. Didn’t do that, but I do have two really cool ideas for a lead magnet, which I would like to write in the future. So my last part of this goal was outlining a secret parameters. And I have to say I did this to another level.

[00:02:51] So I outlined drafted, edited, and now this book is with my proofreader. It is a nonfiction book, which I have not publicly talked about the topic yet, but I will have that announcement next week, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it. And you’ll also get a sneak peek of the cover. I’m so, so excited to talk to you about it because this is a very personal topic for me, but it does have to do with writing.

[00:03:19] And I have had such positive responses so far from my critique partners. And people who I’ve talked to this about. So yeah, so my second goal was to revamp my author newsletter. So this has been going on for awhile, at least in my uncomfortable feeling about my newsletter in terms of automations and things like that.

[00:03:40] I really struggled with understanding it. So I took a course by Melissa Storm recently, and that really helped out a little bit. And I also joined an amazing group on Facebook with the Newsletter Ninja think tank. So Newsletter Ninja is a book by Tammi Labrecque which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to do anything with newsletters.

[00:04:03] This book is awesome. And book two is coming out very soon. Which I am thrilled about. So I have been following this group for a little bit and they do live chats. So it’s been a really fun adventure to apply all of these tips to my newsletter. The biggest tip that I have is separating your welcome sequence from any of your magnets, because if you’ve ever done a newsletter automation, it’s very difficult to go in and change all of your sequences.

[00:04:34] If you have to change one of the emails. So I found this to be an amazing tip. So basically once I have more magnets, I’m going to have a very short automation for the magnet. And then it’ll feed right into my welcome sequence, which I really worked hard on. And I’m not 100% happy with it, but I think it’s a thousand percent better than what I had.

[00:04:57] So that’s a lot of fun and I am taking her Newsletter Ninja course coming up in July. So I am so excited about that. I am obsessed with courses, and this is one that I have been waiting for a little bit now. The last goal I had for a quarter two of 2021 is kind of a weird one. I think I had an idea in my head that I wanted to back away a little bit from a lot of my socials and YouTube, and I wanted to focus on this book that I described in goal one.

[00:05:29] I didn’t really set myself up for a good goal. Like I had growth and I really just focused on growth on YouTube, which moving forward, I’m not going to, I’m going to focus on growth for all of my socials and my newsletter, just so I can track that because I don’t remember much. And I’m not going to remember how many followers I had an Instagram or anything like that

[00:05:50] three months later. So while I tend to back away from anything that doesn’t involve books when I’m in book production mode, which is usually drafting or editing. My consistency did take a hit on my socials. And so to my growth, which I expected, I did try out shorts for a series. A shorts is sort of the alternative for TikTok on YouTube.

[00:06:13] And then I did actually use those on TikTok, and I don’t know how I feel about them moving forward. I really enjoyed Tik Tok as a user and I don’t think I have the time currently to be able to build that up. But I do like to repurpose my content in that way to try to find readers elsewhere. So I’m unsure on how I want to continue to do shorts necessarily in the future.

[00:06:35] But I think I’m going to work more on Instagram reels and Tik Tok I’m going to keep going with that, but sort of on the side, that’s not going to be a main goal of mine. So those are my three goals for quarter two of 2021. I feel okay about them. My biggest excitement does come from the book that I am publishing, which leads into the goals that I have for quarter three of 2021.

[00:06:55] My first goal is to prepare and publish my first nonfiction book. Oh, it’s so exciting. So I do have a monetary amount that I’d like to reach. I took a course last year, the HB 90 course by Sarra Cannon and she recommended having a good, better, and best when it comes to the goal. So I do have those numbers in mind, a good goal, a better goal, and a best goal.

[00:07:18]I will not be discussing that because everyone thinks of money differently. And I don’t believe in comparison itis. When it comes to author businesses, everyone has their own lives and money and things like that. So we’re just going to leave it as preparing and publishing my first non-fiction book. So a lot of the tasks within my

[00:07:38] specific goal, are publishing and marketing tasks. So this book will be released in the coming quarter. So I do have tasks such as uploading to all the vendors for pre-order, which I’ve never done before. So I know that’s going to take a little bit of time. I am releasing this book in the first iteration, a textbook

[00:07:58] and a workbook and I’m releasing them in multiple formats. So for the textbook and workbook, I’m going to release them in digital and paperback. And I’m also going to release the textbook in hardback. So that’s a lot of learning for me to do. Also, I have to prepare a cover reveal and early copies for my patrons, advanced reader copies for newsletter subscribers.

[00:08:21] To be honest, I can’t rely on my social channels to do that for me. In the past, it’s not worked out that great and I really want to give more to one, the people who are graciously offering money every month to me on my Patreon page and also for my newsletter subscribers. Putting it out on social media, I may get a hit or miss when it comes to people who are interested or willing to give reviews or wanting to talk about my book.

[00:08:49] So the moral of this story is if you want to know everything first, my Patreon page and my newsletter subscribers do get a lot of this stuff first, actually they get everything first. If you’re interested in that those are your options, I will, of course always post on a specific day to the public, on my social channels and everything like that.

[00:09:09] But if you’d love to get more from me sooner, I would so, so appreciate the support, but obviously it’s not necessary, especially Patreon. In the past, there’s been issues with advanced reader copies on Patreon that is why I said early copies. So any of my patrons will get early copies of my books in specific tiers and they are not at all obligated to give a review.

[00:09:35] That is just a thank you for me. When it comes to advanced reader copies, which I will offer to my newsletter subscribers, those tend to expect a review in return. But there is no issues with money exchange at all. I just wanted to clarify that. So after I uploaded to the vendors and I start sharing the cover, I do want to get physical copies of my books, which I have never done in the past.

[00:10:00] Cause I’m only traditionally published. And I usually just get final copies from my publisher when I do have the books that have physical copies. As a digital first author, most of the time I do not have paperbacks of my books or physical copies. So I want to review all of the physical copies, as I mentioned, paperback and hardback to make sure they look good because I am formatting them, myself, which is also another task.

[00:10:22] So that’s part of my tasks. And also I want to do YouTube and podcast episodes about the book and how I self-published that book. Do you let me know if you have any specific topics that you would love to know about? I’m not going to list all of these tasks, but those are the big ones. So I’m going to be doing much, much more in between and probably go over that in my review for next quarter.

[00:10:47] Moving on to the second goal is to prepare the first book in my debut, young adult paranormal trilogy. The one that was reverted back to me, I’m going to prepare that for pre-order. At this moment I am releasing that book in October of 202 1 so my tasks for that, because the book is almost done. I’ve been through a proofread.

[00:11:09] I just have to go over it again and probably do another final, final edit. I need to do that reader magnet. The one that I was supposed to do in quarter two, which I didn’t, but that’s going to be a huge part of my publication. So my intent is to have a reader magnet, probably a short story. So my first one is more for

[00:11:31] cold leads, which basically will be people who know nothing about the series. Maybe nothing about me. I want to use this for promotions. I want to be a part of list building situations. So this one is going to be a sort of prequel short story for the series. And then I want to do one which is considered more of a warm lead, which will appear at the end of Soul Taken and

[00:11:57] only people who get Soul Taken will be able to find this book. I’ve taken so many courses and listened to so many authors who talk about reader magnets and I think those are the best ones for now, because I do want to draw more people into my series, which are those cold leads.

[00:12:13] And I do want to reward people who enjoyed the series by giving them, I think right now I’m working on an epilogue. So it’s actually a scene that I had cut from the first iteration of the book, but I think it’ll give a little more insight to some of the characters I’m playing with the idea of doing it through a different perspective.

[00:12:33] I have a lot of ideas, so we’ll see what I end up doing. And I’ll let you know next quarter. And most of the tasks are similar to the previous goal where I have to upload them all to vendors. And hopefully it doesn’t take me as long as it does the first time I am starting my release with an ebook and paperback first, there is no hard back right now

[00:12:51] for this series. And then that will all culminate at the end of September, which is the end of quarter three, where I will have the finalized version uploaded to vendors and up for pre-order. I believe the very, very last day I want to do that is September 30th. So that’s legit the end of the quarter. So that will all culminate there.

[00:13:12] And if I do any extra stuff, you’ll hear about it next quarter. So for this quarter, I am only doing two main goals, as you can probably tell there are a lot of tasks that I need to be doing, and I’ve done this new thing this quarter, where I am focusing on one book at a time, one project at a time. And while I’m getting a little

[00:13:32] antsy to move on. This is the first time I’ve ever self-published a book and being a publisher is so super hard, especially when you’re just a one woman show. So I am taking my time and I think once I have a lot of my systems in place, I will be able to move a little bit quicker or start to do things a little bit more on top of each other.

[00:13:53] But for right now, until that book is up for pre-order until any of the books are, are up for pre-order. I am not starting anything else. So I hope you are as excited as I am. As I mentioned, I am talking about my non-fiction book starting next week, you will hear more about it. The cover reveal is coming in July.

[00:14:10] Hopefully someone unboxing’s to see the book. I am excited for that one. So let me know in the comments below what you are doing next quarter, do you do quarterly goals? What are you hoping to achieve? I would love to hear from you. And as always, if you liked this video to give it to them, hit that subscribe button in the little notification bell next to it.

[00:14:29] So you know the next time I upload, and I’ll see you soon.