The last time I talked about how my break was over and it was time to get back to work on my goals, I mentioned that I'd written a bunch of them out, but needed to go through and plan them so that they weren't just pie-in-the-sky ideas. Most of the goals were big ones like "get all my stuff published on audio". That's the overarching goal, but to achieve it, I needed to break it down into smaller chunks. So, I sat down and started working on that.
I figured I'd share that with you here, and if you have any suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Maybe I could change things according to your suggestions if they seem better than my own plan (which probably couldn't be too hard. I'm not really a planner. This whole thing is kind of new to me).
Goal 1:
Publish everything by Oct 2025:
Sep: Black Angel
Sep: Digital Wizards
Sep: Pre-owned
Oct: Angels and Wizards Collection
Oct: Sunny and Gray 1
Nov: Sunny and Gray 2
Dec: The Gauntlet
Jan: A Fire in the Center of a Million Universes
Feb: Caught Up In Christmas
Mar: Irresistible Invader
Apr: Lazerfist
From what I understand, the most important thing for an author is to have a bunch of things for people to buy. That way, if they read one of your books and like it, they can then go to your catalog and buy a second one. Then a third, and so on. So, goal one is to get all of my stuff published this year. I put Oct 2025 as the finish line, but scheduled everything to come sooner. I think I can probably hit those numbers, but I may be wildly off. I don't know. Some of the books are basically ready to go, others will need some rewriting before they are ready. So, we'll see how feasible this time line is. Getting all the formats, from eBook to paperback to hardcover might be a little much in that time frame.
Goal 2:
Do Audio for everything by Dec 31, 2025
Sep-Oct: Three Vampire Weekend
Nov-Dec: Angels and Wizards
Jan-Feb: Sunny and Gray 1
Mar-Apr: Sunny and Gray 2
May-Jun: The Gauntlet
Jul-Aug: A Fire in the Center of a Million Universes
Sep-Oct: Caught Up In Christmas
Nov-Dec: Irresistible Invader
Jan-Feb: Lazerfist
This is a sort of extension of the last goal. I want to publish everything. Doing the print versions is one thing, but doing the audio is very much another thing. It involves a whole different work pattern, so I made it it's own goal. Not only that, but it's probably going to take longer than just creating the eBooks and paperbacks, etc.
I suspect that I'm going to have to make a calendar with the hours of the day assigned out to what task I will be working on. Every Tuesday at 8:30 AM, I'll record for an hour, and then at 9:30 AM I'll work on the print book, then at 10:30 AM I'll write or something like that. That's the next step in my planning. Once I've got these goals completely hammered out, I have to take my free time and piece meal it out toward achieving the goals.
Goal 3:
Write Daily
This is kind of a two part thing. First of all, I'm going to switch over from measuring my year in birthday to birthday years to regular calendar years. No more of the October to October reckoning. It's goofy and confusing. I'm the only one who can follow along. I'll stop that now and switch to regular calendar years. So, my writing goal for this birthday to birthday year was 304,475. I hit that back in June. I'm beyond that now. I'm up to 326,447 on year now. And, as we continue through to my birthday, that will continue to increase. If I get about 30,000 words per month, then it will be somewhere around 380,000 in the end.
My word count for 2024 so far is 261,488. I want to outdo my birthday to birthday year's word count with my 2024 word count. I can't make a concrete goal, though, because the birthday to birthday year isn't over yet. I've got four months left in the year in 2024 instead of just two in the birthday to birthday year...but two of the months are the same months as the birthday to birthday year gets, so the only real difference is November and December.
So, as I said, I suspect that my birthday to birthday year will be 380,000 words. Meaning that I have to eclipse that with my calendar year goal. I'm going to shoot for around 40,000 words per month in November and December. If I mange that, I should be right around 400,000 words for 2024.
Then my next goal is to beat that total in 2025.
So, let me list them out:
Birthday to birthday year goal of 380,000
2024 goal of 400,000
2025 goal of 400,000+
I'll come back and make more specific numbers for the goal once I find out how October finishes out.
How do I accomplish these lofty goals? Well, I made a little word per day chart of what I will be shooting for over the next year and change. Here's what I've got:
Oct: Write 1,000 daily
Nov: Write 1,000 daily
Dec: Write 1,250 daily
Jan: Write 1,250 daily
Feb: Write 1,500 daily
Mar: Write 1,500 daily
Apr: Write 1,750 daily
May: Write 1,750 daily
Jun: Write 2,000 daily
Jul: Write 2,000 daily
Aug: Write 2,000 daily
Sep: Write 2,000 daily
Oct: Write 2,000 daily
Nov: Write 2,000 daily
Dec: Write 2,000 daily
That's a pretty intense thing to be shooting for, really. I've almost never written 2,000 words in a day. I've done it maybe five times ever. I want to get to that level, however, and it seems like the best way is to build up with a slow increase every month until I'm there. Hopefully, it'll be kind of like weight lifting. You lift ten pounds every day, and in a while, that seems easy, so you take it up to fifteen...and so on and so on until you're lifting more than a hundred pounds.
Those are all of the very specific goals, I think. The rest are more one time things. Here are a few of those:
Construct a website for BD Anklevich with a store to buy eBooks, signed paper books, etc.
Get an email list going on the website and start a monthly newsletter.
Do some advertising with the money that I make from the podcast and the sales of books.
Get a group of first readers.
Plug myself on the podcast monthly, and ask for reviews as well.
Get the podcast on all the big podcast platforms to increase the audience
Republish the old Dunesteef episodes with my stories on the Anklecast
And maybe there should be others. I was thinking of trying to hit up Abbie Hilton and ask her what she thought I ought to work on as I continue trying to build this stuff up. What should a beginning writer be putting his effort into? What will be worth my time and what is a waste of time?
Many of those goals there involve me figuring out just what the best way to do things is. How do I make my website? What email service to I use for my mailing list? How do I get my podcast listed on Spotify? How do I get it on Google Podcasts...or whatever they're called now? Things I've got to investigate and work out. That will be the process to achieving those goals. I don't even know what they are yet, so I can't make itemized to-do lists with those goals. But I will set aside time to work toward them as well this year.
So, there you have it. That's what I'm working toward by the end of 2025. What do you think? Is there something I missed? Should I add something to the list? Is something that I'm trying to do a complete waste of time? Let me know what you think.
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