Yes, it’s that new year post…

I bet you’ve read loads of these New Year posts already in 2019, but this is probably as much for me as it is for you, so here goes!

You’ll notice that this post is a bit later than the majority of goal-setting posts. That’s partly because I’ve been surrounded by family until today. It’s been lovely, but also noisy and not really conducive to thinking! 😉

Last year’s goals:

• Work smarter, not harder 
• Try some new things 
• Get fitter 

And how did I do? Weeeelllll…

I did work smarter, but also harder (oh dear!). You see, I put ‘try some new things’ into practice, and it kind of took off…

To be more specific, after batting ideas back and forth, I started co-writing with an online and now also IRL friend, Paula Harmon. It was only meant to be one book at first (honest guv), but about halfway through writing said book we both realised that we had a series on our hands of at least 3 books. It’s been fantastic fun, but also haaaaard work to get 4 books out in a year (especially when we’d only bargained for one!). In addition to that, I’ve published 2 more Pippa books, as well as a Halloween Sherlock, the third in the Sherlock & Jack series, A Phoenix Rises (OK that went live on January 1 but I did all the WORK in 2018!), and also producing a couple of commissioned pieces.

So yes, it’s been a mostly successful year book-wise (certainly the best so far), but also hectic. One thing that’s been great is that I now work with just one school, tutoring there part-time but doing more hours. But yet again, exercise and general looking-after-myself has been absolutely rubbish.

So what shall I make my three aims for 2019?

• Work smarter, NOT harder. This year I will really try hard to do it! In 2018 I published 8 books and 2 box sets (it was the year of Book 3s). This year I will aim to publish fewer books but launch and market them better. It was such a scramble to get everything done last year that I haven’t promoted as well as I could. When I actually plan stuff, like 2018’s Bookmas promotion, it works! Plus I will aim to clear my backlog of books. I have two waiting to be edited which I wrote in 2017 and didn’t tackle in 2018 due to lack of time. I may also look into things like delegating tasks to a VA.
• Try some new things – but not too many! Last year I had a go at Facebook ads, which were sporadically successful, and also got Amazon ads working in the UK, which has really boosted the proportion of sales I make there. One of my draft books is a bit of a genre sidestep, so I’m looking forward to polishing and marketing that, and seeing how it does. I’d like to continue co-writing, and possibly introduce a new series which may or may not be a spinoff from Caster & Fleet. Plus I might try a couple of books in large print editions, as a different market.
• Get fitter, and keep that aim in mind! That speaks for itself really – I’ve jumped into the car instead of walking so many times in the last months of 2018, because it’s cold, or wet, or I want to finish doing whatever and it’ll be quicker. No excuses this year! 10,000 steps today and onward…

So there we go. Pretty much the same as last year, only more so!

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The featured image is Calendar* by Dafne Cholet, and it is shared under Creative Commons license 2.0. No changes were made.