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TWO PLANNING MONTHS IN

Happy March.  Get ready for it… because yes, I am going to say something very familiar…”I can’t believe this is the beginning of the end of the first quarter of a new decade”.  That was a mouthful?

Let’s get started.

How did I do last month? Come si, come sa.  The second month of planning hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked.  At the same time it wasn’t as bad as I thought either.  I got sick and that sort of effected my schedule.  I have a simple but strict morning routine.  I wake up at 6:30, slap the snooze button two or three times, thank God for another day, have quiet time or devotional, tend to a little personal business, grab a pre-workout snack, and go to the gym for an hour or more depending on how I feel.  Then I come home eat some protein and get to work.  

Unfortunately, sometimes I get a little distracted after eating and before heading to work.  Heading to work, is me going down the hall to my office and putting my butt in the chair for a few hours.  I researched successful people and their routines getting ideas for myself.  What I came up with was six hours a day to operate both of my businesses.  However, I seem to always end up working longer.  

The first quarter of the year is always a little busy for me because I’m doing buying for my lingerie store.  This is something that happens twice a year.  There are other mini buys throughout the year, but twice a year I go on buying trips for a few days.  These require me to be removed from writing,  If you’re not familiar with buying season, it’s like going to RWA or RAM twice a year with more food, wine, less sleep and lots of walking.  

When my mother and I return from a buying trip we need to decompress and enter the next phase, catalog review and placing orders.  For clarification, this is like writing and publishing a dozen books in two weeks.  Since I’ve been a published writer only once did I release a book during this time.  I made a note to never do that again.  This is where the planning part comes into play.

I was headed to Paris for a buying trip and thought since I had done everything for the book, it would be a piece of cake to complete the end of the blog tour while I was gone.  I figured the time difference would work to my advantage.  This was a major case of poor planning. The first couple of days were spent fighting jet lag and show fatigue followed by me trying to finish up posts for the blog tour.  Needless to say, the launch didn’t do as well as I expected.  My saving grace was a the BookBub ad I had during that period which got me a lot of sales.

I said all of that to say February was a real planning test and I didn’t score an A, but I didn’t fail either.  So here a few highlights.  

Plan: I didn’t finish my book.

Reality: I was going for a small novella, but it’s more like a small novel.  I’m currently at 39,000+ words, plus I have a twist I really like.  I’m about 7,000 words from the end.  I’m trying not to do a cliffhanger, but it looks like that may not happen.  I promised my readers I wouldn’t do a cliffy, but if I did, I wouldn’t let too much time pass between books.  Upside, I have a cover.

Plan: I haven’t booked any newsletter ads.

Reality: I thought I’d turned off my Facebook ad for A Southern Gentleman Two, but it was still running.  This mistake got me sales.  And a chain of strange dialog about the ad.  I really need to post about it.  In a nutshell, the way the ad was written has made over a hundred people believe it’s a post about a real couple. 

I did make an ad schedule for the rest of the year which I which goes into effect tomorro.  I also have an ad budget.  I’ll update you later on how that’s going.

Plan: I haven’t posted to my reader group as regularly as I want to.

Reality: I’m working this.  Upside, I did a mini course on using Instagram and have seen a major boost in engagement and a few new followers.  I also noticed a few sales related to some of my posts. 

Upside, because of my new Instagram posting schedule, I’m posting to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr almost daily.  Next on my list is Pinterest.

Plan: New covers for my Alex Chronicles Series.

Reality: I have created three sets of covers and still haven’t found the ones I like.  However, I have until the end of the month to make a decision.

Plan: Update my newsletter

Reality: This was on my list for March, but I did it in February.  I visited Lauren Layne’s website and saw her newsletter.  I fell in love with it, so I developed my version.  I like it and hope my readers do as well.  Another change I made which ties in with my newsletter is my logo.  I was motivated to make a change after seeing my friend Saharra K Sandhu’s new logo.  I now have a logo I like. 

Summary: I’ve done 24 things, but I still have thirty five things left for this quarter.  I know it sounds like a lot.  However, I know some of those won’t be done because they relate to a book I pushed to later in the year.  And a few are admin related [i.e., setting up ads, switching my lead magnet, updating my website, reviewing my schedule, etc.].  Those are things I need to sit down and take a couple of hours and clear off my planner.

To summarize February…it’s better than last year.  I see a plan for the rest of the year I can implement.  I also know, I’ll be way ahead of the game next year.

Next month, I’ll summarize my first quarter and tell you which planning tools have worked so far.  

Have a great month and happy spring.

30 Days In On Planning

Happy February.  It’s hard to believe we are 36 days into a new decade.  Let’s get started.

Last month I invited you to follow me on my planning journey.  One month down and I am in love with planning.  Full disclosure, I have not settled on a system, yet.  Once I do, I’ll share it with you.  

In the past, at this time of the year, I would still be looking for a calendar I liked.  I am a huge Kate Spade fan and have been using KS planners for a few years.  It’s not to say they aren’t good because they are.  

What have I learned from my first month of organized planning?  I learned to focus and  not beat myself up when I don’t get everything done on my daily to do list.   

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube channels on planning and it’s fascinating. I’m so excited to find channels on writing and planning.  I watched another Sarra Cannon video about “Kanban Boards.”  I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.  In fact, I thought she was saying something else.  But when I watched the video, I knew it was exactly what I needed to help me organize my writing life.  

A Kanban Board forces you to focus on a few goals and all the tasks required to complete them.  To be specific, here’s the Wikipedia definition: A Kanban board is one of the tools that can be used to implement Kanban to manage work at a personal or organizational level.  

The way Sarra set hers up was on a board into three months.  I like the idea of focusing on three goals.  Here are my three: 1] Publish and promote both new and backlist titles to increase average income; 2] Increase fan engagement across social media, blog, BookBub, Amazon and newsletter 10%, 15%, 30% and 3] Complete Unexpected Love #2 and start a KDP Select book.  [For privacy reasons, I didn’t disclose the financial aspects of the first goal.]

The goals and their tasks are broken down by 30, 60 and 90 days.  My head went into a tailspin and I immediately understood why Sarra suggested limiting the goals to three or maybe two.  I chose three. If you’re inclined, you can also add a personal goal.  Each month has a different color to help keep things in order.  If you’re interested, check out her video [https://heartbreathings.com/how-to-achieve-your-goals-when-youre-busy/].

How did I do the first 30 days?  I missed the mark on a few things.  Seeing all of the tasks on a board made me face my new work reality.  I sort of mixed up my stickie notes…something I’ll correct in the next quarter.  This first thirty days, I planned to rebrand a series.  I made a set of covers late last year, but when I went back to them, I started having second thoughts and made another set.  I’m not satisfied with the new set and will start on another set this month.  This indecisiveness, has caused all the tasks attached to that series, to be pushed back.  A few of the other tasks for January which I’m carrying over include some minor admin things.   

This new plan allowed me to write again.  I hadn’t written much the last quarter.  I signed up for NANO, but didn’t complete the book. I would like to blame it on the business of life, but after NANO finished, I realized it wasn’t time to complete that book.  If I’d stayed with it, it would have meant I wouldn’t get a book out until summer and I felt that was too long of a gap between releases.  My last release was in October.  

Instead, on January 13th, I know this because I wrote it in my planner, I went back to working on The Good Girl Trois [I had written 2653 words and put it aside].  I made it a point to be consistent.  I set a daily goal of 1000 words per day.  That first week was hard.  There were a few days where I barely wrote 500+ words.  And days when I did 2000+.  As of today, I made my goal for January, 15,000.  My new goal is to complete this book by the end of February.  I’m not pressuring myself, but if I stay on track, I’ll make it.  

My social media has been up and down, but that’s my fault.  I have a plan, which I need to implement. 

This year, I really want to put all of the things I’ve learned from courses and conferences into play and develop a marketing plan that’s right for me. This could mean limiting conference attendance and author signings.  My goal this year is to publish four books and build up my readership. I hear you saying, “Author events will help with readership.”  That is true, but I really want to advance and or complete two of my series.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far, is planning is no joke.  I also see why, planner girls start working on their plans in October.  I don’t like playing catch up, but I am a lot further along this year than I have been in the past.  I’m excited to see how I do this month.

See you next month.

Tracy