Category: Pink Pad by Tracy Reed

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

Rebranding…First Quarter Recap

It’s hard to believe we are five days into the second quarter.  I don’t know about you, but the first quarter didn’t quite go as I planned.  However, I think if I didn’t have a production schedule and new daily agenda, I would not be as far along as I am in my rebranding journey.  

Yes, I missed the deadline I set to release my book, but I had a very good reason.  I didn’t like the ending.  Let me back up.  I like my book.  I even feel secure in saying I love the story.  However, in the back of my mind it felt like there was something missing.  I sent it to a beta reader and she loved it.  It’s one thing for a reader to say they like or even love your work.  But if you get that gnawing feeling, then you need to address it.  

The other reason I changed the ending, was because I asked an established romance writer and a reader how they felt about cliffhangers.  Both had the same answer, “Don’t like them.”  I’ve been called out via review by readers not liking my cliffhangers.  One of them was my cousin.  I didn’t know she was reading my books until she’d read quite a few and posted her dislike of the cliffhanger.  

I thought using a cliffhanger at the end of a book was a clever marketing tool to get the reader to buy the next book.  Apparently, I missed the mark and pissed off a few readers.  

So on the eve or a few weeks before sharing my book, I decided to make a pretty drastic decision to re-write the ending.  

I had written what I thought was a nice little cliff hanger, but even I had to admit it was lacking something.  know what’s going to happen in the next book and wrote the end based on that.  But I forgot, the reader isn’t in my head.  Those words and plots are all mine.

Now I’m starting out the second quarter with a minor re-write.  If I don’t call it major, it won’t overwhelm me.  I think the ending is better and still sets up another book if I choose to continue with these characters or pick another pair from the story.

Let’s do a quick recap.

First quarter goals:

Release updated covers…6 out of 7 released [Cover seven ties into the new website and my upcoming release.]

Update website….Tweaking…launching this month

Update newsletter…Done

Bonus goals…format ebook interiors with paired down back matter [I sort of over did it on the excerpts.}  

I also reformatted the ebook lay out pushing the acknowledgements, dedication and a few other things to the back.  This gives the reader more story to sample.]

New Tagline and color theme

Graphics for new book…done

Did you make your goals last quarter?  If not, ask yourself why and what can you do to complete them this quarter.

Next month, I’ll share the new website.  It’s different, but very me.

To everyone attending Cal Dreamin’ enjoy this time hanging with your friends.  I hope you get everything out of it you were hoping for.  

See you next month.