3 Steps to Planning Your Year by Kitty Bucholtz
December 9, 2023 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Goal Setting, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, writing
There are a lot of ways to plan out your year. I’ve spent most of the last two decades doing very detailed planning that got right into what I’d end up doing each week. I decided on the big tasks and goals, and then broke them down into quarters, then months, then weeks. Then each week I would work on those smaller tasks on whatever days seemed to work best in the moment.
But sometimes you need to walk away from the granular so you can stay focused on the big picture. If that’s what you’re looking for, I can help you get your year planned in three easy steps.
- Do a brain dump of every single thing you can think of that you’d like to do this year. Add to it every single thing you can think of that you know is already going to be on your calendar. (Weddings, babies, vacations, writers conferences, everything.) Also, write down the things you need to do for yourself in order to make it through the year in a mentally and physically healthy way. (Yup, talking self-care here. Mental health day each month? Lunch with a friend on a regular basis? Exercise?)
- Now pick the #1 task/goal you really want to do even if nothing else gets accomplished. The very most important. After that one, pick one or two more that you really want to accomplish.
- Now break down those top 1-3 tasks into chunks. Look at your calendar to see where you have those other big life events, and plan around them. (Be sure to include “white space” for traveling, un/packing, planning, etc.) Write the first bits of what you need to do into your calendar for the first 1-3 months. As you get those smaller tasks done, add more as you go along. Now you won’t be overwhelmed with a year’s worth of stuff you want to do, but you can still stay on track to finish your top goals.
I hope this helps you get started on how you’d like to spend 2024. I’m getting more and more excited about the new year the closer it gets! See you on the other side! Happy New Year!
Some of Kitty’s Books
How to Do a Year in Review by Kitty Bucholtz
November 9, 2023 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as business of writing, Goal Setting, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, PlanningOne thing we hear a lot of this time of year when we talk about annual planning is that we need to do a “year in review.” We’re told to make note of what worked this past year, what was more difficult than expected, and to decide what we’ll continue in the next year and what we’ll stop.
But what’s the best way to look at it?
If I sit here and think for a few seconds, I would say this past year has been tremendously difficult. (Just shy of “It sucked!”)
If I think about it for a minute, I remember than I got to travel three times this year – three times more than I have since the Covid pandemic began. That’s a win! But the rest of my life still sucked.
But if I get something to write with (pen and paper, computer file, phone note) and close my eyes and try to go through my whole year, looking at my calendar as well, I see something entirely different.
The root of my financial troubles was me not leaving any savings for slow months, but putting every dollar I earned against my credit card balance. Cash flow trouble. Something I can avoid in the future now that I understand it from first-hand experience. (It seemed like such a good idea to pay down my credit card as fast as possible…unless you get to a month where you don’t have enough for even the minimum payment. Oops.) While the short-term results were painful, the lesson learned for the future was invaluable.
My health was another big stressor this year. While I knew that I was learning how to heal from burnout the last few years, I hadn’t fully realized the impact of peri menopause in addition. I started out the year practically homicidal. But I was put on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) in mid-February and my symptoms quickly evened out. I wasn’t 100% back to myself, but at 80-95% (depending on the day), it was a huge relief!
Unfortunately, that 5-20% still bothered me with brain fog and fatigue, feeling like I couldn’t keep two thoughts in my head half the time. That doubled the amount of time it took me to do client work and my own work, which made me feel like I was getting further and further behind every month. Then after my half marathon, I caught a terrible respiratory infection that knocked me out for a couple weeks. A few weeks later, I caught Covid for the first time.
While between them it felt like I lost a good two months in trying to get healthy again, that time also made me think about how I’m living my life without much white space right now. That’s not what I want. I’ve had a half-finished puzzle on the table for a couple months because I keep telling myself I don’t have time to play right now. What’s that about? That’s something I want to actively plan to change next year.
These are only a few of things I came up with when I spent more than one minute thinking about the year. Turns out, there were a lot of good things in my business and personal life in 2023. In addition, of course, to a lot of lessons learned, and a lot of unfortunate things I couldn’t do much about. But once I could see these things written out, I could start seeing a much clearer picture of what the year truly was like.
That allowed me to start a list of what I wanted to change (quite a few things) in 2024, what I wanted to do more of, and a few things I needed to cut way back on. When I start my annual planning for the new year, I’m going to take this new, more complete, list and look at if from the standpoint of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). I’ll also compare my bigger life goals against the year – am I living my life with purpose and loving everyone as much as I can?
So how about your year in review? Can you take longer than a few minutes and really think it all through, write it down and take a solid look at it? I think you’ll find some really helpful information to make next year better.
And I bet you see a bunch of things to remind you that this past year was even better than what you remember!
I hope you take the time. It’s worth it.
0 0 Read moreAre You Leaving Money On The Table?
October 5, 2021 by Tracy Reed in category Writing tagged as Goal Setting, How to Make a Living with Your Writing, Joann Penn, Productivity for Authors, writing career
Happy October and Fall.
I recently listened to Joanna Penn’s How To Make A Living With Your Writing and Productivity For Authors. I highly recommend both books, no matter what stage or level you are in your writing career.
I have been a published author since December 2014. However, it wasn’t until the past few years that I realized I wasn’t a very good steward or caretaker of my writing career. I often tell people I’ve written several books. Instead, I should have been saying, “I’m an author as well as a small business owner.”
Listening to Joanna’s books just emphasized my poor caretaker skills. As writers, we’re storytellers first, then business people. However, if we don’t understand the business side, we’re simply hobbyist. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a storyteller who gets paid.
Let me take a few moments to chastise myself. I’ve not been as focused as I could be. I set goals and fall short. I used to create a production schedule, which I probably should go back to. I tried a Kanban board system in 2019. I liked it, but then COVID hit and I didn’t give Kanban a second thought. I tried sprinting and writing blocks, but failed to stay consistent. I’m also guilty of not having a daily writing time. Instead, I’d wait for the muse to visit me. I’m also guilty of letting distractions run rampant in my life.
It was sort of funny how I came to listen to Joanna’s books. I was sitting in the drive through at Raisin’ Cane waiting to order dinner. Don’t judge. I’m a healthy eater, but a girl likes some chicken tenders and fries every now and then. If you know anything about Raisin’ Cane, the line is always long. I didn’t want to listen to music, and I had just finished the Kevin Kwan Crazy Rich Asians series . . . the books are so much better than the movie. I was going to listen to a podcast and saw Joanna Penn’s name and thought, why not read or listen to one of her books. I downloaded How To Make A Living With Your Writing. There’s so much good information about goal setting and time management.
Joanna asked a question that really stood out: Are you were leaving money on the table? I had no idea what she was talking about, because there was no way I could be guilty of such a thing. I replayed the chapter so I could catch all of her statement. I was shocked to discover she was talking about the different ways to monetize your book. She listed the many formats she uses for her books: ebook, paperback, hardcover, large print paperback and audio.
Hold up. I know about audio, I’m not there yet. So I gave myself a pass. However, I was guilty of not doing half of the other formats. When I publish a book, I generally only do ebook and paperback. I thought about doing a few limited edition hardcovers for some of my books, but hadn’t made the move. For large print paperbacks, I have to be honest, it never occurred to me to offer them, although some readers asked me about large print.
Joanna shared that her large print paperbacks account for a huge chunk of her print sales. My mind raced as she spoke and then she said the magic words . . . “Formatting is easy with Vellum.” I was hooked. Then she said there was a large market for large print paperback. I went to Amazon and found several large print romance books available.
Back to my question, are you leaving money on the table? Did you know large print books fetch a higher price for very little work? I created a large print version of The Good Girl Part One. I love how it turned out, but there were two minor issues . . . I forgot to include my website on the back cover and I had the wrong cover dimensions. I made the corrections and put my first large print paperback up for sale. I’m also strongly considering large print hardcover. Did you know there are still quite a few people who like hardcover books? I may not be doing audio books yet, but I can expand my revenue streams by offering two versions of the large print format: paperback and hardcover.
So here are the revenue streams for my books: ebook, regular print paperback, large print paperback, regular hardcover and large print hardcover.
Let’s take a deeper look at the proposed revenue streams (before royalty split) for The Good Girl Part One.
ebook – Free
Regular Print Paperback – $7.99
Large Print Paperback – $8.99
Regular Hardcover – $20.99
Large Print Hardcover – $25.99
The hardcover prices are estimates. Looking at the possibilities, means I’ve been leaving $55.97 (before the royalty split) on the table, because I’ve only been doing ebook and regular paperback.
Imagine if I sold ten of each of these formats for this book daily. (Use your royalty split to calculate a more accurate number.) Whatever number you came up with is correct and shocking. Now multiply those numbers by your entire catalog. I did my catalog number based on my royalty split. I wanted to kick myself.
Of course, hardback copies may not be for you. But why not offer a few as collectibles–that’s still a nice piece of money. Here’s another thought, maybe you do a series hardcover. I’ve seen them on Amazon and they fetch a nice sum. The possibilities are endless.
I hear you saying, “What about audio?” I’m not ignoring audio, it’s just not time for me yet. My plan is to do audio in 2023, but until then, I’m adding large print paperback, hardcover and large print hardcover to my inventory.
So I’ll ask again, How much money have you been leaving on the table?
See you next month.
~Tracy
Books by Tracy Reed
Encouragement to Take a Leap – by Kitty Bucholtz
December 9, 2019 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Goal Setting, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, new beginningsI’ve been attending the Malmö International Rotary Club for the last few months, and in November I gave an “ego speech.” It sounds a little too self-centered to be comfortable 🙂 but it’s basically a “getting to know you” speech.
I wanted to share the real Kitty, but I still didn’t want it to center on me. Then I realized I could do with the speech what I try to do with my podcast episodes, and even in my fiction: encourage the audience in their own lives. Interestingly, I found myself veering slightly from my notes in the end and telling the club that I was thinking about starting a new project to better use my gifts…but it would be scary and I hadn’t had the courage to take the leap yet.
Here’s the speech. If you’re thinking about starting something new, or even if you’re just planning your work for next year, I hope it encourages you. Let me know what you think.
Getting Back to Work by Kitty Bucholtz
September 9, 2019 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as Goal Setting, Planning, Write Now Workshop
Many of us are wrapping up the summer, vacations, and watching or helping students go back to school. It’s one of those natural times of year to see what else we want to accomplish in the last few months, and figure out the best way to accomplish our goals.
I teach a time management class most January’s, and I help people do all they can to accomplish the tasks they set for themselves. But this past year or so, I’ve been very careful about not helping you to the point where you burn out, too. One of the things that can help is planned time off. I marked last Sunday off my calendar specifically to have no plans. It was blissful! So in addition to planning some time off, we also want to plan the most important things we want to get done before year’s end.
You can plan forward – how much time do you have each day or week, and how much can you get done in that time. Or plan backwards – what do you need to get done, and how many hours a day or week will be necessary to do so. Planners can also be a big help.
Check out Susan May Warren’s My Brilliant Writing Planner for a discount on the 2019 version, and a discount when preordering the 2020 one. Susie May will be on the show again in a few weeks to tell you about all the new updates in next year’s planner.
https://www.mybrilliantwritingplanner.com/
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