Closing Out the Year-Writing

My Last Planned Marketing Event

The last planned marketing event that I am participating in occurred last Saturday from 11am-2pm. I went to a local book store and did a book signing. Now that that is finished, I can determine how many books I have sold throughout the year. Granted, there will be number (I hope) that will sell online and at bookstores before the holiday., but as for me selling books in person, I am done for this year.

Writing Like a Mad Woman

I don’t know how I did it. I was trying so hard to keep my focus on single projects at a time, but during the past couple of months I went from working on one project to six book projects at a time. Plus I am finishing up this blog for the year. I have totally dropped Bubblews and Hubpages for now so that I can make progress and finish up some of the books I am creating.

First, There’s the novel that I plan to send to my first beta reader by the end of the year (read that the end of this month!) This book is called Sailing Under the Black Flag. This book will be book four of the Locket Saga. .I have been working on that every day and have been making progress. I should have it ready to send to her by New Year’s Day.  Then there is the novel that I started in NaNoWriMo. I have that almost up to 60K This book is called The Anvil. . In addition, I have two books about overcoming writer’s block called Breaking Writer’s Block for Fiction Writers and Breaking Writer’s Block for Nonfiction Writers. I started these two books in October and have made a lot of progress there as well.

The last two books are my latest projects, but I need to have these two books done by the end of the year. These are not actually books but booklets. One is about the usefulness of kelp and the other the usefulness of diatomaceous earth. Some of the information I already had, but some I still need to research. To save time, I am going to be sending these two books to my second beta reader at the end of the month for her to be reading while my first beta reader is reading the novel. This second reader asked me to send her the booklets via the internet.

The reason I need these two booklets right away is because the church that I pastor is hosting the first day of the Ozark Sustainable Living University on January 23. (The second day, January 24, will be at Next Step in West Plains). The Oregon County Writer’s Group, to which I am the President is going to be selling books that are related to sustainable living. I will have my gardening book available, but I really want these two booklets done too. I know that there will definitely be a market for them.

Things I Didn’t Do This Year

One of the things that I was going to do these last couple months but haven’t is that I was going to get to know other writer’s better. I don’t see me doing this much this month, but perhaps later in the month I will actually be able to make this more of a priority. If I get Sailing Under the Black Flag and the two booklets done though, I’ll have freed up a lot of time. I can see where my biggest weaknesses are this year and that is in the aspect of social media and online book marketing. Fortunately, my writer’s group plans on focusing on that next year and that’s also my own personal focus for 2016.

 

 

 

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church in Brandsville, Missouri.  As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues, and most recently, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her book, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .