Mid-Year Reality Check

“Plan  Your Work for today and every day, and and then work your  plan””  Margaret Thatcher

I hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend! Here it is the beginning of the third quarter of the year already. A full half year has passed, and today I am looking back at the past six months.   I have been looking back at what I have done and what I have not done as far as my authoring and publishing goes. Here are the hits and misses so far this year. it is important to look back at passed accomplishments and to discover what worked, what didn’t, and even perhaps how I can do better on the rest of the journey through the rest of the year. Getting my bearings midyear is like examining a map when on a journey. Am I on the right road? Is there a detour ahead that I might not have seen earlier? IBefore I can discover where I am going, I have to know where I have been and where I am now. Here are my hits and misses over the past six months in my writing journey.

Hits-

1. I finished writing Sailing under the Black Flag and have just finished the final edits.
2. I had great successes in marketing print books. I am finding ways to get my books in front of the right audiences. The trip to Pennsylvania showed me that creating and going to events are helpful, but cause it gets me in front of more potential readers. Will work to spend more time in front of live audiences as the year progresses.
3. I have been managing to keep up with my blog posts throughout the year. If I organize my material from my blog posts, I should be able to write at least two maybe more books about writing before the end of the year.
4. An online article that I wrote is going to be included in a national gardening magazine and they will be sending me a copy.
5. The newsletter that I started this year was a great success. The statistics concerning open rates have been high and I have had a number of interactions with readers. The click-through rates rate increased over time.

Misses-

1. Finished Sailing under the Black Flag later than I intended, and there were additional delays in the editing process so I didn’t get the book out on the first of April as I had originally planned. Therefore, I won’t be able to launch the next book in the series (In the Shadow of the Mill Pond) in August as I had intended at the beginning of the year. I am not sure that I will be able to get it done by the end of the year because I want to focus streamlining a few processes during the next several months.
2. Although my e-book sales are up from last year, they are still not where I would like them to be. Need to improve marketing strategies and tactics.
3. At the beginning of the year I had some ideas that didn’t pan out. When I just posted a video on Friday it didn’t create much traffic, but when I started including related articles and talking about the subject matter, I had many more interactions from others.
4. Also the system that I thought I would use at the beginning of the year for finding topics, didn’t work for me. I was totally uninspired by the ideas it generated so I pitched it and up to this point have been trying to find inspiring topics to write about each week as I think of them. Rather than planning for a whole year ahead of time, I decided to try to work through just one quarter at a time by working off my goals related to the subject matter. I intend to work on considering my audience more as I write each post.
5. Though the open rate of my newsletter is higher than the average, the click through rate is still lower than average. In addition, I have not had any new readers since the initial influx of subscriptions. I will continue to work on finding strategies and tactics for increasing click through rates and find ways to increase the number of newsletter readers.

Now that I know where I am, I am better prepared to move ahead with my plans for this next quarter.

Donna Brown is pastor at Faith in God Church  1 1/2 miles south of Brandsville, Missouri on Hwy 63. Sunday services are at 10 am and Wednesday night Bible Study at 6:30 pm.   As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has  published a 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, A Coward’s Solace, Book III of the Locket Saga. The next book Book IV of the Locket Saga: Sailing Under the Black Flag will be out in the near future.

Her most recent publication were two booklets Help From Kelp and Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard. Available in paperback

.For more information about Cygnet Brown and her books, check out her website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com .