tracking progress

The Power of Not Enough

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This post by Nick Stephenson originally appeared on his site on 3/22/14.

I listened to an interesting podcast yesterday over at Rockingselfpublishing.com, featuring indie heavyweight Russell Blake. If you’ve got a spare 55 minutes, go have a listen – or check out the key points in the accompanying commentary – you’ll be glad you did. The podcast got me thinking:

How do we know when we have succeeded at something? How do we set realistic goals? More specifically, when it comes to selling books, how much is enough?

Russell cites James Lee Burke as a perfect example of getting exactly what you want out of this business. Burke writes in his own unique style, he doesn’t pander, and he has a solid, long-term sales record that most of us would give our right arms for. But, in Russell’s words, he’ll never sell like Dan Brown or James Patterson. But that’s okay. That’s not the point of what he’s trying to accomplish.

So what does this mean for the average indie author? In my experience, “enough” is almost impossible to quantify without some very clear (and achievable) goals. I remember, just starting out, when I’d be overjoyed to see 50 book sales a month. Then 100. More recently, 1,000, or even more on a Bookbub month. And, every month, I think to myself “this could be better.”

But how much better? Will I be satisfied with 2,000 sales a month? 5,000? 10,000? I realised I didn’t know where the line was. Although I’ve been lucky enough to see my work being read in all over the world (mostly in the US – thanks, guys!) I came into this game not expecting much – and, as a result, had no “end game” in mind.

 

Click here to read the full post on Nick Stephenson’s site.

 

The Author Monthly Planner: A Freebie to Organize Your Writing and Marketing Life

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This post by Toni Tesori originally appeared on Duolit on 3/11/14.

We’re stuck in this cycle where, for at least one week every month, one member of our family is sick (I blame Olivia for bringing home the germies from daycare, BTW).

While being sick doesn’t rate highly on the ol’ fun-o-meter, it did give me an awfully convenient excuse to skip out on my regular cleaning routine.

After catching Olivia practically wading through a pile of books in her bedroom, however, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to get back on my game.

So, I made a to-do list. A looong to-do list. Pretty reasonable, right?

The result? My house is still a mess.

Wanna know why?

To-do lists suck.

Listen, if you’re one of those folks who make perfectly reasonable to-do lists and attack them daily with gusto, I envy you. I wish the doggone things worked that well for me!

Personally, I’ve always found to-do lists a bit mocking. Appealing to the procrastination side of my personality, those lengthy lists just beg me to move some of the items to tomorrow’s list. As long as the tasks get done eventually, right?

Hint: those moved items never get done. Because more and more tasks are added and fewer are crossed off. Before long, I simply despise the sight of that stupid list! I become completely overwhelmed with the number of tasks, and my brain decides that surfing Tumblr is a far more appealing use of my time.

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve ever used such a list to keep track of your author-ly life to-do’s, I bet you’ve experienced the something similar.

 

It’s Not the List’s Fault

I’m being awfully hard on the humble to-do list, when it’s not the fault of the list itself. The fault instead lies in the to-do list process. Since the list is, by design, a running list of tasks to work on right now, it offers no perspective; it doesn’t tell me why I’m checking off the items. There’s no birds-eye view of where I’ve been, where I’m going or any kind of final destination.

This is especially important for authors: most of us don’t work on this authoring gig full-time, and jumping in and out of an ever-mounting task list is difficult/scary without an overall plan. We need a status update reminding us why we’re doing what we’re doing, where we’re trying to go and what we need to work on right now to achieve those future goals.

Basically: instead of tasks, we need focus.

 

Focus in a PDF: The Author Monthly Planner

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes a link to a free, downloadable author’s monthly planner in PDF format, on Duolit.