Looking Back at 2019
Looking ahead at 2020, there are things that worked well and
things that didn’t. Some of the things that worked well in 2019 are producing
quickly and building audio books. That constant stream of content allowed me to
leverage more promotions. This combination led to my highest Amazon author rank
ever. I sold a lot of audio books and my email list has grown 4.8% every month.
Another thing that worked out well for me is setting a bar
on writing profits. Anything above $350/month goes towards retirement/saving
funds. That allows me to see the profit grow in a different way. I also like
the idea that my work and effort doesn’t fade but continues to grow year after
year. That’s the “long tail” of “long tail writing”: building once and seeing
slow growth.
However, a few things didn’t work out so well. I started a
goal of writing every week day, but that evaporated. I had to scale that back
to a weekly goal and had trouble with that. I determine that the main issue is
that I was being a bit too much of a “pantser” and not planning. That led to me
not wanting to write, but instead focus too much on promotions. At this point,
I know how I want to do promotions. That will change in the future, but I feel
like I have a good sense on that. This lack of productivity did result in a NaNoWriMo fail.
The goal is, and always has been, to be my own favorite
writer. I’ve done decent with that so far, but I need to delve deeper into
that. I can’t just be producing content to fit a goal. I need to have fun while
writing. I think if I can make the writing more fun and easier, I’ll produce
more content.
Summation:
What worked
- Writing a lot
- Building audio books
- Building a mailing list
What didn’t work
- Not enough plotting
- Better writing ethic
- Making writing more fun
Ultimately, what 2020 needs to be is to simply do more of
what I am doing now. I think I am on the right trajectory, I just need to tweak
a few parts that are not working.
