Yesterday, I talked a little about my business plan. With New Year’s Eve coming up, I thought I’d share my long-term goals for my writing, because they didn’t turn out like I expected.
The short-term goals were easy. They focused mostly on actual business items like number of copies sold or number of works available on Kindle, etc. A couple had to do with balancing my role as wife and mother with my “new” role as writer. Committed writer anyway.
The long-term goals though…they were a bit different. I tried writing stuff like “Get into the top 100 bestselling Kindle books on Amazon”. Didn’t work. It felt wrong. So, I did what I usually do when I get stuck and wrote whatever popped into my head. Here’s the result:
- Deliver quality fantasy novels with romantic elements.
- Defend a true view of men and women and their relationships (meaning I’m going to try writing what I see in reality and not some politically motivated tripe).
- Become an example for others regarding quality in self-publishing.
Not one of these has anything to do with numbers or popularity. None of them seem to have anything to do with business. More than one appeared to me to be a bit of stretch, given where I am now. Stretching is good, though.
This is my direction stripped down to its essentials. And, so far, I like it.
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I read a very good article by Seth Godin on why ebooks in the future won’t have any “bells and whistles”. I think he makes some important points, especially regarding cost. If people resist paying more than $5 for an ebook there’s no way you’ll be able to have the multimedia, interactive, watch portions of the story in movie form with hyperlinks to more information kind of book and make money off it. As a reader, I’d rather just have a plain, ordinary book anyway. My imagination likes the occasional exercise.
Amy Keeley 