June 2018 Goals

written by Betsy Flak on 2018-06-04

Welp, May's done, so you know what that means. It's goals time!

Warning: This is gonna be a rough one. I didn't factor in taking three days off for a roller derby "vacation" (i.e. an away tournament during which I could work, but it's no fun and less efficient to boot) and then having Memorial Day off here in the US. With how...um, let's say "challenging" I make my goals, it's hard for me to meet my goals with one day unaccounted for, let alone four.

Add in an unanticipated—but probably should have anticipated—rework of a bunch of the content of Book 3 and you've got a whole lot of fail coming up. But it's cool. We all learn more from failing than we do from succeeding, right? In which case, I've learned A LOT this month. :p

via GIPHY

As usual, I'll update the progress on May's goals then set some June goals.

Update on May 2018 Goals

1. Book Two of The Clan-Vampire Clash (Title TBA): On hold*.
   • Result: I get to call this a success, right? I mean, I successfully kept it on hold because I'm so behind on Book 3, so...success, I guess?

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2. Book Three: Self-edit through what is currently marked as Chapter 33. Stretch goal: FINISH IT. (This is super unlikely. Even more unlikely than usual.)
   • Result:Yeah...well, I was 100% right about that stretch goal, so that's something, right? Anyway, this is most definitely a fail. I just started Chapter 31, which you know, is quite a bit away from Chapter 33. Between the "oops, I forgot I have to take vacation days" and the "oops, this content needs a bunch of reworking before I edit it," there was a whole lot of delay.
3. Finish analyzing the book launch of A Brush with Vampires (The Clan-Vampire Clash: Book One). Adapt both launch and long-term marketing strategies accordingly.
   • Result:Yup, another one bitten by the vacation day bug. I mean, I'm much farther along than I was. But between prioritizing writing (whether that's "A Comb with Gnomes", Book 3, or the new side story) and it being a larger task than maybe is ideal because I'm way too detail-oriented, it's still not done. Should be done this month, though? I think?

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4. Finish scheduling cross promotions, giveaways, etc. for June. Start in on July's.
   • Result: Hey, hey, hey! A real success this time! Okay, I'm lying a little bit...I do have one free book slot open for my June 26th newsletter, but that will take me like two seconds to fill (the only reason I haven't is because it's so late in June that I'm not in any rush to fill it). Plus, I did fill a few similar slots in July and August. Given this "stellar" month, I'm counting it.
   • Bonus success: Brooklyn 99 isn't cancelled after all!

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June 2018 Goals

1. Book Two of The Clan-Vampire Clash (Title TBA): Still on hold*. Stretch goal: Start back in on it!
2. Book Three: Finish this round of editing on the WHOLE DAMN THING. Make it to that finish line! Stretch goal: Finish it with time to shift back to Book Two.

via GIPHY

3. Troupe-only side story: Deliver first installment to my email list. Preferably a second installment too.
4. Finish analyzing the book launch of A Brush with Vampires (The Clan-Vampire Clash: Book One). Adapt both launch and long-term marketing strategies accordingly. For real this time.
5. Schedule cross promotions, giveaways, etc. for July (including one free book slot in June). Start in on August's.

*Yup, still on hold in favor of getting Book Three through this round of edits. I think I should be able to finish Book Three's edits before the end of June, but I've got a lot of similar stuff going on this month as I did last month. A derby vacation, a holiday at the end of the month, a decent amount of content reworking to complete for the edits...so I wanted to be a bit more conservative.

And as usual, let's see what I was doing this time last year.