My Writing Business — Hits, Misses and Plans

Note: Most of the first half of this appeared in my last newsletter. If you’ve already read it, scroll down to read my plans for the coming year.

Tracking Writing Milestones

Although I firmly believe in keeping track of achievements during the year, the end of the year is a convenient time for an overview. At the start of 2010, I had a long list of planned achievements for the year. Here’s how I did:

1. Making sure my existing high-paying clients were happy.

Achieved; and I’ve got the testimonials to prove it. Of course, the recession took a toll on some clients’ cash flow, which is why my second goal was so important.

2. Getting a couple more good clients to spread the risk .

Achieved; a lot of the business came from referrals from clients and friends (you know who you are — thanks; and my client questionnaire helped me refine my pitch to them.

3. Phasing out jobs that didn’t feed my creativity or my bank balance.

Achieved; though I did it nicely, as it’s almost never a good idea to burn bridges.

4. Increased blog promotion and new products

Only partial success here. I Kindleized my blogging ebook; made another ebook available on Kindle (check them out on my author page) but didn’t do as much promotion as planned, because I had so much work. That’s a mistake I plan to fix next year.

5.Find good affiliate products to promote.

Achieved; not too many, but the excellent Write for the Web book has been a great product. I really believe it’s good and, judging by the sales, others do too.

6. Reconnect with dormant clients.

Achieved. I found some; others found me — and the result was more writing work.

7. Increase local marketing.

Not achieved. I didn’t do much on this front, but increased local business anyway through referrals.

8. Increase income.

Achieved. It wasn’t written on my original list, but was always part of the plan. I’ll be doing a breakdown of that some time soon.

Plans for 2011

In the coming year, I’m looking to achieve most of those milestones again. Id like to

1. Add two more clients to my list. I’ve already made contacts with a couple of people who are likely to bring in regular work.

2. Be more strategic about social media interaction (don’t worry; I’ll still be around, but I can’t do it all).

3. Finish writing all the ebooks that have been on my to-do list for the past two years, including the three new compilations of my newsletter.

4. Learn something new. This keeps the brain fresh. I don’t know whether that will be finally mastering video blogging and podcasting, writing about a new topic or something else, but I’m open to the possibilities.

5. Make all my ebooks available through Smashwords and for the Kindle platform.

6. Increase passive income to make it a significant percentage of my overall income (and increase overall income too).

7. Increase local marketing. I love being an international writer, but sometimes face to face brainstorming is fun — and it’s good to be able to put that cheque straight in the bank!

I won’t make this list any longer, as it’s better to keep it manageable.

What did you not do this year that you will definitely nail in 2011?