November 18, 2020-What are your goals as a writer? What are your financial goals as an author? What are your publishing goals? Many you will answer, but a lot of you won’t because you have no idea what they are. Goal setting can take us from poverty to prosperity, from frustration to fulfillment, and from stalling to success. If you haven’t written down your goals, do it now before we continue.
Let’s say that your financial goal as an author is to earn $1,000.00 a day. There are 24 hours in a day (and don’t tell me that you won’t work 24 hours a day, because technology allows us to make money while we sleep!) so, 1000/24=$41.60 per hour is what you need to hit your target. Wow, Lacey, $41.60 per hour is a lot of money! How can I possibly do that every day? Let’s break that down. If you made $1000.00 per day every day, then at the end of the year, you would have earned $365,000, minus taxes off that, and you’re probably around $140,000 per year, depending on where you live.
So, let’s use the $41.60 per hour. If we need to earn this each hour, we can look at how many book sales that would equal. If each book is priced at $14.99, you’d have to sell 3 per hour every hour.
Now, looking at the number 3…does that seem as impossible as the $1000.00 per day or even the $41.60 per hour? When you break down your goals into manageable chunks, NOTHING is impossible. No more excuses, no more I can’t mentality, get out there and make things happen. Listen, we have the ability to connect virtually with people right now more than ever before! If you have an online store, customers can order your products and services. You can pre-record social media posts and info about your products and schedule for them to run while you’re sleeping or on vacation or to reach new customers in different timezones. Goal setting allows us to reach targets and to focus our attention on small tasks that make a big difference to our bottom line.
Let’s use another example; we’ll say that your goal is to write an 80,000-word novel in 12 months. We’ll do the math again, 80,000/12=6666 words a month/30 days is 222 words per day. That’s it. Only 222 words per day. What’s your excuse for not finishing your book? Whatever you’ve accomplished up until this point in time is only a FRACTION of your potential.
I have an author on my team, Tonya Cartmell who has set an amazing goal of selling 1 MILLION copies of her book, The 12 Days of Rescue (which you can get here: https://pandamoniumpublishing.com/product/the-12-days-of-rescue/) and I have no doubt that she will reach her goal!
Math and hard work don’t lie. And whatever your goals are, they can always be broken down to show that they aren’t that intimidating! Don’t let big goals scare you, the bigger the better! They are more than manageable when you break them into easy, bite-sized chunks.
