I wrote earlier this month that I was reserving longer-term goals for my book publishing and marketing efforts, so here we are. In some ways, I have come to find yearly publishing and marketing goals a bit strange when I’m not publishing multiple books per year — or even one book per year.

However, I still think it’s important to have something to shoot for in any endeavor.

Under normal circumstances, my book marketing efforts would focus almost entirely around selling books at conventions. However, since it’s not entirely clear whether we’ll have any semblance of normalcy this year, I’m not counting on conventions being a thing. So, I have to lean on online marketing efforts.

The Goals

There is one giant caveat to these goals. Everything hinges on publishing the two stories which are my first two goals this year. If I go another year without publishing new content, then there won’t be much point in spending my publishing budget on marketing a soon-to-be three-year-old novel. My giveaway last month was fun, but I don’t plan to do that every month.

Now then!

1. Publish Uprooted (The Herb Witch Tales, #1)
2. Publish [untitled] (The Herb Witch Tales #2)
3. Sell 100 books.

Okay, so that was perhaps anti-climatic, but let me explain.

Publish The Herb Witch Tales #1 and #2

When I first started writing The Herb Witch Tales, I knew it was going to be multiple stories. I had initially planned on three, but the third story never fully materialized as a plot in my head, at least when I was brainstorming way back in 2019. I now have ideas for more stories, but I also want to get back to writing my second novel.

The point is, I’ve always planned to publish more than one piece in The Herb Witch Tales in consecutive runs. What began as two short stories has morphed into two novellas of likely 40,000+ words each.

I will publish parts 1 and 2 as ebooks one to three months apart. I will then have a single-volume print edition containing both stories to sell at conventions (and probably online, too). This is why I want to have both stories finished before I publish anything. My marketing plan — which is not yet fully formed and I will write about later — will depend on the second story following closely on the heels of the first.

You may notice that I haven’t specified a date, or even a vague time period, for publication of these stories. That is entirely deliberate. I’m still trying to figure out what my writing routine looks like over the course of several months, what kind of output I really have. So whether I publish in March or December is irrelevant to me. I’m focusing on the bottom line goal which is just: Publish. (Side note: I definitely will not publish anything in March.)

Sell 100 Books

This goal is also delightfully vague. I don’t care what format the books are in when they are sold, when precisely they are sold, or even which books are sold. The only caveat is that I cannot give them away for free. Even if I do giveaways this year (which I will), these will not count towards this goal.

Selling 100 books this year is absolutely ambitious, but hear me out. If I set a solid marketing strategy leading up to THW1, double-promote that with THW2, and then promote both of them, as well as in tandem with WoEM, I should be able to sell a decent amount.

If we happen to be able to have conventions later this year and I happen to be able to snag a table at one, then all the better.

That’s It

Those are the marketing goals this year. I feel like big-picture goals should be simple yet specific. The details come in the execution, and I will definitely be talking about my marketing plan as publication nears.

HOWEVER…

I need to focus on writing first. So no more marketing talk for a while. I have a monthly goal to reach!

Steve D