Taking a Break?
To the internet eye, it probably looks like I’ve been on hiatus for the last several months. In the world of social media and blog posting, that is certainly true. My pause from the online world shouldn’t be mistaken from a pause in the real world, though! Since October, I have thought about the new year and what new projects to take on.
Last year, I spent some time testing out an app for book promotions. Let me tell you something – that is an uphill battle that I am not willing to continue. I think that over a long period of time, with a solid marketing effort, it would be successful. After two months of development and two more months of beta testing, there were approximately five hundred users. I suppose that’s not terrible after only two months, but the continuous effort required to increase that number became overwhelming for me, especially since my primary desire is to write.
Plus, the process wasn’t well automated. It took nearly an hour every day to log new books into the system. For a small side project, it was clearly going to consume too much of my time. I had to call it quits.
I suppose it could be called a failure. It definitely wasn’t a success. But I learned a ton of new things while creating the app and the overall experience was positive.
This led me to an important conclusion. I shouldn’t take on side projects that aren’t directly related to my author platform. And that’s where 2019’s focus will remain: building my author platform.
A New Focus
For the past several months, I have done quite a bit of writing. I’m currently slugging my way through the initial draft of a ten book (novella) series. As of today (January 4th), I am on book six. I do believe that it will be done in a few months. With some luck. When I go to roll it out, I want a number of other things in place to support my new releases. Some of them are kind of lame; others are more experimental and interesting. Here is the list of items I would like to complete this year:
- The book series, obviously!
- A hilarious choose your own adventure skill for Alexa. It’s supposed to support my book, Twisted Fairy Tales. If it’s successful, I’ll do something more sci-fi related for my current series. (See more here.)
- An interview series with other authors for Youtube.
- A better effort on Facebook and Twitter. I’m just not a good social media person. If I can figure out what a unique series made for Twitter looks like, I’ll give that a shot.
- Make regular posts to my blog.
- Build and make better use of my email list.
Stay in Touch
And that’s about it for now. I’m sure that’s enough to chew on. I don’t have firm timelines for any of this but I will plug away at each item every day. Hopefully, by the end of it, I’ll have a body of work that will make me happy. So, if you’ve liked my work so far – keep your eyes open. New things are afoot. And if you have an Amazon Echo, the new skill should be out soonish. It’s sure to be… interesting.
