Setting publishing goals – your roadmap to success

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Setting publishing goals – your roadmap to success


You’ve got a dream! The good news is, if you’re reading this, you are already ahead of 99% of the population as you're doing something about it. Well done! But what is that dream and how are you going to get there? What are your publishing goals for your book?
Success in your publishing goals

Why do I Need to Articulate My Publishing Goals?

There is so much material all over the internet about how to set and achieve goals. Do you know why? Because it’s still something that people struggle with. According to a study by the Harvard Business School, 84% of people never set goals, 13% of people set goals but never write them down and a measly 3% of people work to achieve their goals.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be in that 3%. Because I want to be one of the people out there smashing it and celebrating success.

I Don’t Know How to Start Setting My Publishing Goals!

While it may feel like an overwhelming task, setting goals is actually pretty easy and ultimately a rewarding process. It’s amazing how good it feels to create a shiny bright destination for you to move towards. The best way to start is to ask yourself some questions to create a vision:

  1. Why are you at this point? What’s prompted you to create a children’s book?
  2. Think forward to six months after publication and visualise your ideal day as it involves your book. What are you doing? What is the book doing? Where is it on sale and what’s your role? It’s important to not restrict yourself by trying to be realistic here: dream big and then you can plan how you get there.
  3. Is there something you are particularly excited about doing during the publication process?
  4. What resources do you have available to you? Note down your skills, access to skills, budget and time level available
  5. What challenges do you have? What life challenges do you need to balance against publishing your book. This could be things like family responsibilities, a full-time job, lack of support from those close to you, finances, etc.

Time to Set Your Publishing Goals

Now that you have all the information down, you can set yourselves some goals using the SMART principles:SMART publishing goals

S            Specific

What exactly do you want to do?

M           Measurable

What will success look like? How will you measure that success?

A            Achievable

Are you being realistic? This is where you factor in your skills, resources and challenges to create goals that push you, but you can achieve.

R            Relevant

Is the goal relevant to your overall vision? Think back to your ideal day and make sure this goal will help get you there.

T            Timely

Finally, what’s the due date for the goal?

Examples of some Publishing Goals

Here are some examples of publishing goals to give you some pointers.

  1. I hit my June deadline right on the money to get my book written, edited and designed.
  2. I’m excited to launch my Facebook page in May after completing Facebook training in April.
  3. I successfully published and launched my first book to Kindle in July 2018.
  4. My team of 50 beta readers launched my book with 20 reviews on Amazon and Goodreads in July 2018.
  5. It’s December 2018 and I have just celebrated 500 book sales from the launch date.

Want More Help in Creating Publishing Goals?

There is a science and an art to setting and achieving goals, and we’ve just touched on the beginning steps. I studied with The Elevatory in what was then know as, the Small Business Success Program and I give full credit to them for all the key teachings discussed in this article. They run a number of free programs throughout the year so you can test out their material to see if it suits you. In addition, if you prefer one on one help, we provide publishing coaching and assistance to all our authors as part of our services. We work with you directly to help you set and achieve your publishing goals.

Alternatively, if you would like to complete the above goal setting exercise, I’ve created a free online form to help you fill in your vision. Or you can write or draw, whatever suits you best.

Where to Next?

This is just one of our many free indie Author Guides, so make sure you take a look at the rest. A good next step following this guide for most authors is setting the sales expectations for your book. So please do have a look. We'd love to hear from you if there's a topic you'd like us to cover or if you would like to have a chat about how we can help you on your publishing journey. Finally, for extensive guides on each step in the publishing journey, please refer to the services tab in our menu.

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