Data Diven Plans are more likely to Succeed than Your Resolutions
New Year’s Day. Most of the world takes stock on or right before this auspiscious beginning to another year, another chance, a fresh slate. This is when people establish those pesky New Year’s resolutions. You know the ones: lose 20 pounds, join the gym and actually use it, stop smoking, save more money, be a better (fill in the blank). The list goes on and on.
Forty percent of Americans make resolutions. Eighty percent have broken them by February. I learned only a few years ago not to bother making resolutions. I never kept them. In fact like the statistical norm, I broke them within days. But the guilt. That damn guilt lingered for months.
Instead, I take an assessment in December and make some high level plans for 2019, not vague promises but strategic plans based on prior performance, based on data. I do this personally and professionally, but I am not Bridget Jones here to share how much weight I plan to losel or how many cigarettes I won’t smoke. I’m only sharing the professional assessment here. You’ll have to get to know me better before you get the rest.
The Good, The Bad and The Assessment
Last year I set out a goal to write either four novels or 200,000 words during the year. I differentiated because I wrote a non-published piece Our Love is Here to Stay, which I published as a serial offering on my blog. It counted toward words originally, but not novels. Once I published it, I added it to both tallies.
This December, I made new plans. I used this data to determine where I was in 2018 so I could plan for 2019. I assessed the following (with checkpoints throughout the year):
1/ Assess Number of Novels Published and Books Sold
This was a great chance to see if I was able to meet my goals for delivering finished books. The first year I set out to publish two, the next year three and this past year four. I published Our Love is Here to Stay, Besotted, Desire & Dessert and Moonlight & Moet.
I managed to meet my goals, but I admit that I barely squeaked by to do it. That is why reviewing and assessing it so valuable. I learned that the editing and rewrites take me longer than I allowed in my 2018 plan, and that if I wanted to give my ARC team enough time to comfortably read and review my book, I was too ambitious or badly paced in my plans. Good to know.
Then I review my sales statistics. Which promotions worked to drive book sales, and which books did it sell. I promoted Desire & Dessert from my new B&B Billionaire Romance Series but drove more sales of the four novels in my Beguiling Bachelor Series. Analyzing results like these help me make informed decisions about where to advertising and promote books, as well as aiding me in recognizing the long-tail sales effect of a promotion. I used to guess about this. Now I know.
2/ Determine Revenue Earned
I will openly admit that I am still falling short of my goals here, but by assessing my revenue I can see that I am trending in the right direction. That piece of news alone keeps me going on a bad day. But, I was able to see which promotions actually drove sales and which did not. For example, in this year’s assessment, I learned that my Bookfunnel promotions were very successful in adding to my email list but not to book sales. This turned out to be a useful tidbit of information that sent me back to review my welcome email sequence for new subscribers. Boy, did it need work!
Another revenue category that is good to assess in December are affiliate sales. Did I promote my affiliates adequately? Were the products and services I selected a good fit for my audience or did they flop miserably? Once I knew, I could tweak my efforts for the following year.
3/ Look at What You Spent and Where
Looking at where I spent my money is always a painful process for me, personally and professionally. I hate discovering that blouse I just had to have last January is still sitting unworn in my closets, tags dangling where I can see them, a hopeless reminder of money badly spent. My professional expenses may not be staring me in the face as obviously, but assessing them at year end I always discover half a dozen courses I purchased but never completed, books I bought but never read. This exercise pays off for me, too. Each year I waste a little less, choose a little more wisely, in courses and clothes.
4/ Assess your Traffic and it’s Sources
I use December to analyze both what worked to entice people to my email list and what drove people to my website. This is an eye-opener for me every year. I am consistently looking to increase both my list and my traffic so gaining these insights is critical. Networking with my fellow authors seems to work best for me, guest bloggers bring their audience to my site, cross-promotions with other Romance authors help increase my email list. These are proven models for my business, consistent two years running. Had I not done an annual assessment, I might never have known.
5/ Don’t Forget the Fun Factor
This is not usually high on most writers annual assessment list, but I think it should be. Are there aspects of being a writer/entrepreneur that you love, where you just blast out great results and creativity? Are there tasks you dread doing as much as you would hate cleaning the toilet? For me, that is web design. Web design is the stuff of nightmares. So this year, I had a stern talking to with myself. Could I afford the money to hire a designer instead of loathing every minute of that work? Could I afford not to? I’ll let you guess which way I chose to go.
What are the projects that make you jump out of bed at 5 am and which are the ones that you push to the back burner until they grow mold? Taking a hard look at these will help with your motivation and productivity, and those are as important as sales and revenue. Maybe they are even more important, since the stench of stinky work can eventually overwhelm the sweet aroma of creativity.
Those are the factors I review. Once I have reviewed the results of those five items for 2018, I am ready to lay out a strategy for 2019. I have a new plan already, at a high level, but with some dates and tasks to achieve my goals. It involves new titles, new promotions, fewer educational purchases and more spends on advertising. It also allows longer lead time getting books to editors so that I write while they edit and the ARC team can review early enough.
With a well-planned schedule and execution strategy, a budget and data to support my decisions, I can publish more books next year. That is my strategic goal. Write more and hopefully drive more revenue – always a target. The more I earn this year, the grander my plans can get next year.
What do you assess at year end? What tools do you use to find your data? How do you use the information? Share your wisdom in the comments below.
Oh, and good luck to all of your making those New Year’s resolutions. I hear you’ll need it!
[click_to_tweet tweet=”With a well-planned schedule and execution strategy, a budget and data to support my decisions, I can publish more books next year. Learn to assess your year before you plan. #amwriting” quote=”With a well-planned schedule and execution strategy, a budget and data to support my decisions, I can publish more books next year.”]
GEM OF THE WEEK
David Gaughran has been the sourcefor my Gem several times because I find his knowledge of how to sell on Amazon beyond useful. The man is the Yoda of Amazon selling. His post “10 Biggest Book Marketing Mistakes You Need to Stop Making” is no different. A quick primer of mistakes to avoid.If you aren’t a subscriber to anything and everything he writes you are disadvantaged as an Amazon bookseller.
Pay attention to number three in his list, then, if you don’t already, subscribe to ConvertKit to solve the problem of speaking to all your fans the same way. ConvertKit’s segmenting, sourcing and tagging capabilities are genius.
A lot has been written about Mailchimp versus Convertkit, so I am not going to delve into that here. Suffice to say, most people think that the biggest difference is that one is free (to a point) and the other costs money. That was my thinking when I originally went with Mailchimp. Now, I am a Convertkit convert (pardon the bad pun).
Initially I wasn’t sure that I had made the right decision by investing in ConvertKit, but my email list has doubled this year and keeping track of the different interests of my subscribers matters. Tagging is a godsend, allowing me to easily keep track of readers versus authors, understand how subscribers found me and so much more.
I think I having just completed my year-end assessment I really appreciate how much information I was able to get – easily – from Convertkit. Seeing could see which broadcasts worked, which flopped was simple to do and I was astonished to realize that one month I sent fifteen emails, another I sent two! I never had this kind of information at my fingertips with Mailchimp. It may be there, but I couldn’t readily access it.
Add all the training, fun and informative webinars and the actual ability to chat with someone when you need assistance and I am sold. Should you be looking at ConvertKit for 2019?