Now that I’m in the down period before the start of 2014, I thought it a great time to look over the past year and the goals I set for myself. If that doesn’t discourage me, I’ll move into the new and renewed goals for 2014.

The Writing Goals for 2013

1. Launch Trails in the Sand – Done
2. Finish Safe Harbor – This didn’t happen, but I’m working on it and changed the title to Native Lands.
3. Publish a book of essays on my travels. I already have a name: Odyssey to Myself –  I have a file started and introductory chapters are forming, but still lots of work to do. Hopefully, I will get it done during the winter months.
4. Pull together all of my gardening blog posts from my blog “Living Lightly Upon this Earth” into a book –Done. I published From Seed to Table in May 2013.
   
5. Read the pile of books on my desk, both fiction and nonfiction – Some of the pile is still there, but I’ve made a dent. I’m also working through all the books on my Kindle. And I’m attempting to show self-control by staying away from bookstores.
6. Establish myself as a bestselling author – I suppose in some altered reality, I could claim this title. I’ve made it to the No. 1 slot on Kindle during my free day offerings. I don’t think that really counts, but it’s something. I continue to add followers to my twitter account (more than 2,000 followers at @PCZick), I have three Facebook fan pages now: P.C. Zick Author, Florida Environmental Novels, and Civil War Journal. The pages continue to gather followers. Combined they represent nearly 1,000 “likes.” Each week I receive several more followers to my two blogs: Writing Whims and Living Lightly. I try not to obsess over the numbers but the last time I checked I had more than 500 “real” followers of my blogs.

So those were the goals of the past year. Even though I marked two and a half of them in red, I’ve at least made progress on them. In addition, I did one major thing this year that never made it into the goals because a year ago, I didn’t know that I would put together the Civil War journal of my great grandfather, but I did just that and published it in October as Civil War Journal of a Union Soldier. I’m very proud of that labor of love.I also re-released a novel from 2003. A Lethal Legacy is a psychological thriller and still one of my favorites.

With that out of the way, I have some new and old goals for 2014.

1. Establish myself as a best-selling author – I’m going to keep this one on here until it happens in a real universe. There are sidebar goals to achieve toward this end:

• Market all of my books through free websites, social media, and paid advertising only after researching the outcome.

• Continue building social media relationships. I’m better on Facebook than Twitter but I keep trying. For now, I’m concentrating on those two giants before expanding out. However, I believe Google is coming on strong so I will keep my eye tuned there.

• Continue writing my blogs to give my followers something interesting, intelligent (most of the time), and worthwhile to read. I will continue Author Wednesday and Book Review Friday which are a delight to do while helping my fellow authors. I plan to get back on a regular schedule with Living Lightly.
• Most importantly, I will continue to write and publish.

2. Finish writing Native Lands and publish it in 2014 – I’m not quite ready to make a date commitment yet, but I will in a few months.

3. Publish Odyssey to Myself – Goal for publication: March 2014. We shall see.

4. Work on new travel blog, P.C. Zick Travels – I already have this set up for photos and essays from my travels, but I need to work on it more and then promote for followers.

5. Establish my editing and formatting business – This is something I’ve put off while working on my books, but I will soon be offering my services in a formal way. I’ve been editing fiction and nonfiction for years but went away from it when I started my journey as an Indie Author. A former client, Leona Bodie, hired me to edit her new book this year and now another fellow writer has hired me to format her book of Cuban recipes for Create Space. I’m excited about getting back to helping others realize their own writing dreams.

6. Start a new work in progress by the end of the year – I have two or three ideas floating around, and I keep jotting down ideas.

So that’s it for me this year. These are all reachable goals and help me clarify my focus.

Happy New Year to you all. I’m so grateful to all of you who follow this blog and who take the time to comment and “like” my posts. Thank you.

What are your goals for 2014?