Happy New Year! I love the beginning of a new year and I am pretty excited about 2017. It’s the best time to be a writer-author-preneur and we have a lot of choices to consider in this awesome digital era where we can reach customers with a click.

Someone asked me what hobbies I enjoy. I had to really think about it because writing and podcasting have been my hobbies ever since 2008, but now I want this to be my business as well. My retirement! So I need to move things along in 2017.

I also don’t like making resolutions. They often are grandiose and usually not obtainable or maintainable. I like goal setting.  With that, we can easily judge our success by the turn of the calendar from month to month and especially at years end. So, these are my writing, podcasting, and business goals for 2017. I’d love to hear about yours in the comments.

Fiction Writing

• Write 2 novels and a novella or two short stories. At least one of these will be in the SW series but I have a lot of other ideas right now, so one can never tell!
• Sell (not just have downloads or pages read) 25,000 copies of my fiction books by November.
• Go on a weekend writing course/retreat or invest in expanding my fiction skills with some education by pros. There are great ones out there, and I have my eye on this one : http://www.pnwa.org/

Kim Smith, Author-my business

I am going to improve the blog in 2017. You will continue to get the latest in writing, publishing and book marketing information, and interviews, podcasts, videos, etc.  I also want to begin to share my own writing journey so that my experience may help others. I hope you will continue to comment on the posts and email me questions also.

My more specific goals are:

• Update kimsmithauthor.com to reflect the business side in terms of courses and education. One of my favorite blogs has practical business help on writing, publishing, and marketing. They are a business, but charged and spun from a blog. This is my desire also for 2017.
• Rewrite and relaunch Ten Tips for Getting That Book Written. It has had a few little updates but it needs a full revamp. And I likely will be offering it for an incentive.
• Release a new multi-media mini-course on “How to be motivated to write for life”
• Seriously study email marketing and course creation from pro resources. I think I have the gist of email marketing but now I need to focus on the course creation side.
• Financially, the income from this business (including fiction) needs to double by the end of 2017. No need for figures here but suffice to say, I am going to really be busy. My income streams will be 80% scalable from book sales and online sales of courses. 20% will be based on my time – speaking and consulting, which I hope to do more of also.

Non-Fiction Writing

I always wanted to be an author’s assistant and it’s time to revisit that in 2017.

• Revise and re-release “Ten Tips” with material from the blog and my experience
• Revise and re-release “Lifestyle Reboot” with material from the blog and my experience
• Write new material to accompany course, or to be presented as non-fic on how to write your book from idea to ebook.

Fitness and Personal Growth

I have lots of personal goals, and am sharing them because they also spill into my creative side.

• Writing and all that goes with it are really sloggish. I lost 12 lbs in 2016 and I am not stopping. I want to be where I was in 1984 before my first child. See you in the gym!
• Go on a retreat. I’ve been wanting to do this for years so this year, I will make it happen. I already know where I can obtain this goal, so it is a matter of planning and executing.
• Journal every day. I got some great ones for Christmas so I am all ready to go!

Okay, that’s it for me. What about you?

What are your goals for 2017? Please share them in the comments below and we can revisit them at the end of the year.