The first month of 2019 is trundling by at a great rate of knots, and I’ve only just started my to-do list.

In theory, taking my day job to part time is going to give me heaps more time for writing and marketing books. So how is that working out for me?

Write more and better

My personal romantic hero gave me Dragon dictation software for Christmas. In theory, that should speed up the writing. I’m using it at the moment, and certainly this blog post is appearing on the screen far faster than if I typed it.

To meet my self-set deadlines, I need to average around 15 to 18,000 words a week in the first draft. Typing, that’s around 18 hours work, and I can do that if I don’t do much else. In theory, once Dragon and I get up to speed, I should more than double my writing speed.

I can spend the extra time on all the other stages. Editing, proofreading, commissioning or making covers — and above all marketing.

Market more effectively

One of my top jobs for January is to finish the marketing plan I’ve been talking about for at least two years. I’m still using the trailing elements of the one I created when I first started, adapted and extended as I learned more about the bazzillion book marketplace, but still demonstrably inadequate.

Readers have downloaded more than 90,000 copies of my books (most as ebooks, but a few as print) from the major retailers. It sound like a lot, but the margin is so small that I’m just treading water. I make enough so that my writing mostly pays for itself. I pay for subscriptions to web hosts and research sites, cover design, proofreading, and all the other stuff I need from my author account, though I occasionally have to pay for a workshop or accommodation for a conference out of the money from my day job.

Must do better. To really fly, I need to reach more readers.

The product counts

Top task, of course, is to write and produce the best books I can, and to do it often. What with one thing and another, I’m way behind on my publishing plans. Everyone tells me that, to sell books, you need to be seen in the marketplace with a new book. Around this time last year, I’d had a book out every month for four months, and was beginning to see some results. Then I got sick again.

Another is to have complete series to sell. I keep getting distracted, and I need to focus and finish the two series that I’ve started. One major goal for this year is to get Unkept Promises out and at least write the next Redepenning. Another is to publish the first four in the series that begins with The Bluestocking and the Barbarian (which I’m rewriting as a novel).

This way, I can finish both series in 2020.

But so does visibility

But it’s still only a hobby to amuse myself and a few other people such as yourself if the rest of the reading public doesn’t know I exist.

I’m working on it. First step, write the Marketing Plan.

You can help

Meanwhile, if you’d like to help, please recommend my books to your friends, and ask for them at your library. I’d also love more reviews. If you had time to leave a couple of sentences of honest review wherever you buy my books or on BookBub, that it be a great help.