How Direct to Reader Publishing is Empowering Authors

I was thinking the other day about possibly next year finding an agent to see if I could land a decent contract with a larger publisher. I put out a request for input on another list. As I was writing, I was making 'demands.' The agent would have to have a good track record. I would want to see a list of books s/he had recently placed and with what publishers. I would want a list of references. Then I was thinking about the publishing deal. I would need an advance equivalent to what I would likely make from selling indie for at least a year (the average time it takes for a book to reach market traditionally). I would need more than the standard 10% royalty, some input over pricing, and access to all the marketing tools on Amazon. I would also need monthly sales reports so I could adjust marketing to the sales.

Then I stopped and said, "Where's Terri Main and what have you done with her?" This is not the same woman who for 40 years has went hat in hand to publishers taking whatever contract or payment they offered. What made the difference? Quite simply, I don't need them anymore.
When I started doing some limited self-publishing last year, I was thinking primarily of short works, Bible studies, writing guides, etc. that would give me a little extra income. I was focusing on the types of writing for which there exists no market outside of electronic self-publishing. I was pleasantly surprised by the results. Okay, stunned is more accurate. I kept adding more. But I never thought about taking long works like novels and full length nonfiction as indie works. After all, I was a "serious writer." It's okay to play around with self-publishing small things, but books, to be recognized as a writer you "need" a publisher. And I had one, so that was where I was sending my next novel.

Then came the bad news. As a retired college instructor, I was supplementing my income with some part-time teaching. My position was cut. I needed to replace that income. I had three novels in various stages of production, but it took a year from acceptance to publication of my last novel and I only sold 52 copies in two years. Maybe I wasn't even that good. Besides, fiction is a hard sell. I was being told, it takes several books for you to build up a following. Maybe you need to do another blog tour.

I had done everything "right." Got a publisher. Did the blog interviews. Sent out review copies. I'm not exactly sure what my publisher did other than edit, format and distribute the books through the various online venues. No advertising. Marketing was basically up to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel cheated or anything. They treated me well, but I was under the gun. I couldn't wait 12-18 months to see a book published that would only sell a handful of copies.

So, I published my next novels on my own and in a few weeks sold more copies than I did in two years with my publisher. I started getting positive reviews on Amazon and people emailing asking about when the next book would be out. And I was getting paid every month (60 days after the sale) instead of once a quarter. Of course, I had to do the formatting and editing and marketing myself. But I was already doing most of the marketing already, but without access to the very powerful marketing tools you have available in Amazon (Note: I discuss these tools in greater depth in my book Point of Sale)

Suddenly, I was enjoying a modest popularity for my books. They were selling a few copies every day instead of one or two a month. At this point, I'm doing pretty well, but I notice that when I talk about this, there is a type of backlash from a lot of traditionally published authors and especially from some who are strongly associated with agents and publishers.

This brings me to the crux of this post. The technology that has made self-publishing possible is what sociologists call a "disruptive" technology. It doesn't just enhance the status quo. It changes it entirely. It's like the automobile, the steam engine and the internet. Ebook and Publish On Demand technologies are reducing the power of the traditional publishing industry and it's gatekeepers.

Authors don't need publishers just to get their books in front of the public. They don't need them to get them into bookstores. The biggest bookstore that ever existed - Amazon.com - is available to anyone who wants to publish there. And indie published books can sit right next to traditionally published ones competing on an level playing field. The reader doesn't know or care if the book was published by a Big Name publisher or by a small publisher or by the author. The reader just checks out the sample and if s/he likes it clicks the button and it's downloaded into their reading device.

And the author gets 35-70 percent of the sale compared to 10-15 percent from a traditional publisher. S/he can also adjust the price point personally to maximize sales and profits.

The author doesn't need an agent to act as an intermediary between the author and publisher, who in turn provided access to the reader.

So, what does this mean. Does it mean the days of traditional publishing are numbered. Not by a long shot. For one thing, indie publishing is hard work. You have to do everything yourself if you hope to get any profit. That means writing, editing, formatting and marketing. You can, of course, outsource this stuff, but that can seriously cut into your profits. And if you mess up on the editing and formatting, the grammar Nazis will come out of the woodwork and slam your novel with one-star reviews. It may be a faster way to publication, but it is also harder.

What it does mean, though, is that the Author, even if s/he has no intention of self publishing, is empowered in a way they never have been. Since they no longer need a Patron or publisher to get their book to market for almost no money, an accomplished writing with some credentials can negotiate a better deal. S/he can say to a publisher, if you want to publish this book, here are a few things I need. Obviously, they need to be reasonable demands and open to negotiation, but the author knows s/he has self-publishing to fall back on which can produce as good if not better sales than traditional at a higher royalty. The publishers know this as well. And when it comes to talking to an agent, even a mid list writer can approach an agent not with hat in hand asking "Please take me on as a client. What do I have to do to get your representation?" The indie author with a significant sales record or the traditionally published author with a few titles under his or her belt can say, "Mr./Ms. Agent, what can you do for me if I sign with your agency?"

Of course, it goes without saying you have to have a good product and some sort of track record either in indie or traditional publishing. But many authors with good credentials still are bowing low in hopes of getting a book contract and are taking just about anything when they really don't need to anymore.

Whether or not you want to go indie, those who are doing so are putting you in a better position as an author to deal with traditional publishers. We are empowering all authors and not just indies.

Chromebook for Writers

Samsung Chromebook

This weekend I was out of town and all I had was my iPad. iPad - Great for Surfing the internet, playing games and reading. Not so great for writing. However, my laptop is a 18 inch, 32 GB Ram 25 pound Alienware desktop replacement. Considering what I paid for this behemoth, I have considered only using it in a closed safe.

Seriously, it is great for my recliner, but it's not the sort of thing you are going to take to the library or sit on a park bench and write. Being retired, I've gotten in the habit of just staying in my house and I'm thinking I need to get out more. So, I needed a cheap, portable computer I could throw in my purse to use on the go.

I ended up getting a Samsung Chromebook for $250 at Best Buy. That's cheap enough that if it gets lost or broken, I haven't lost much.

So, for those of you who are not quite as up on tech issues as some of the more nerdish among you, a Chromebook is a relatively new concept in computing from Google, the people who brought you the search engine, Android phones, Chrome browser and some sort of data glasses in the future.

Basically, all the apps run in the chrome browser installed on the computer. About 2/3 of these run in the cloud (online). However, some of the basics like wordprocessing and spreadsheet can run offline, then when reconnected, the resulting documents are stored on Google Drive in the cloud.

Overall, I'm finding the computer to be pretty much what I wanted. It exists in usefulness somewhere between a tablet and a full laptop.

So, let's look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of this device. First, cost. I paid $250 for my device which has an 11 inch screen and nearly a full sized keyboard. I could have gotten a similar machine for $199, but it didn't have the glare resistant screen or the six hour battery life that mine does.

My machine also has two USB ports, an SD card port and an HDMI connector. There is no DVD/CD slot. The laptop has a video camera, microphone, headphone jack and stereo speakers.

The other big cost saving is software. Just about everything running on the ChromeOS is free. Google Docs and Zoho Docs are both free programs that also have an offline version. Although, I have to say that Zobo Writer keeps getting stuck when trying to load a large file. If you are online, you can also use Microsoft Office tools including Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Publisher for free. Incidentally, you can subscribe and download the entire suite for $9.95 a month and install it legally on five windows machines. But that's just an aside.

The MS-Office web apps are somewhat scaled down versions of the desktop programs, but they are good enough for most on the go editing and writing.

Having used all three (Zoho, Google and Word), I would say that I personally like Google docs a bit better, however, Word was good as well. Since they are all free, I suggest you try them all, if you get a Chromebook. As far as that goes, you can try them all if you don't have a Chromebook just by finding the programs on the web.

There is a product for free very similar to Scrivener called Scriptito which includes a social component where you can share your writing and get feedback from the Scriptito community.

Another cool thing about the Chromebook is it's weight. It's about 2.4 pounds and .7 inches thin. My sister saw it sitting next to my iPad and said, "You could easily get those mixed up." She's right it's just a couple of inches bigger than my iPad, but is much roomier to type on.

As for speed, there is no comparison. It goes from powered down to fully booted in less than 10 seconds. It is, after all, a single function computer. It loads a special version of the Chrome browser that all the apps run under. Also, launching an app takes just a few seconds. The response time within the apps is also impressive.

Currently, it is fairly safe from viruses, but if it becomes a popular operating system, someone will decide to attack it. However, at this point, it is safe.

However, on the flip side, don't expect to replace your laptop or desktop with this device. Just about all the apps are scaled down versions of what you can run on a desktop or a good quality laptop. You can write your story and edit it, using MS-Office share point, you can do some collaboration with your editor or co author, but if you are doing publishing, photo editing, video or audio production, this is not going to be adequate.

Also, there is a learning curve. The keyboard is slightly different. You don't have a caps lock and there is a control key function you need to use. It doesn't have a right mouse button and you tap with two fingers to access right click functions. The lack of a delete button makes editing interesting because you have to put the cursor behind what you want to remove and use the backspace key.

The Chromebook, though, is a good second computer. Like that second car, which is nothing special just basic transportation, the Chromebook is just basic computing. It's inexpensive, fast, makes good use of the cloud services and has a long battery life. For something to take to the library, make video calls, watch movies or listen to music. To sit someplace quiet and just write, it's well worth the money at this price. I wouldn't say the higher priced ones are worth it, though.

On the Pride of Pricing

The Bible says that Pride goes before a fall. Even the ancient Greek tragedies usually revolved around hubris or inordinate pride. Unfortunately, a lot of writers today, especially those self-publishing, are letting the Pride of Pricing put them out of business.

I remember talking to a woman awhile back who asked about my self publishing efforts. I told her a bit about the novels and books I had up on Kindle. When I told her that I set my price at 99 cents, she very proudly told me that she would never set her price that low. She went on about how many hours she spent writing it and editing. Then she said something like, "You demean your writing offering it for that price. I have my pride." Unfortunately, a few weeks later when I was reporting out a couple hundred sales that week, she didn't have any. She had her pride. What she didn't have were readers.

Too many writers come from an hourly wage mentality. This is natural. Most people work an hourly-wage job. We measure our success by how much per hour we make. Coming from education where you get paid the same if you work eight hours or you work 18 hours, I'm maybe not quite as tied to the hourly wage perspective. I'm more of a bottom line person. I don't care if I make $5.00 an hour or $50.00 if I have X amount of money at the end of the month. After all, I would be writing either way.

But the real danger of hourly-wage thinking is that it undermines one's business. You are no longer working for an employer. The freelance writer is selling a product. You have to sell the product for what the customer is willing to pay. If you are a well-known author with a huge following, you can charge the same for an ebook as for a paperback and get it. However, if you are an unknown quantity, you have to reduce the uncertainty of your reader by setting your price lower than those "name brand" people.

Think about it this way. I go to the store. I have acid reflux. So, on the shelf is Prilosec and the Store brand generic. The store brand is half what the name brand is. Which am I going to buy? They both have the same active ingredient. Well, that's a nobrainer. I'm going to get the generic. Now, some people simply are not going to believe the generic is as good. Or their pride makes them assume that costlier is better, but at the end of the day, I can be pretty sure at that store, the store brand will sell more units. The name brand and the store brand will produce similar profits, but the store brand will have higher sales.

Now, the store could get all prideful and say, "We have the same active ingredient. We are just as good as the name brand. After all, we have our pride," and charge the same as Prilosec. Now, who would be making the sales? Well, given the choice between the name brand and a no-name brand at the same price, most of us will go with the name brand, if for no other reason, than familiarity.

I know, it can offend our "artistic" sensitivities to compare our baby, our great work of literature, that literary offspring we labored over for years to a heart burn remedy, but sales is sales and customers are customers. Money is one aspect of making a buying decision. If you let pride in yourself and your work make you stupid about how consumers make decisions, then you will be like my friend. Full or pride, but empty of wallet.

[Pricing is one aspect of self publishing I discuss in Point of Sale: Secrets of Supercharging your Sales on Kindle. And, of course, it's just 99 cents.]

Platforms and Uncertainty Reduction or Why Writing a Good Book is not Sufficient to Sell One

I have often heard the advice put forth, often by nonwriters or amateur writers, but also by successful pros, that if you write a good book, it will sell. Now, if you take only a couple of seconds to think about this, you will realize that the two are not, indeed cannot, have a direct connection. Why?
Because, you idiot, (not you my dear reader you figured this out immediately) how does the reader know it is a good book until they have read it? And that is putting aside the fact that for most of us a "good book" is one we like not one that is judged to be good by some sort of external set of standards.

The truth is, as important as writing a good book is, that alone is not sufficient to sell the book. People will buy the book not because it IS good, but because they believe it MIGHT be good, or if the price is low enough, that it COULD be good. In the absence of certainty about the actual quality of the book, the reader must take a leap of faith. In other words they have to take a risk.

At some point in their thinking, their belief in the potential value of the book must outweigh their lack of direct knowledge of the same. It's like a balancing scale. On one side you have the question is this a good book? and equally important, "Is this book going to be worth the money I will pay for it?" On the other side, you have the book itself, an essentially unknown quantity, a description of the plot, maybe a review or two, and any previous relationship this person has with the author.

This is where the Platform comes into play. A platform is a pre-existing shared relationship experience with the author. That can include readers of a previous book, members of a discussion board or email discussion group, social media contacts, personal friends and relatives. Some people come to writing with a large platform. The classic example is a television personality who is well known and decides to write her life story. Others need to build a platform in other ways.

Now, I want to clarify something right here. You don't build a platform to sell one book. Platform building is not about getting the word out about the book you wrote today. Indeed, people who, for one reason or another read that book, become part of your platform more or less by default for your next book. If all you are interested in is selling a single book, buy an ad on Facebook.

Platforms do two things they build a connection with the author and they reduce uncertainty in the reader. Now, there are many ways in which we build these platforms. We will get into that in another post, but it is about reducing risk for the reader.

A reader is looking at a book. In all probability for those of us who do direct to the reader marketing, that will likely be on a webpage, probably on Amazon or Barnes Noble. The reader might have a short sample of the book, a description, a table of contents, and some customer reviews. They also have one other thing - a price tag. The higher that number, they higher the risk and the lower you will want to reduce the uncertainty. If you are totally unknown to the reader, you have to do a credible job of making the reader want to buy your book more than wanting to keep looking. You want him or her to click that "buy" button. That's a high mountain to climb. Not impossible. We'll talk about turning browsers into fans later, but the sale is much easier to make to someone who already knows the author and the author's work in some other venue.

It goes back to reducing uncertainty. This occurs in several ways. Some are controllable by the author. Others are not. These include:

• The book if recommended by someone the reader trusts
• The price point is low enough they feel they won't lose much if the writing stinks
• The sample is especially compelling and engages them quickly.
• The description gives enough information for the reader to understand the basic plot, characters and subgenre of the book. Additionally, the description is enticing and gives just enough information to tease the reader into buying the book.
• The book has high reviews from an independent source
• The reader has met the author in a live event
• The reader knows the author in another online or face-to-face venue: email group, social media, club, church, etc.
• The reader has read another one of the author's books
• The reader follows the author's writings in a shorter form such as short stories or blog posts
• The reader saw or heard the author on TV or radio or read about the author in the print media

Of course, every author will discover the ways they can best create that platform. Some do it by blogging. Others through social media. Right now, my main method is building a fan base by setting my price point for my novels, Bible studies and nonfiction books at 99 cents, and using free promotion days on Amazon. In the last three months, close to 5000 people have downloaded my books. I've made 625 paid sales. Since, everyone of my books has links to all of my other books, That's having an ad for my books in the hands of 5000 people who have already shown an interest in a certain type of book. It's very targeted advertising, which is the best kind. And it costs me nothing.

Hold on, you say, it costs you those sales to those people who got your book for free. Maybe, but it's unlikely. Those are probably not people who would have bought that particular book. A certain number of them only get free things. The rest are interested, but they need to know more about me as an author before handing over the cash. The interesting thing is that during my free days, my other sales spike and for a few days afterwards.

I'm building a platform. What are you doing to build a platform? Share your ideas below.

The Gatekeeper is Dead and the Gate is Open

Some of you already know that I have recently been experimenting with self-publishing. With one small, less than stunning experiment I did about seven years ago, I have generally been skeptical of the process and, like most writers, saw my literary future in the hands of traditional publishers. In fact, two years ago, I published my first novel Dark Side of the Moon and a couple of shorter works with a fine small publisher. Nothing I say here diminishes my respect for my publisher or for the role traditional publishing plays and will continue to play in the production and distribution of literary products. (I hope this description doesn't sound too "commercial," but the nature of reading, how we do it and how those things we read are produced is changing and the books of tomorrow may bear as little  resemblance to today's volumes as a paperback bears to a cuneiform tablet or a parchment scroll.)

Anyway, the self publishing industry as changed dramatically just over the past five years. It has become easier, more accessible, more digital and more profitable. It has also killed the gatekeepers or, at least, seriously wounded them and distributed the keys to anyone with a computer.

What has changed can be summed up in one word - Kindle. Now, my personal favorite dedicated ereader is Nook, and I read most of my ebooks (both Nook and Kindle) on iPad, but you have to give Amazon props for making ereading accessible to just about anyone with an internet connection. It also made low cost publishing accessible to just about everyone.

Of course, self publishing has been around for a long time. Many evangelists and people on the lecture circuit self-published their books for sales at their events. And, certainly, many con artists running "vanity presses," took advantage of would be authors charging them thousands of dollars claiming to "publish" their books, when, in fact, all they did was print them up at exorbitant prices leaving the authors with a box full of books and no way to sell them.

The problem, of course, was that bookstores wouldn't carry self-published books. You can understand their reticence. They had only a certain amount of shelf space. They can't read everything they sell. They have to depend on the publisher acting as a gatekeeper to filter out the really bad stuff. Then they turned to the reviewers for the publishing trade journals. Since bookstores wouldn't carry self-published books, the reviewers wouldn't review them. See the problem. The bookstores wouldn't carry books that hadn't been reviewed and the reviewers wouldn't review the books bookstores would be unlikely to carry.

Certainly, some authors might get a local bookstore to carry their book. If the book dealt with local history or had another local emphasis, their chances were improved. But getting widespread distribution was virtually impossible.

Things started to change as early as the mid-90s when Amazon really started to become a major force in bookselling. They started taking self-published printed books. You still had to pay for the printing, ISBN number and send them several copies and keep them supplied with copies as they sold out. It wasn't perfect, but it was a kick in the shins of the gatekeepers. The volume was still low and cost per unit sold was high. That meant that you could not compete on price in any meaningful way against the Big publishers. Additionally, Amazon still accounted for a relatively small part of the book selling market. You might not remember, but in 2000 fewer than half of all households had internet service. Cell phones only made calls. And a tablet was something with paper you wrote on.

In 2010 approximately one in four books sold were bought through Amazon. Some suggest that this year, that number could be closer to half if you include ebook sales.

There is a very telling graph at http://www.fonerbooks.com/booksale.htm . It shows bookstore sales for Barnes Noble bookstores, Borders Bookstore and Amazon sales over the past decade.

In 2002 Amazon had sales of $2 billion dollars. Barnes Noble in store sales had roughly twice that volume. In 2010 BN had roughly $4.25 billion and trending downward. Amazon by contrast had over $7 billion and rising. In short fewer people are buying books in a bookstore. They are buying them online. Okay, you can call that blunt force trauma to the gatekeeper. With Amazon welcoming just about anyone with a book to sell and selling more volume than BN and Borders combined, the gatekeepers were pretty much down for the count.

But wait! Self publishing is still expensive and complicated, right? At one time that was the case. but then along came publish on demand and a little thing called Kindle Direct Publishing. First print on demand created a method where you uploaded a PDF of your book or even a MS-Word file to a POD publisher like Lulu or Amazon's own CreateSpace. The technology made the process simpler, but the product still produced units at prices that limited how much you could discount them and still show a profit. However, some good marketing, and, of course, some good writing could produce a profitable book.

But the real breakthrough for writers was Kindle Direct Publishing and, to a lesser extent Pub-it with Barnes Noble and Mark Coker's Smashwords. But Kindle is still the leader, and its association with Amazon, the internet's leading bookstore, provided unparalleled opportunities for writers, and pretty much wrote the gatekeeper's obituary.

With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) a writer without any significant technical expertise could write their book using just plain old MS-Word and Kindle's own conversion software and produce an ebook which would be published live on Kindle within 12 hours if the formatting was correct. The cost of production - ZERO!

Even more important, the writer can set the price anywhere from 99 cents on up. They can receive 35 - 70% royalties on all sales. Compare that with standard traditional print royalties of 5 - 15% - often on the wholesale price and not the cover price. You could sell a $10 book and get only 50 cents. I get 35 cents selling books at 99 cents and I'm probably selling a lot more books at that price than at $10 a pop, especially as an "unknown."

Of course, there are reasons, publishing companies, especially the larger, more well established companies pay such a low royalty. First, most are print first, digital later. Producing a print book costs a lot up front. There's paying for editing, formatting, cover design, print setup, printing and shipping. Even "cheap" paperbacks are $8-10 making them anything but an impulse buy. Print books (and many ebooks by name authors) have become luxury items and not cheap entertainment.

But the self-published author has the advantage. S/he can set the price just about anywhere they want. I've chosen the 99 cent price point. It works for me. Since I'm an unknown quantity to most who will find my books on Kindle, charging 99 cents reduces their risk and they get to know me. Also it encourages impulse buying. However, a traditional publisher has to charge at least five times that just in order to make any reasonable profit.

So, the writer is no longer at the mercy of the traditional publishing industry. S/he has the direct to reader option. Now, this is more work, but more profitable. However, if the author prefers to write, submit and let the publisher take care of everything after writing, that is an option as well. However, for good books, traditional publishers can no longer rest easy knowing they are the only shows in town.

I'm not saying self-publishing is right for every one or that traditional publishers do not provide a valuable service. I am saying, that they day of the writer being at the mercy of the traditional publishing community. Yes, a lot of garbage is tramping over the gatekeeper now, but people will vote with their feet. They will buy the good stuff and ignore the bad. The marketplace, and not a few editors, will decide what finds its way into the public arena.

It's going to be a rocky ride for many of us, but it's also going to be an exciting one.

A Freelancer's Performance Review: Strengths and Weaknesses

Earlier in the week we began a discussion of how a freelancer can perform a performance review to help in planning for the next year. Last time we talked about your mission, what you have been doing and what you should be doing. Today, we are doing to deal with one of the classic evaluation areas of a performance review in the workplace. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

I always like to start with the positive. This is not just a "warm, fuzzy," it actually has some science behind it. Evaluations which focus primarily on things needing improvement tend to be less effective than those whose primary focus is on reinforcing those things which are being done well.

There was a study done at a workshop several years ago. The participants each received training and were evaluated in their post training performance. Those receiving only negative evaluation (evaluations of things needing improvement) showed the least improvement. Those receiving a mixture of positive and negative evaluation improved more. Those receiving only positive evaluation of those things done well during the training improved the most. So, always begin any evaluation, even a self-evaluation, with an examination of what you do well.

Areas for Growth (I prefer that to "weaknesses)

 Why do I use that term instead of weaknesses? Am I just trying to put a positive spin on things? No, although, that by itself would be sufficient reason to do so. Words do impact our attitudes and those attitudes impact our performance. However, there is another reason. Weaknesses limits your thinking to things you already do, but could do better. However, not all improvement simply comes from correcting some flaw. Some of it comes from expanding on what you already do well or broadening your area of strength into new areas.

For instance, maybe you are already proficient in using Photoshop to fix the quality of the photos you take to illustrate your articles and books. However, you might feel you want to do more like create book covers or web banners.

Of course, some things you might not be doing so well at. Maybe you need to work on dialog or describing locations. These are areas where you need to improve. It might not even be a skill area. For creatives, the business side of art is often the problem. I may be good at writing, but not at keeping my books straight. I might understand plot and character, but not marketing and advertising. So, I might need to do some work on developing those skills as well.

So, as part of your annual review make a list of strengths and weaknesses.  Next up: An action plan.

Performance Review - For Freelancers: What is your mission, What do you Do, and What should you be doing.

It's coming up on the end of the year. Any of you who have been in the business and professional world know that this is the time of the year managers do performance reviews. I was in education for the past 30 years. Ours were more often done at the end of the school year, but for most of us, this is the time we begin planning for the new year, and just because you work for yourself, doesn't mean you don't need a performance review. In some ways, we need it more than anyone else because we don't have the ongoing evaluation of our performance throughout the year.

I just finished reading an article at Lifehacker.com called How to Do a Proper Self-Review and Identify Your Professional Pain Points (Before Your Boss Does). It got me thinking about the sort of things freelancers and work at home professionals need to consider as we face the end of the year. So, I'm adapting many of the ideas from the Lifehacker article for this series.

 What is your mission?

Every business or institution has a mission statement. It sets forth what that business is all about. It also sets limits around the business. Think about it this way. Nobody can do everything. Sometimes, as freelance writers, we try to spread ourselves too thin. Now, I'm not talking about taking some chances or testing the waters in a new area. What I'm talking about is a general tendency to be unfocused. Here's my revised mission statement for this year. Much has changed so I could broaden that statement a bit:

Wordmaster communication is dedicated to producing focused self-help, Bible study and writing instructional guides, primarily in ebook format, and producing clean speculative fiction novels which blend science fiction/fantasy elements with mystery and/or political intrigue.

Now, I will be doing other things, but they will be on the periphery of this primary focus. My focus is shifting from pursuing publication through other publishers and more toward self-publishing. There are a variety of economic and personal growth factors that are leading me in that direction. Also, changes and opportunities in the self-publication marketplace make this a prime time to establish a presence there. So, that is my mission statement.

In creating a mission statement set forth somewhat specifically what the scope of your writing "business" is. Sometimes I ask people to write a mission statement and they write something like this:

My mission is to write inspiring books that entertain, encourage, comfort, amuse and motivate people to improve their lives.

That's everything and nothing. You can include Stephen King, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Hemmingway and Dr. Phil under that mission.

One good way to figure out what you are doing and what projects you have planned. For instance, I have several Bible studies already written which need to be edited and formatted for Kindle. I also have outlines for several short guides to novel writing and a full length book about magazine article writing. My novels are mostly science fiction mysteries with one being more of a sword and sorcery fantasy but focusing more on the political inner workings of the fantasy world than in big magical battles.  My mission statement reflects this.

Of course, I will still take on website projects and public relations jobs, but unlike six months ago, those will not be at the core of my writing. My writing endeavors have shifted, so I rewrote my mission statement.

If you don't have a mission statement, you might want to write one. If you do have one, then now might be a good time to review it and see if it accurately reflects what you are doing. If it does not, then either the statement or what you are doing needs to change. I can't tell you which is right for you. That is something you have to figure out on your own.

What are you Doing?

You know those memes  you see on Facebook and Google Plus that show a series of pictures with titles like "What my mother thinks I do?" "What society thinks I do?" etc. Well, You need to cut through the illusions and get to the reality of what you really did this year. Again, be specific. List out your writing projects. If they are still in progress estimate how far through them you are. Here's a short list from my personal review:

• Finished Facebook Page for Wordmaster Books
• Finished Facebook Page for Wordmaster Communications
• Finished Website project for X Client
• Finished Editing, Formatting and Publishing Death Gets an "F" on Kindle
• Learned how to use Muse, Photoshop and In Design moderately well.
• Finished Editing, Formatting and Publishing Time Management for Writers on Kindle
• Two-Thirds finished with first draft of Time after Time
• Three Quarters finished with final draft of Stormy Weather

This year, looking over my own list, I find that I was doing a lot of work setting up an infrastructure for marketing, learning some tools for my self-publishing ventures, formatting and publishing numerous items that have been completed and languishing in files. I've been doing some new writing as well, but a big focus, particularly the last few months has been turning some of my writing into publications.

What Should you be Doing?

Now comes the hard question. What should I be doing? Well, that depends a great deal on two things: What my goals were at the start of the year (as revised during the year to reflect changing circumstances) and what my mission statement is reading.

Looking over my revised mission statement, I see I probably spent more time than I should have developing marketing for my client-based writing services. I also probably didn't need to spend quite as much time learning InDesign and Adobe Illustrator as I did. So, I might make my list of things I should have been doing look like this (in abbreviated format):

• Learn the basics of Muse, Photo Shop and InDesign
• Finish Editing Stormy Weather and format for Kindle
• Finish Editing Death Gets an "F" and format for Kindle
• Develop video materials for online courses (Novel Writing, Mag Writing, Social Media for Writers)
• Develop outline for Shyness Book
• Complete first draft of Total Eclipse of the Moon
• Complete first Draft of Time after Time

Of course, I have more on my list. But you get the idea. Now looking over this, I completed some of the items. Some I'm nearly complete on. Some I haven't done anything on. I'd say, I was about 60% successful. Not bad, but certainly not where I want to be.

So, that's the first step. Later in the Week will look at the next part of your performance review: Strengths and Weaknesses.