What to do when January comes too soon

It’s the start of the new year and most posts at the moment are about New Year’s resolutions, making plans, setting goals or choosing a word for the year. I wholeheartedly believe that goal-setting is a key step in the successful promotion of your writing. We flounder when we don’t have direction, a vision, a strategy and I’ve written about it here. However, I hardly ever seem to get my act together to have my business goals set by January 1st. (I know real professionals take the month of December to review and set goals, and I had every intention of doing that last year but a shiny new story idea got in the way.)

The problem with New Year’s resolutions

It’s easy to feel under pressure at this time of year to have a plan but we all know we often struggle to keep up with New Year’s resolutions. I think these are a few of the reasons:

  • We didn’t really THINK our goals through
  • We didn’t set the RIGHT goals
  • We set too MANY goals
  • We set UNREALISTIC goals
  • We didn’t create a SUPPORT plan to stick to our goals

Review first

With that in mind, I want to make sure I THINK through my goals and set the RIGHT ones. One way to do that is to REVIEW where you’re at. Yes, you need to know where you want to GO, but you can’t get there if you don’t identify the gap between HERE and THERE.

SWOT

So, before I set goals (at any time of the year), I start with a REVIEW. One simple, old-fashioned, oft-maligned and ignored business tool I like is the SWOT analysis. It breaks internal and external factors influencing your business into four quadrants. Plus, it’s visual which I like. Now, don’t be put off by the fact this is a ‘business’ tool. If you’re a serious writer, you run a business. It’s called ‘You, Writer, Inc’.

If this tool is new to you, I want to make it applicable to your work as a writer. You can assess your craft as a writer, or the ‘business’ of writing (revenue, marketing, promotion, products, events etc). I highly recommend you think about the strengths and weaknesses of your actual writing. After all, you have to have a good product (book) to succeed. However, today, I’m going to talk about a SWOT of your marketing or communications activities, since that’s my thang!

Start by splitting your page into 4 quadrants and label them STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, THREATS.

SWOT analysis

Now start brainstorming and fill each quadrant with bullets. It doesn’t have to be neat or logical. Anything goes at this point. Here are a few questions to get you started.

STRENGTHS

  • What successful or meaningful interactions did you have with new readers? How/where did they come about?
  • What have you loved doing this year in terms of connecting with readers and talking about your writing? (We are often stronger at things we’re passionate about so don’t just think in terms of ‘strengths’).
  • What are people always saying you’re good at?

WEAKNESSES

  • Does your jacket copy have a great hook & help readers know what they’ll get from reading your work?
  • Is one of your books out-selling the others? Why?
  • What’s your online presence like? Is it consistent? Are you contributing as much as you’re ‘taking’? Are you connecting with my readers?

OPPORTUNITIES

  • Many of these will come from your strengths or weaknesses. Take each strength and weakness and see if you can turn it into an opportunity. E.g. if you’ve had success interacting with readers, how can you repeat or expand that? Can you approach those readers to ask for reviews/referrals?
  • Readers: How can you reach out to them this year? Who do you know personally that likes your genre?
  • Writers: What are they doing that resonates with you as a reader? Are there writers you can reach out to?
  • Value: What’s one thing you could offer your readers which they would like, aside from your book?

THREATS

  • My customers roll their eyes when I ask them to consider these. However, it’s important to be aware of things which could hamper your communication with your audience. Consider both internal and external factors. Jane Friedman has a good blog post about this.
  • Your weaknesses can become threats.
  • Technology, e.g. changes in social media platforms.
  • Publishing industry changes, e.g. trends in genres, online vs. paper.
  • Economics, e.g. changes in revenue models with companies like Amazon.

This is one simple tool for reviewing your communications activities. If you’re anything like me and you’re not caught up to January yet, join me in spending this month reviewing last year before you set any goals for this year. It will help you set the RIGHT goals, which is much more likely to lead to success. And please let me know how you get on. I’d love to hear.

Do you need help reviewing your marketing activities? Then maybe a Marketing Audit is right for you. Contact me for a free call to see how I can support you in your marketing.