Writing Goals for 2012

As October draws to a ghostly end, the world firmly in the grip of Hallowe’en fever, it is perhaps time to reflect back on a 30 day period of intense activity, some joy and disappointment, and most of all some small sense of achievement.

I have been, and continue to quite shamelessly promote my excellent, first-ever e-book – a stunning collection of 14 tantalizing tales at a true bargain price, available on amazon kindle stores at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005MXAZX2

Which, BTW, is now being professionally reviewed both at the kindle review site and at goodreads.  The reviewer at the goodreads site is also a triond member, and let me know in advance that her initial impressions were very favorable indeed, so why more of you are not diving in to buy this fantastic break time volume I just do not understand.

One thing I have really noticed in the past few days has been the extraordinarily positive effect that I experience in views gained just by using stumbleupon and digg a lot more to push my posts, along of course with facebook and twitter. Do others here have the same experience of getting more readers through wider posting on social sites?

There has, it seems, been what I think could be seen as a bit of a backlash against the closure of the forum, in that the site is if anything struggling even more just now to attract viewers, though I believe implicitly that this will change as search engines realize that the crap content is history.

Problem is, oif course, that these things take time to filter through, so we may just have to bite the bullet for a while longer, though I have noticed that earnings seem to be improving, so perhaps the situation is improving for the rankings even as we sit here debating it?

Now that I am closing on the 1300 posts mark, and the 250,000 views, I think that my goal for 2012 should be at the very least to break these barriers, which are  far less daunting than you might imagine, if you stick at it with enough determination. Whilst I am intent on spending a good amount of time this next two days enjoying the Halloween festivities, I keep my writing ambitions firmly in mind.

The next stage has to be the release of a second e-book, this one science fiction based, because what I want to demonstrate to the wider world is that I am a writer capable of diverse thinking who is not afraid to tackle genres. Perhaps a book of poetry, too, though how that might play out I really cannot imagine at this stage.

We all, as writers need to set ourselves definite objectives, partly because it helps to motivate us and partly because without them we all tend to be lazy, a recipe for NOT succeeding in your chosen field. I would really be interested to know what others out there are setting for themselves as writing goals in the near future. 

However good we believe ourselves to be, it is the reader numbers and comments that decide our writing fates, so in the end we need to ask ourselves whether we write to please our audiences or ourselves?  If there is not an element of both in your answer, then you are going wrong somewhere, and 2012 may be the year to put that right.