More in 2024

For the last few years, I’ve been more productive than I had to be. Since 2018, my singular goal has been to publish a single new book wholly written by myself each year. This means that being in an anthology doesn’t count, as the entire project must be something I wrote. However, it also means that compilations of things I’ve written (like blog posts or short stories) can count as my annual release. There also isn’t a length requirement, which is why I count children’s picture books and cookbooks as meeting the intent of my goal. Having published not only a 10th Anniversary edition of The Fluxion Trilogy for the last few years (including audiobook versions of these books), but a new book as well, I decided it was time to refocus my efforts for the next few years before I have to put out a 10th Anniversary edition of Fourteener Father in 2028.

The plan for 2024 still has some remnants of the last few years, but I finally have some space to refocus and attend to things that have been languishing (like online marketing and product availability). I also have spent little time world-building the upcoming books I want to write, so this year will hopefully remedy some of that. Having two kids under 5 years old has taught me I now need to be explicit in my annual plans, which is why this year’s “resolution” post is arranged a little differently. I jotted down my plan per month instead of as general projects so that some months are inherently lighter than others and lend themselves to burnout prevention.

JANUARY: With the three separate 10th Anniversary editions of The Fluxion Trilogy complete, there’s still a bit of work I need to do to stitch everything back together for the 10th Anniversary release of the three-book collection. I already have the new cover mocked up, and it shouldn’t be too hard to get the paperback, hardcover, and eBook versions ready to go for the February 24th release. That I’ve already done most of the heavy lifting for this project makes me confident that January should be fairly relaxing.

FEBRUARY: While I could just slap all three audiobooks together and call it a day, the Appendix in The Fluxion Trilogy makes it a bit of a new book. I plan on recording this portion of the audiobook in February. I’ve also learned a lot in the last few years of producing audiobooks for Audible, so I plan to do some retroactive cleanup to make the three-book collection as professional as possible. Hopefully, I’ll have the audiobook version complete and released shortly after the 10th Anniversary goes live near the end of February.

MARCH: Since most of my books are on Amazon, I’ve been a little lacking in the marketing department. I plan to remedy this in March by submitting some A+ Content that will be displayed alongside my books. I already have some ideas on what this will look like, but I just need to make the time to create it and submit it. This shouldn’t take too much time (I hope), even for 10 books, so I expect March to be another light month.

APRIL: The first of two Camp NaNoWriMo events happens in April. I’m currently in talks with an illustrator for my next children’s picture book, Bountiful Bunnies. If these negotiations fall through, then I plan on using this month to create the draft of this book. I already have the words written (as minimal as they are), so much of my work will be developing the right look of the book’s illustrations. I have some styles already drafted up but need to sit down and work through the logistics of drawing over 1,000 rabbits for this book.

MAY: If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll notice that there’s some space at the bottom of the sticky note. That’s because I accidentally left May off my initial list. Part of my wider three-year plan between 10th Anniversary releases is to get into more local bookstores. While I’m in two local shops already, I’d like to expand to other locations. Increasing my local networking should help with this, and I already have a few businesses I’d like to partner with. Keep an eye out on my “Shop Local” page for additional stores that may show up as I spread my books across Colorado Springs.

JUNE: Similar to May, I plan to expand the distribution of my audiobooks beyond Audible. They’re already directly available from my online storefront in CD, USB, and digital mp3 formats, but I’d like to expand to other distributors so as many people can listen to my first trilogy as possible. I’m also going to try opening up another online storefront for my products (e.g., signed copies of my books) that’s not quite as isolated as the one I currently have. I’ll let you know where that is as soon as it’s ready.

JULY: Camp NaNoWriMo’s second event of the year takes place in July. While I won’t be writing a draft or editing a manuscript, I’ll be using the month to dive deeper into the world-building that I feel is lacking in an upcoming series that I plan to start in November. While the sticky note says this world-building will be for the adult fantasy “Exiles” series, I’ve lately had a lot of inspiration for a six-book middle-grade sci-fi series called “The Space Scout Handbook.” Hopefully, I’ll have settled on which series I’ll be working on for the next few years by the time July rolls around.

AUGUST: Having received a glowing review for Stop Screaming! from Readers’ Favorite, I plan on submitting more of my books for their reviews during August. I know not everything I’ve written is likely to get a 5-star review, but it doesn’t cost me anything to try. This lighter month will also allow me to wrap up what I need for this year’s release of Bountiful Bunnies. A children’s picture book is easier to pull together than a full novel, but it still takes some work.

SEPTEMBER: I plan to release my 11th book in the first few weeks of September. Bountiful Bunnies shares a similar plot to my short story, Be Fruitful… in that they both deal with exponentially increasing rabbits. I hope to visually convey the rapid increase in lagomorphs via this picture book. Having read quite a few books to my children, I found this mathematical topic to be sparsely covered and decided to increase awareness with this book.

OCTOBER: Being the spreadsheet nerd that I am, I’ve kept pretty good track of the sales of my books. However, my original spreadsheet for this job was clunky. I’ve since improved the spreadsheet, but the numbers don’t quite add up right. I’ll be checking my new spreadsheet against the actuals of my sales so that I can go forward into these coming years with a much better tool to provide metrics on my sales.

NOVEMBER: Whether I decide to pursue “Exiles” or “The Space Scout Handbook,” this year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will see me drafting out the first book in this series. Exiles will likely be a trilogy, which means the work I did in July will help me through the next three years of NaNoWriMo events. The Space Scout Handbook, however, is planned to be a six-book series, thus locking me into a schedule that could be twice as long as I initially planned. Either way, I look forward to finally starting a new series of books after a few years of one-shots and short story collections.

DECEMBER: The one book I know I want to write soon is none other than Rift. This fantasy book follows two points of view (POVs) and is split in half so that one POV is right side up and the other is upside down. I already have these two characters, the setting, and the rough plot figured out, but I need to dive deeper into the world-building. The more I can build my story Bibles for these books, the better prepared I’ll be to draft them correctly when the time comes.

This certainly looks like a lot of work for this year. However, it’s missing a few huge things that took up my time in previous years (like full 10th Anniversary and audiobook releases). One such goal is monthly blog posts about self-publishing here on my website. I’ve covered most of what I wanted to in the ~7 years of monthly posts and now I have nothing else to add that I hadn’t already said before. I’ll still post my annual January plans and December check-in for actual results, but the in-between months will remain quiet. Be sure to sign up for my Newsletter for monthly updates on the plan I detailed above—because I won’t be posting about it here until I’ve completed it in December.