Writer Goals

I was lying awake in bed last night unable to sleep.  I was thinking about how unlikely I am to ever be published!  My husband (being the amazing man he is) helped me think through it and told me to define some goals I want to accomplish.

1. Use traditional publishing: I know a lot of people are pursuing the self-publishing route currently.  My goal is to use the traditional agent/editor/publisher route.  I think I would try for a steady five years before I’d consider self-publishing.  My goal is to not have to try for so long.
2. Have over 100 ratings on Goodreads: I know this one seems a bit strange.  I see books on the Goodreads site with seven or 12 reviews and I get sad that so few people have read that book!  My husband tried to put it into realistic terms for me.  He challenged me to go to the library, find a random book in a random aisle, and see how many reviews it had on Goodreads.  He’s probably right that it wouldn’t have 100,000 but I’m going to guess that a given library book would have over 100.  (PS- I’m going to do this experiment.  It sounds fun.)
3. Be featured in a ‘Local Authors’ section at a bookstore: I think a lot of authors dream of this.  I’m fine if I’m not on the New York Times list, but to be featured somewhere would be a dream come true.
4. Have my book available in libraries: So that crazy book-lovers like myself can stumble upon it.  That really is the dream.  And finally;
5. To catch someone reading my book: I got this idea from a book (strangely enough).  In the book Ape House by Sara Gruen (Fun Fact: This is a NaNo book), one of the characters is married to a writer.  She says that it’s always her dream to catch a reader ‘in the wild.’  I think that’s a wonderful goal and it would be so fulfilling.

So those are my goals.  Please leave a comment telling me what your goals are (as a writer, blogger, or otherwise).  Let’s try to help each other achieve our goals!

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