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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
- Have my book available in libraries: So that crazy book-lovers like myself can stumble upon it. That really is the dream. And finally;
- 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!
Taking On a World of Words 