How to Set a Realistic Publishing Goal

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

How to set a realistic publishing goal. I'm going to share with you a few little tips that I recommend you consider when you want to publish, publish a new book. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm an author, coach and the creator, founder and owner of authoraudienceacademy.com and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And in today's training, I'm going to give you a few tips to consider when you're starting a publishing project. So it is so fun. Today is day one of a 90 day publish accountability group in Inside Author Audience Academy. And so I just did the kickoff video and it really got me thinking that I also wanted to share with all of you what tips and what things to consider when you're starting a publishing project. And so there are three things I want you to consider before you're starting a publishing project. I use the illustration of training for a race. I'm a runner. My husband is a runner. He's a running coach. And so running runs in our family like we are runners. And I have trained for half marathons before. My husband's run marathons and even ultra marathons. And what happens sometimes with runners is kind of similar with writers. You get really excited, you set this big goal, and for a runner it might be, I'm going to run a marathon this year, I'm going to get in shape, I'm going to finally do this. And you start training. And training for a marathon is intense. I've done a half marathon. When you think about training for a marathon, then you get overwhelmed, it seems too much, you get disillusioned, you get hurt, you know, things happen and so you quit. Whereas if you would say, okay, I'm going to start with a 5k, I'm going to start with that's 3.1 miles. A marathon is 26.2 miles. So if you say I'm going to start with 5k, couch to 5k, that's a very doable, realistic goal. You can run that 5k, accomplish it, get momentum, finish it, feel like you finished a goal and then move forward. So when you're publishing a book, one of the things I want you to think about is, is your publishing goal realistic? And there are three things I want you to take into consideration. So so that you're not biting off more than you can chew. And then you get disillusioned, disappointed, and you're just like, this doesn't work or you just beat yourself up, we tend to be our biggest critics, like, why can't you finish this book? So one of the things, the first thing you need to really evaluate and decide is how much time do you have to put into this project. Many people are doing this with full time jobs, you're taking care of families, you have volunteer responsibilities in your community. And it's just not realistic for you to finish like maybe a full length book in 90 days. But I really believe anyone can finish a short Kindle ebook in 90 days. I do. I think no matter what your situation is right now, what your circumstances are, you can rearrange things, you can set your schedule to fit in a short Kindle ebook. But if you're wanting to do a full length book, print, Kindle audiobook, all these different formats, all these different things, and you don't have very much time to devote to it. It just may be too much right now. And so right now you may decide, I'm going to publish this in Kindle. I'm going to still prepare everything as if I may publish it in print later, but I'm going to publish this in Kindle first and get it done. Learn the publishing process, get it out there, don't put it off. Like still do it, get it done. But you have to look at what time do you have available? All right, so the first thing I want you to think about is your time. The second thing you need to think about to set a realistic publishing goal is your budget. How much do you have to put into this publishing project right now? I will tell you. The most inexpensive, easiest, fastest option to get published is Kindle. So it's going to be cheaper on every front to do a short Kindle book. You know, because it's shorter, it's going to take less editing, you know, the book covers less expensive, you don't need an ISBN, you don't have to purchase that for a Kindle book. And there's so many things that you do have to do then for print books. And so you really need to look into what is my budget, what, what do I have to invest into this book right now and is it realistic for me to do all the formats? Or maybe I start with Kindle and as I sell books, I reinvest my profits into publishing the print version. Now the way I teach it, inside Author Audience Academy you don't have to spend thousands of dollars. Usually it's hundreds or even less. For a Kindle ebook, it can be less than $100. I mean, it just depends on who you get for editing. The editing is probably the biggest expense. But what is your budget and what do you have to spend? So the first thing was how much time do you have? The second thing is your budget. And then the third thing is your resources. So do you have the resources you need to finish this project in the time that you want to finish it in? So do you have the instructions, the coaching, the training? Like I provide all of that inside Author Audience Academy for my members. They have all of the templates and the downloads and the trainings. And then you get coaching with me every day. Anytime you're stuck, just post a question in our Facebook group and I'll answer it. But do you have the resources you need? Because if you're going at this alone, and believe me, I did it in the beginning, but it may take longer. Because what happens is when you're able to invest in resources like coaching, whether it's group coaching or one on one coaching, or even invest in books or programs, you're able to really short circuit the time. You're able to really get it done quicker because all your questions will be answered for you. But if you're having to research and figure out the answers yourself, you may need to extend your deadline. Does that make sense? So the three things I want you to consider before you set a publishing goal to make it realistic. How much time do you have? How much money do you have to spend? Your budget, and do you have the resources you need? Do you have the answers to your questions? Will you be able to move forward quickly and easily without getting stuck? And just like running, I want you to consider starting with a short Kindle ebook, just like you would start with a 5k with running. And you may want to start with your print showcase book, your life book, you know, the book that I'm writing right now, it is that kind of book. It is going to be like the book that contains my life story and it's going to be my print showcase book. I'm going to have speaking engagements surrounding that book. I mean, there's so many product lines, there's so many things I can do with this book, but it wasn't the first book that I published. That may be where you're starting right now. And you may have the time, you may have the budget, and you may have the resources to do that. I want you to think about all those things first before you dive in. Because the thing that I don't want to happen is I don't want you to give up. I don't want you to say, oh, forget this book. I don't want you to say, oh, it's too hard or it's too expensive or it's too this or it's too that. I want you to be a finisher. I want you to cross that finish line. And the very best way you can do that is by setting a realistic publishing goal. Knowing up front, like week one in the published module, Inside Author Audience Academy is all about making these decisions, researching your target market. Researching. Is this even a profitable book idea? Because one of the things I see authors doing, one of the mistakes I see them making is not doing that research up front and then being disillusioned and disappointed and discouraged and frustrated and upset on the back end that their book isn't selling. And, and if they would have just done a little bit of research on the front end, it would have saved them so much stress. Does that make sense? I hope so. I want you to be a finisher. Let's do this. Set your publishing goal. Set a realistic publishing goal. You know, really take into account these things and do it. I would be more than happy to work with you. I have tons of free resources you can get ahold of@shellyhits.com free and I am so excited to work with all of my author audience Academy Academy members the next 90 days to help you cross that finish line. Let's do it. We are writers. We're creatives. I actually am embracing the fact that I'm a creative. I never thought I was a creative because math and science were my best subjects in school. I was a physical therapist in the medical field for 12 years. But I'm a creative because I love to create. We love to create. And so we want to dive right into the creating part. Getting the book cover, designing that and writing our book, figuring out our, you know, and that's fun because we're creatives, but what happens is when we skip that and I mean, I cannot tell you how many people contact me and tell me that they're frustrated or disappointed in their book sales. And I could have told them that their book topic was not going to sell very well. There's not a hungry market for it. It's not solving a pain point. It's not really a book that's. That is in demand now. I have passion projects that, yeah, they don't sell well, but that's my passion project. Or I have business builder books that. Yeah, I mean, I know that topic is probably not going to sell as well, but it's going to help me get new leads and get new people into my business. So there's different purposes for your books, but I just see so many authors disappointed, disillusioned, frustrated, discouraged. And it really could have been clear from the very beginning. And if you go into it knowing like, okay, I'm not going to be making a full time income off of this one book, I think that's the other thing. A lot of authors get this unrealistic expectation that they can make a full time income on one book and it's just not true. I mean, you have to have systems in place. You know, you have to have a book and sometimes it can happen. I mean, I'm not going to say it can't happen. There are the outliers and there are the people that make a full time income on one book, but very rarely does that happen. So I just want you to go into it eyes wide open, knowing what's possible, knowing. And in Author Audience Academy, I have three phases for you. Phase one is publishing your book. Phase two is marketing, which is author automation. It's all about working smarter, not harder. Setting up systems that are set it and forget it. Phase three is the book brilliance, creating multiple products and multiple streams of income from that one. And it's exactly what I've done and so you can do that as well. But I just want you to take that pressure off and to go into this with a realistic idea of what's going to happen. All right, well, you guys have a great rest of your day. Again, take a few minutes, think about these things, how much time you have, how much money you have for your budget and. And do you have the resources needed so you can set a realistic publishing goal. And I will see you next time. Bye Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.