New School Year Resolutions

It’s back-to-school season! Parents across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief as they and their kiddos return to a more reliable, structured schedule, and they no longer are the  sole source of fun activities for the kids. Now you have some dedicated time back in your day, you can shift the focus back to your personal publishing goals. Even if you don’t have kids returning to school, this time of the year is a great for getting a fresh start, making some healthy habits, as well as taking stock of your publishing dreams and goals. 

Here are a few ideas to help you make the most of this opportunity for a fresh start in your writing journey, sparking your creativity and reigniting your passion for writing.

Make a Writing Schedule

Trying to make a dedicated schedule for yourself in any capacity can be challenging if you’ve got kids at home over the summer. Even if you don’t have kids, making and sticking to a schedule can feel really hard when you’re surrounded by so many fun summer events. So figure out how to carve out a chunk of time in your day that you feel you can reasonably reserve for writing. It doesn’t have to be every day, and it doesn’t have to be a massive time period. 

Figure out a duration and a frequency that not only works for your writing goals, but that you really think you can stick to. Maybe that’s a smaller bit of time each day, or a big chunk of time one to two days a week. Maybe you set yourself a word count goal, or maybe you keep it more open-ended and set a smaller, minimum word count goal for each session and leave the rest up to your level of inspiration that day. 

Just be honest with yourself about both your goals AND what you think you can reasonably stick to, and make yourself a writing schedule. Pop it in your calendar, and do your best to stick to it. And as the year goes on, remember that if your writing schedule no longer serves you, you don’t need to drop it entirely—just change it!

Make a Plan

Are you trying to build a career in publishing, but you don’t know much about the business side of things? This is a great time to work on building out a solid business plan for your publishing career. It’s great to dream about all of the things you could do in the publishing world, but if you take this opportunity for a fresh start and begin putting your goals on paper, you can build yourself a clear plan to achieve those goals. Obviously, you can always reach out to us and we can help offer advice and pair you with the proper professionals, but you can also check out our new business plan book, The Author’s Guide: Writing Your Business Plan, to help get you started!

Get Involved

Writing can feel like an isolating experience, and that isolation is what makes it so easy to drop a book when you find yourself in the middle of a big writer’s block. Finding community can not only help keep you accountable to reach your goals, but it can also offer support to help you through different blocks. You also might create a potential network of contacts as you get ready to publish your book. A new academic year is a great time to start exploring writers’ groups that you can join. Whether you’re looking for something with in-person meet-ups, a virtual group, or something a bit more structured like a class, there’s a writing community out there for you. You’ve just got to start looking for it!

Find Readers

Beta readers are such a pivotal part of the writing process, but it can feel scary to turn your book over to someone for their critique! That vulnerability can be a bit too much for some writers, and the beta reader phase can turn into a full-on roadblock. 

But, once you hear back from a reader, you get a really clear look into what is and is not working for your book, and it helps light the way to a round of revisions. That’s a huge step in the process, and certainly not one to skip! Start fresh this fall, find a reader, and regain that forward motion on publishing your book! Of course, if you’re not quite sure where to start, you can always reach out to us, and we can partner you with a reader to offer an editorial critique.

Start the Editorial Process

Maybe you feel like you’ve done all you can with your book. You’ve had readers look at it, and you’ve made as many revisions as you know how to make. Why not take things to the next level and look at hiring an editor to kick off the editorial process? Having an editor read through your book, suggest changes, and collaborate with you to strengthen your book will not only be vital in making the book as strong as possible, but it really helps give you momentum to make it to the finish line to publication (or to have a manuscript you feel is ready to submit to an agent/publisher). Not sure how to find an editor? We can help! Drop us a note, and we can schedule a free consultation to make sure we’re pairing you with the right editor and editorial services.

Writing and publishing is a long, challenging journey. Sometimes things can start to feel stale and discouraging, so we love taking any chance we can find to make a fresh start to reinvigorate our passion for books! And as always, if you want to talk through your publishing plans, don’t hesitate to reach out! We’re here to help!