Hello friends! Sagan here. Welcome back to Indie Author Weekly, where I share my behind-the-scenes journey of writing and self-publishing books.
If you’re new to this podcast, I am a productivity strategist for multi-passionate creatives: I help people manage their time and energy effectively, through customized, actionable strategies that work for your unique life and business. When I’m not teaching about productivity to solopreneurs, I spend my time writing books, such as my Polyamorous Passions romantic comedy series. And that is what this podcast is all about: the adventures of the author life.
Get podcast episodes and writing updates delivered directly to your inbox at SaganMorrow.com/behindthescenes—link is in the show notes.
Now let’s get into this episode of the Indie Author Weekly podcast. In this episode, I want to share my author plans and writing projects for 2021.
In our previous episode of Indie Author Weekly, Episode 91, I shared about how my writing plans changed over the course of 2020… so I thought you might be interested in hearing about my upcoming author and writing plans for the new year!
As you probably already know, I am very multipassionate. And that means I have a lot of moving pieces to my business. So I need to arrange all of that into my schedule, and it also means that I pivot often to refine my processes and ideas and plans.
Here are my plans for 2021—they aren’t quite as ambitious as my plans were a year ago, in terms of quantity, but I’m making a concerted effort to slow down and move forward really intentionally with my projects for this year.
So! My 2021 author plans and writing projects have a few different parts to them:
Part 1: Finish writing and publish Small Town Stilettos. This is my standalone romcom, and I’m guessing it will be ready for publication in March. I’m working with a new cover designer and a new formatter, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes in terms of how it affects timeframes etc. But late winter, early spring seems a likely publication date at the moment. So that’s what my first quarter of 2021 will focus on.
Part 2 of 2021 author plans: Write short stories and submit them to competitions. I had so much fun writing my first creepy short story a couple months ago, and I’d love to try to write a new short story to submit to contests on about a monthly basis. Which I guess means that I’ll be writing 12 short stories in 2021! So maybe my 2021 plans are pretty ambitious after all… Hmm. What I discovered a couple months ago is that I can write and submit a short story within just a couple hours, if I have a really clear idea for it, so I’m planning on setting aside perhaps one weekend a month to focus on each short story.
And the third part of my 2021 author plans are to write and publish the next book in the Polyamorous Passions series and the second installment in Scarlett’s trilogy, Book 8. I’m starting to think more about that story and I have some ideas swirling around for it, so by the time I’m finished with Small Town Stilettos, I think I’ll be very ready to switch back to Polyamorous Passions again. Which is great! That will likely be my main focus in summer 2021.
There is a fourth part that I’m more tentative about whether or not it will happen in 2021, but it would be a novella spinoff story from Small Town Stilettos. I think it would be a really good fit for a particular small press publishing company, so depending on how things go with the other writing projects, I’d like to finish writing a complete draft of that novella and submit it to the publishing company for consideration before the end of 2021, if not have it published by the end of the year.
Okay, now that I’m looking at these plans, they do seem very ambitious, after all. Oops! I can’t help it, I get too excited about all the different creative ideas.
It also helps that I have a pretty good idea of how long it takes me to write and edit projects, because then I can actively slot them into my schedule. I’d also like to have enough time and energy and investment to give each writing project the marketing that it deserves, when it’s ready for publication, so that’s an important piece to always consider in these instances, too.
Looking ahead at the upcoming year, it’s always a good idea to take those things into consideration: the time and energy and financial requirements for each project, as well as where exactly it fits into your schedule. A lot can change over the course of the year, which is why it’s good to have a broad set of plans that still has room for flexibility and moving around the various writing projects as new ideas come to light or unexpected obstacles arise.
If you’d like help making plans for your own book projects, your business, or your life in general, then I want to recommend 2 free resources: Episode 41 of this Indie Author Weekly podcast shares 5 tips for how to plan your book projects for the year ahead, and also, my Business Planning Retreat Workshop teaches you how to host your own solo retreat to figure out what you most want in your personal & professional life, and how to make that a reality. Get in there at SaganMorrow.com/retreat — link is in the show notes.
Now, I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this! Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram, @Saganlives, to chat about it, or to let me know if you have requests for future episode topics. The more you tell me what you’d like to see more of on this podcast, the better that I can accommodate that.
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And let’s stay in touch: Get podcast and book updates delivered directly to your inbox, plus unlock awesome bonuses such as free chapters of my books, at SaganMorrow.com/behindthescenes—link is in the show notes.
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Indie Author Weekly podcast, and I will see you in the next episode… and in the new year.