I’m sitting at my kitchen island this morning, drinking my coffee with cream and monkfruit. My journal is open, my MacBook is lit up, and now I must decide.
What will I do for the final 35 days of the year?
It’s a struggle that I experience every year about this time. December is typically a planning time for me. It’s when I prepare my goals for the following year and my life plan.
I have been preparing for my writing endeavors for the last two years for the upcoming year. Last year, I was scrambling because things hadn’t turned out how I thought they would, and I wasn’t sure what to do next.
Opportunities are before me this year, and I could be doing many things. But I need to make some decisions, and it does come down to finishing the year strong or setting up everything for next year.
Have you ever experienced this?
As I write this, I know which way I will go. Simply sharing it in this format has helped me immensely in considering the next steps. Maybe this is true for you, too.
Maybe you are trying to figure out your next steps with your writing. Maybe you have a book or idea you want to start right now. If you feel this way, you are in good company.
As I sit, tapping away at my MacBook keys, I have concluded and have a supernatural sense that this is the word for the rest of the year.
Prepare for next year, because you will be in the thick of things all year long.
As I look at everything before me, I know that next year will be a year where the system I set up over the next 35 days will be the system I will use all year long to create helpful content, earn money, and publish more books.
And I think that is what more writers need to do for the last month of the year. I think more writers need to focus on creating the system they will hustle in for the following year so they can do what they want to do with their writing.
If that means publishing more books, then it might mean cutting back on the daily publishing of blog posts.
If that means growing a following and email list, maybe that is publishing fewer books and doing the online content focus for the year.
It might mean more balance. Publishing books and content creation. That’s okay, too.
The key is to figure it out. Commit to what you decide. And build the system to do what you need to do to make it happen.
What does that mean for me?
My goals for 2024 as a writer are threefold. They will incorporate a lot of things. However, they can be accomplished if I set up the writing systems for what I am doing. So, what are my goals:
Simplify my writing systems. I write under three Substack Newsletters. This means I publish something three times a week here. To simplify, I will be doing much more content repurposing at Medium.
Grow my following and subscribers. This means growing here on Substack and over at X and Medium. This means a lot of regular publishing, but repurposing content will make that possible.
Help more people. This means I want to make my content concise and super helpful. As my following and subscribers grow, I want to create things that help people learn but spur them on to action.
One way that I will try to help more people is to narrow down and share the information available for self-publishing. That’s why I created Self-Publishing Daily.
This is one of those places where I am preparing for next year.
Tomorrow, I will launch my first daily email for Self-Publishing Daily. It is a short, concise email which I will share the following:
Something from me about self-publishing
Something from someone else about self-publishing
Highlight a self-published author or book.
And that’s it. It will be short and straight to the point. Most of all, it will curate information to help you self-publish your books and grow an online following to sell your books.
So, I’d like to invite you to Self-Publishing Daily.
Final Thoughts on Preparing for Next Year
When it comes to now or later, I think we can prepare for next year and hustle into the new year as well. We can thrive if we set up a system that will help us for the following year.
One of the best ways to do this is by starting now, soft launch everything you will do for the following year, and hitting the ground running on January 1.
What do you think? Does this sound like something you want to do? Can you spend the next 35 days creating the system you need to accomplish your goals for next year?
I’d love to hear what your goals for your writing and self-publishing are for next year. Share in the comments below!
J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Christian Author on Amazon who writes about faith, family, and writing books. Check out his books over on Amazon, as some are on sale today!
I like both the approach of streamlining your priorities and the simplicity of the Daily Self-Publishing newsletter.
Gather. I’m preparing for next year. I may go back to work full time and plans for writing are in place, so I can fall into my projects. Gather like a squirrel for the change in weather. I’d share my word picture, but can’t here. You’ll have to wait for the story.