Now That the 30 Days is Over, How Can I Improve?
It’s always a good idea to look back on your projects and search for ways to improve and streamline. In a micro way, this is also a good idea to do every night before bed. If you journal every night, good for you. Reflecting on the day is healthy, helpful, and it allows you to grow.
A Half Mast Timeline
The biggest place for improvement is the overall timeline. Self-publishing a book in 30 days is hard. By hard, I mean, I ate, slept, and dreamt about Lessons in Love, self publishing, and marketing. I neglected school work and the house. I managed to pick up a bit, but I didn’t do the daily cleaning like I used to. I’m not yet sure what kind of damage I’ve done to my grades, but I’m seriously considering begging for clemency. That, or saying my grandma died. She died 15 years ago. For the most part, I managed to keep up, but this past week I didn’t even look at my assignments. Time management is something we all struggle with, but it’s imperative when you’re running a business. Finding that sweet spot between real life and work is difficult, but your health relies on it.
Self Care
I neglected self care this month. Oh, I tried to get up and stretch, but I really put everything I had into this project. The end result is, I’m tired and my neck is stiff from so many hours of sitting hunched over my laptop. I didn’t take my supplements everyday and I often went to bed late. Integrating self care into your routine takes practice, but it also takes self awareness. You have to be self aware to step away from the computer and actually do the things that keep your stress down.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is a hole. I spent around $70 dollars on ads this month and got very little return. No comments, a few likes, and no mailing list subscriptions. I assume this means I didn’t spend enough money; that in order to see REAL benefit from Facebook, you need to dig into your savings. Forget it. I’ll continue to post on Facebook and build an organic platform, but I don’t think I’ll be spending any more money.
Editing and Proofreading Last Minute
These should have been done weeks ago. I neglected to consider that Amazon needs to validate your work before it goes out to the public. I assume they’re scanning the text for terrorist manifestos or some other illegal wording. Both the eBook and paperback were approved very quickly, but it wasn’t worth the stress I accumulated in the final days leading up to now.
Not Hiring a Professional Editor
As I’ve said before, I’m a working copyeditor. My husband worked on his school newspaper. Between the two of us, the final edit is pretty good. But it’s also something I’d rather not worry about in the future. A professional editor doesn’t have skin in the game. They can take your text and mechanically edit without getting emotional. In the grand scheme of things, this is important. It’s also important because as the writer, you’ve read your text a million times and become blind to the mistakes. It’s a real phenomenon that shouldn’t be overlooked.
I edited the manuscript. I had my husband edit the manuscript. And then I did a final proofread. I still found mistakes and I’m sure there are more hiding in the weeds.
Posting Social Media in the Morning Before School
Most mornings, me and my espresso posted the social media announcements for the day. It was stressful trying to be catchy and clever first thing in the morning. This is something I need to carve out time for and do on a regular basis. Weekends are unpredictable, but generally Saturday mornings are free. It would also be better to post ahead of time using Buffer. Doing it the day-of feels too rushed.
Not Writing
Once Lessons in Love was completed I didn’t make or take time to write anything else. I have several non-related novels in the works, many short stories - all of which have been in cryogenic stasis for the last thirty days. The only other writing I did was this blog. This blog is fun to write, but it’s not my stories. I have guilt for ignoring them for so long. Sorry guys.
Not Journaling at All
I started journaling in June of this year. I love it. It’s a straightforward idea: write down things I did, saw, and heard. It’s a writer’s journal. I was doing it fairly religiously for a while, but have dropped it. Like you do. I’d like to pick it up again. I think it would have been helpful to have a nightly reflection on this 30 day process instead of trying to remember everything I did the next day. Instead, I collapsed into my bed every night and felt guilty for not journaling.
Fear of Planning
It took forever to sit down and plan out the month. I have never (in my life) planned a whole month ahead. I’m an edge of my seat pantser so it was totally out of my comfort zone to plan more than a day or two ahead. I managed to do it, but I still don’t like it. It’s something to look into, think about, and figure out. I’m also not an OCD bullet journaler, but I found that keeping sort of a loose and daily to-do list was helpful. I did keep good notes on how I did everything and have put together a wonderful self-publishing checklist that I will be sharing soon.
This was definitely a “figure it out as you go” project. Or, I jumped and built my net on the way down. That’s a great way to learn, by the way. And I’ve absorbed so much I can now implement that knowledge into a fine-tuned machine. Not machine. I hate that word. Ecosystem. That’s better. Ecosystem is actually a better word because it’s true. Ecosystems have parts, they have mutually dependent elements that feed off one another. What’s that word? Parasitic? Something like that, but in a nicer way. It’s an entire world I’ve built. Between social media, the book, the coming books, the marketing, it’s all symbiotic. There you go. That’s the word.
If after every goal post you can sit down and think about what you learned and how to do it better, you’ll be better off. Share your thoughts in the comments. What are some ways you try to improve yourself?