Choices, Expectations and Plans

The new year is just days away... and I know I'm not the only reflecting my past year and looking forward to the new one.

Janie writes about "choices" and her post led me to Joely's post about "expectations." Today I really want to read romances but my mind keeps wandering to next year. I'm excited! I've chosen to be more aggressive with my wriring career. My expectations are high yet I know I'll most certainly have my failures... BUT I want to try and hope I'll have the strength to keep going. I am considering letting my husband open the mail from the publishers and agents that I will submit to this year... let him toss away the rejections so I can stay in my bubble. My husband does have a way in bringing out the positive of situtations and I think getting the rejection from him rather than reading the hard words from someone else will make it easier. I'm thinking about that plan anyway ;)

I did write out a response to Joely's post on expectation but it wouldn't let me post it for some reason. Maybe she has to approve the posts first... I'm not sure since I don't use wordpress. So I'm posting my reply here because I shared what I found myself doing this morning....

A great post! I guess its that time of year... getting a strategy down that works for each one of us in getting ready for our next "writing" year. I certainly believe writing from the heart is vital especially in the beginning of the publishing journey... but I also believe knowing the business itself will also give a writer the edge in the publishing world. In fact, this morning, I bought a one of those mini books for .49 cents on amazon today, Straight Talk from the Editor, 18 Keys to a Rejection-Proof Submission, an Amazon Short
by W. Terry Whalin. I thought it definitely worth 49 cents... I also ordered two books that he recommended in this mini book... "Beyond the Bookstore: How to Sell More Books Profitably to Non-Bookstore Markets"
Brian Jud and "PyroMarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life"
Greg Stielstra. And Mr. Whalin lead me to an interesting blog post... http://terrywhalin.blogspot.com/2005/10/marketing-plan-for-every-book.html

My plan this year... to become more aggressive in this publishing journey.

Thanks for speaking from your heart Joely!!