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Welcome to Paul's Podcast Diary for Saturday 31st December, 2016.
This diary charts my self-publishing journey – the ups the downs, the successes and the failures.
Everything goes into this diary, week-by-week, but you'll also find it a source of great tips, resources, tools, podcast recommendations and so on.
If I ever miss something out, or you'd like more information, just drop me an email at paul@paulteague.com.
This Week's Talking Points
My Q4/2016 planning board … personal/financial stuff is blurred.
My Q1/2017 planning board … personal/financial stuff is blurred.
Save The Cat book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Save-Cat-Only-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009
The Beat Sheet calculator: https://www.beatsheetcalculator.com/ [Helps you to calculate the beats of your book, whatever the number of words]
This is the website I built for future podcast guest Adam Nicholls: https://adamnicholls.net/
Adam's website was built using the free Hemmingway theme for WordPress: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/themes/hemingway/
My cloned version of Adam's website: https://paulteague.net/
Here's the first podcast that I ever produced, from a website that no longer exists: https://web.archive.org/web/20110903005956/https://www.web-work-at-home.com/gavin-mountford.html
This is Dave Jackson's School of Podcasting: https://schoolofpodcasting.com/
Brian Tracy's Flight Plan: https://www.amazon.com/Flight-Plan-Real-Secret-Success/dp/1605092754
Some great 2016 review articles from other indie authors/people I follow:
Ron Vitale: https://www.ronvitale.com/blog/2016/12/18/what-i-learned-about-indie-publishing-in-2016
Joanna Penn: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2016/12/30/2016-goals-lessons-changes/
Sophie Playle: https://liminalpages.com/year-review-goals-2017/
Meg Cowley: https://blog.megcowley.com/2016/12/31/reflections-on-2016/
This Week’s Self-Publishing News
The Alliance of Independent Authors news update for Tuesday 27th December, 2016: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-that-was-the-year-that-was/
Find Out More
I post my social & digital marketing information – including ‘how-to' items about self-publishing – at https://www.paulteague.com/
My author websites are:
https://thesecretbunker.net/ [Sci-fi/dystopian trilogy]
https://thegridtrilogy.com/ [Sci-fi/dystopian trilogy]
https://paulteague.co.uk/ [Thrillers]
https://paulteague.net/ [General author website]
https://www.facebook.com/paulteagueauthor/ [My Facebook author page]
https://twitter.com/secretbunkerfan [My Twitter author page]
My Diary Notes
[These are the notes I make before recording the diary as my talking prompt]
Update
> Adam Nicholls/Jon Cronshaw/David Penny/Keith Dixon podcast episodes edited
> Recording Pip Reid & Wendy Scott next week
> Templates created for Scrivener & The Novel Factory to make my writing process slicker
> Reading Save The Cat
> Made adamnicholls.net for future guest, ended up cloning it and creating paulteague.net for myself – uses Hemingway free wordpress theme
Things that worked this year
> I launched a podcast and kept it up for 43 episodes so far
> I wrote 3 x full-length thrillers
> I launched my Grid Trilogy
Things that didn’t get done this year
> I refunded on two writing courses because they weren’t what I was after … I’m still looking for the right thing!
> I was hoping after interviewing Jennfifer Blanchard to get a tally of 10 x non-fiction books written. That didn’t happen – mainly because I keep dithering about whether to maintain or kill off my non-fiction.
My 2017 aims
I have now updated my Q1/2017 planning board and I’ll put the photos on the resources page.
> I return to work for 3 days per week from January 3rd
> It’s flexible and part-time … it preserves my writing days
> I can also continue the podcast with confidence now
> I’m delighted that I’ve solved the issue of income in a way that will not effect my self-employed activity in any way – it’s a brilliant start to the year
> My part-time work has me involved in some really exciting digital marketing work, which I love anyway
Here’s what I want to achieve this year:
1) To get covers produced on my 3 x thrillers
2) To launch my 3 x thrillers on Thursday 23rd March, my 52nd birthday – no big splash, I’ll get them out there and see how they do with some promos ie Freebooksy & FB lead ads … will place on pre-launch asap
3) To write at least 3 x standalone thrillers [but hopefully 4] OR a final sci-fi trilogy to close my Secret Bunker/Grid series.
4) To hit the one year anniversary for the podcast on Mon 3rd April [Episode 57]
5) To evolve the podcast from that date to make it more of a magazine format – so PPD + interview + news & info – it needs more personality! Next target will be 75 episodes, then 100 episodes, it will be reviewed at every point. [I have a consultation with Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting on Sunday!]
6) To get all my books individually listed on Kobo – I want to commit to Kobo as a platform
7) To re-introduce Paul’s Podcast Diary from next week – I really enjoy this and – interestingly – it seems to be the element of the podcast that people appreciate most.
8) To sort out tax withholding in the USA … I’m losing too much now … I’ll do an interview on this topic if I solve the problem!
> This is a business, consistent action is what’s required.
My consistent action will be made up of:
Tier 1: Writing/Podcasting
Tier 2: Learning/Networking