Carolyn's Automatic Resolution/Goal-Making Technique

Our tradition of making resolutions on January 1 doesn’t work well. We’re busy with so many holiday duties--cleaning, decorating, shopping--we just can’t give making resolutions its due. Besides, making resolution is kind of boring, isn’t it?

On the other hand, in the new edition of The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) I suggest a step-by-step goal-making technique that can be done all year round. One must do this task anyway (more on that in a minute!), and the process is a little like making resolutions in that it helps us evaluate, keeps us on track, and even keeps a record of our accomplishments and careers. But it does more than that. It keeps us grateful.

What could something like that have to do with frugal book promotion you might ask? Well, it involves your media kit. As you know, I believe in recycling and the different segments of your kit (because we use computers, we’ll call them folders!) help you see at a glance what you need to make your writing career move forward—and it’s all broken down into media kit categories so it’s easy to see at a glance. But the biggest advantage is that the process gives us confidence because we can see the strides we’ve taken and makes us grateful because we can see how much we’ve achieved even in our most depressed moments. Of course, it also keeps our media kits up to date.

And there is an even more important benefit. When we can see how well we’ve done, it’s easier to be generous with others.

So, though some may think it’s a little late for resolutions, I think the timing is perfect. And I hope you’ll consider putting one other resolution I think works for most authors on your list, too: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/resolutions-tis-the-season-for-supporting-the-industry/. That’s a guest blog post I did for Bookbuzzr.com and, basically, it reminds you to buy books as gifts. For friends and as business gifts.

It may not be that way for everyone but writing brings me as much joy as about any other one thing I do, and I probably do those others better because of the happiness it brings me.

So, I wish for you the same. Happy New Year!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second ediction of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: