My Big, Hairy, Audacious Romance Author Goals for 2021

I’m planning on hitting some amazing romance author goals this coming year.

Yes, I know. Setting any kind of goals for the coming year,  especially professional romance author publishing goals, might seem like an exercise in frustration and futility. But I’m a goalsetting kind of person. Thankfully, I’ve also learned a lot about how to roll with the punches. I’ll be be okay if things don’t work out exactly as I planned.

In fact, I know I won’t always reach all my goals… At least not the way I envision them. My goals may change, or the path I take to reach them may change. Hell, by the end of the year nothing might look like I planned.

That does not matter. As long as I keep working as hard as I am able (which some days may not be much at all, if any), and moving forward as much as I can, I’ll end up somewhere awesome. It just might not happen when, or the way, I want. Of course, that also means the end result might be better than I can imagine right now.

So, without further ado, here are my big, hairy, audacious goals for this year:

• Sell my series of three, full-length, steamy, contemporary, backpacking romances to a major publisher in a bidding war. Last year, I was thrilled to land my fabulous agent. In February. Weeks before the first Covid lockdown. We had immediate interest, and then crickets ever since. But this year is not last year. Much will change, and by God, my books are going to sell and it’s going to be wonderful.
• Self-publish the first novel in my new four-season, Colorado mountain town romance series and sell more than 5000 copies. This story is drafted and I am about to dive into edits. While the wheels of traditional publishing may turn slowly, I have a great path to self-publishing with my agencies support. I can’t wait to have a new novel out, and introduce the world to my steamy, best-friends-to-lovers mountain biking romance!
• Write the second novel in my Colorado mountain town series, and ideally self-publish it in Q4. I won’t commit to a publishing date until later this year, because it’s really important to me to maintain good work/life balance. So, if it doesn’t come out until next year, I’m good with that. Still gonna try though.
• Edit the second book in my backpacking romance series so it’s ready to go to whoever is my soon-to-be new publisher later this year. I’ve already drafted this one, so it should only take two or three months to have it ready to go to the next phase.
• Plan out my next, two-book series to sell to a traditional publisher and another two books to self-publish in 2022 and 2023.

My longer-term goal is to have six or more full-length romance novels published by the end of 2023, with at least one of them making the New York Times and USA today bestsellers lists. Along with that, I want my new book sales to grow by a minimum of 5000 copies with each release and backlist sales to grow as well.

Like I said, big, hairy, audacious goals. But I’ll never reach them if I don’t set them.

Here’s to 2021 being a whole lot better than 2020!

Have you set any goals for the upcoming year? If so, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

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