I am actively working to make May my best month yet in terms of time management. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll come close to typing one million words this year as most of my time is spent editing or making videos. Still, there is a lot of forward progress and I’m pretty excited to see where I’ll be in a year.

Even today, as I look back a year ago, I’m already in a much better place overall – personally and professionally. And I’m doing what I can to keep the momentum going.

Hammering Out More Plans for WriterSanctuary

As I dialed back what I was doing for CrossingColorado and Colorado Plays, I spent that time developing WriterSanctuary. After all, it’s my flagship brand at the moment.

This means I took to Mindomo for some mind-mapping goodness.

Since about the middle of last month, I’ve set up goals, content strategies, and a checklist of all the things I’ve been wanting to implement since 2018. The reason why it took so long to get to this point is because I was spreading myself way too thin.

I’ve even created some milestones for WriterSanctuary which will trigger certain additions. For instance, as soon as the blog can maintain an average of 200 visitors per day and the YouTube channel can generate 400 views per day, I’ll launch community writing challenges.

The reason for the traffic requirement is that it will give me plenty of time to plan something fun and unique.

Anyway, I think I have some great things planned for the future of WriterSanctuary. All I have to do now is appease the Google algorithm, which is a bit more difficult than what a lot of experts claim. Nonetheless, I have a clearer path ahead of me and am pretty excited to see these things finally come to life.

Getting the Videos On Schedule

Part of building up WriterSanctuary is getting the videos on schedule. I’d like them to be a week ahead, which takes quite a bit of effort when you’re life is as chaotic as mine. Keep in mind, I’m doing all of this by myself.

This week was the first that I was able to get all three videos published on time in several months. After I write this post, I plan on making next Monday’s video and perhaps Wednesday’s if I have time to spare. I have a lot of things going on today, such as my oldest’s birthday dinner.

I’m quite worried, as the channel’s watch time has dipped below the minimum for monetization over the last 28 days. Every channel needs at least 307 hours of watch time for a 28-day period in order to maintain 4,000 hours of watch time over the year. And right now, the channel dipped to 275 hours.

A lot of the videos that were doing exceptionally well at the beginning of the year are getting half the views.

I have a suspicion it is more of an “interest” problem. Every year, the blog loses traffic during the same period. I bet it’s because all of the “New Year’s Resolution” folks are no longer interested in learning how to be writers. I see the same thing in the health and fitness industry.

In any case, I’m going to see about getting more videos up that interests my current subscribers. Even if I wind up losing monetization, at least I can still help those people find their paths as writers.

Final Touches on the Book Cover?

Next week, I’ll be adding the final touches to the book cover for Shadows of Atlantic City. I’m setting up the writing sprints for Monday through Wednesday and will use them to work on the art.

The first draft of the cover came out amazingly well. I even turned part of it into an image for my WriterSanctuarty merch store. I still need to make a much larger resolution of the image for things like tote bags and blankets. But the graphic came out better than I had hoped on a rocks tumbler.

That’s what happens when you’ve been using Photoshop since 1995 and already have an artistic eye, I suppose.

I’m still waiting on feedback from beta readers to see if there is anything more I can add, remove, or edit. But as it stands, it’s easily the best thing I’ve written thus far.

Then again, every book should be better than the last as you develop your skills. Remember, practice makes perfect.

I’m very curious as to how college courses will affect my writing if and when I get accepted into the University of Colorado. I can already tell you that the Reedsy masterclass for How to Write a Novel made a massive impact on my writing. What will a master’s degree do for my skills?

Diving Into Marketing Methods Soon

The biggest reason why so many self-published authors struggle to make a living selling books is because of a lack of proper marketing. This next week, I have a chunk of time set aside so I can start decoding how to make certain methods work.

It’s probably going to cost me a pretty penny, but it’ll be worth the investment if I can sell a few books. This is aside from the fact that I plan on writing blog posts and uploading videos about the process.

So, no matter what, I feel that I win even if I don’t sell a single copy of my books. It’s all about the content and helping others make decisions about how to proceed.

I just hope my bank account holds out while I try some of the more expensive marketing methods. Sure, there are a lot of things you can do for free. But methods like sharing links on social media only really work if you have a massive following to begin with. Otherwise, you might make one or two sales every month or so.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to reviewing some marketing tools and potentially making a few sales here in the next couple of weeks.

Here’s to Keeping the Momentum!

Since I pulled back on the other blogs, I want to make sure that it’s worth the effort. And so far, I’ve accomplished a lot of the things I wanted to do for WriterSacntuary. Once I can pull in enough money to hire some help, I’ll bring the other brands back to life. But until then, I need to stabilize the one that actually makes money and helps a lot of people.

It’s nice not being spread so thin. I miss working on the other blogs, but the trade-off is seeing WriterSanctuary grow into something much bigger.

Whether the brand succeeds or fails is up to me. If I want it bad enough, I’ll make sure that the brand gets adequate time to flourish. That’s the real crux of a lot of success stories, actually.

You just can’t wait for something grand to happen. You need to put in the effort to make those grand things happen.