Three tips to help build your platform and get more done
by Award-Winning Author, Jo-Ann Vega
Before the glow of your new year resolutions fades, take a fresh look at your writing, publishing, and life goals for 2025 and ask yourself the following questions. Is writing working for you creatively and financially? What is your ultimate destination? Are your goals realistic or set-ups for frustration and failure? Here are three tips to help you stay on track, build your platform, and get more done.
Tip 1: Set realistic goals and strive for work-life balance
After I completed my annual retreat with myself [see https://www.readerviews.com/strategic-planning-made-simple ] I set some goals, sketched the outline of my 2025 Content Calendar, and transferred the data into my planner.
My overall goals and projects for 2025:
- One submission per month. This includes poems, essays, and contests.
- Publish a new hybrid collection. This includes production and launch
- Deliver 2-3 courses in a university lifelong learning program
- Stay healthy, maintain relationships, get some R&R, and keep an eye on expenses
Then I asked myself if it’s reasonable for me to believe I can: submit poems, essays, write, live my life, and publish a new hybrid book of poems and essays? Do I have the energy, motivation, and courage? Without a staff and a limited budget, can I pull it all off? Hmm?
Tip 2: Assess your risk tolerance
You know yourself. Are you more likely to dip your toes into the publishing world or dive in? Are you an emerging or mature writer seeking traditional routes to publication or an indie writer into self-publishing? What genre are you interested in?
What do I know about myself, my risk tolerance? I am an indie nonfiction writer, semi-retired, with a modest pension I spent 30 years in the trenches earning. I tend to work in bursts of activity when I get a lot done. I always plan more than I can reasonably get done and somehow manage to get most of the important things accomplished. I’d love to write a bestseller.
I submitted my first poem in 2021 as I recuperated from surgery. My hands trembled and my head pounded—Still do whenever I click SEND or SUBMIT. Surviving a life-threatening illness during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic spurred me to take more chances, risk exposure, and share vulnerabilities. I persevered, published two books in two years, and challenged myself to craft new poems using new formats. To my surprise and delight I now have more than enough material to publish a hybrid collection of poems and essays!
I also began to read literary publications and newsletters, submitted my books to contests, and found my way to Reader’s View. I submitted my debut poetry collection to the Reader Views Literary Contest, received a 5-star review and was initially breathless to learn my book had received a bronze award. I took another chance and responded to one of the weekly blogs then submitted an article for Reader Views weekly blog. It was published and led to several more submissions.
Tip 3: Target submissions and contests
Having realistic goals and an understanding of your risk tolerance makes it easier to identify target markets that match you. All the specifications I’ve read for submissions to literary contests and awards are detailed and clear. Many are directed towards emerging writers or from traditional, i.e., academic presses for which indie authors are usually not eligible. Develop and/or expand your literary list/database and keep track of your submissions. Here’s a sampling of organizations you may want to add to your literary list.
- Poets & Writers https://www.pw.org/grants
- National Indie Excellence Book Awards https://www.indieexcellence.com
- Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/submissions
- Reader Views Annual Literary Award https://www.readerviews.com/literaryawards/
- Gyroscope Review www.gyroscopereview.com
- Bellevue Literary Review www.blreview.org
Reader Views and you have given me a chance to share what I’m learning about self-publishing and being an indie writer. My goals are to provide useful information, strategies, and tools to help you in your publishing journey. Writing the articles keeps me engaged, ups my profile, gives me material to use in press releases, personal essays, poems, and—lessens my tremors when I press SEND or SUBMIT.
Here’s to getting more done and enjoying it more this year. Let me know what suggestions you have for future articles. Thank you😊! mezzo148st@gmail.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo-Ann Vega, MA: Human Resource Management & Development, New School, NY, an award-winning author and poet, is a dynamic speaker with more than 30 years of experience presenting to academic, business, and community groups. This includes 20 years of experience as an adjunct faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in management, leadership, and team building, plus extensive experience crafting business communications.
A lifelong learner and educator, Jo-Ann spent almost a decade researching and working on a memoir, Moments in Flight, 2021, Reader Views Reviewers Choice Awards, 2023-2024, Classics, Memoir, Bronze Medal Winner. The following year, 2022, Jo-Ann published an anthology of 50 poems she wrote over 50 years, Wolf Woman & Other Poems, Reader Views Reviewers Choice Awards 2022-2023, Poetry, Bronze Medal Winner. Several poems and personal essays have also been published.
https://outskirtspress.com/momentsinflight https://outskirtspress.com/wolfwoman