6 Week Review

from openclipart.org by j4p4n

It’s been six weeks since I started my: “Jess Donegan is Here” Campaign.  Time to see where I hit the mark and were I need to adjust.  Check out my weekly updates starting most recently with 9/24 numbers, 9/17 numbers, 9/10 numbers, 9/4 numbers/evaluation, 8/29 numbers/evaluation, and 8/21 numbers/evaluation.

First thing I’ve changed is how I report.  I started by reporting numbers and making plane each week. Right away, I saw these reports were too long and very little changed.  Instead, I report my numbers once a week and will talk in depth about those results every other month or once a month.

Overall growth on Twitter is good.  Need to Maintain the course (check out my 8 steps here).  No course change needed.  The plan works for me because it’s flexible.  Some days I don’t even have to look at Twitter and other days I can swing by and make one on one mentions.  I am slipping out into political water, and I must watch out for that going forward in my campaign.  I’m undecided on if politics has a place in my Twitter persona.

This blog and the North Alabama Writer's Group blog exist.  Go me?

Wins:
1. Creating content
2. Posting across both blogs
3. Sticking to the niche identified
4. Our Writers’ Group is talking about self promotion and considering what we could do to reach out to other creators around us.  I’ve captured Chris and am recruiting Ashley.

Needs Improvement:
1. Traffic
2. Self promotion
3.  Time.  It’s only been six weeks since I’ve been pushing the blogs
4. Cross platform promotion

What I’m Doing:
1. Made a list of all the posts I have and the categories they fit in and I plan to schedule 1 Tweet a day to promote my writing.
2. I will suck it up and go to Facebook.  My original plan was to start that aft 30 days of blogging but I backed out because it overwhelmed me.  Then I thought “who needs Facebook” but the thing is I might.  So I will make a general “hello” post and from then on post when an article first drops.  
3. Going through older posts and creating back links.  I have a lot of series posts, and I’m not maximizing people’s love of crawling relevant threads.
4. I’ve had a lot of luck on Google+, maybe it’s time I pursued that again? Will test after Facebook campaign is part of the routine
5. Working on a guest blog post for @arimehglen. With luck this may lead to more guest posts? Will keep an eye out.
6. An Oct scary set of shorts
7.A “Creatives we are Thankful for” article for NAWG where ere acknowledge local talent and reconnect ourselves to local writers and publishers
8. Dec Merch launch.  Need to push this even if the audience is not there yet.

Creative Writing

My time management has been shitty.  I’ve needed to turn a lot of my resources inward because I need help with my day job.  Speaking of which: are you looking to hire a writer because I WANT to work with you!

I’ve been telling the writers’ group I’m not writing.  That’s not 100% honest.  I’ve written a couple of pieces about women choosing a brutal death over life.  Since I noticed the theme in my writing, I’ve stopped all new works until I’m in a better head space.

 I am also working on edits to my novel “Follow Me: Tattered Veils” but the group doesn’t seem interested in reading it and I don’t want to talk with them about the same things repeatedly (which is the editing process, going over it until it’s memorized).

I am hoping I’ll have more time for my book now I have a resume out in the world and I’m hoping my writers’ workshop will take on beta-ing draft #2 of my novel.  We had our first meeting this past Sunday and the group leader, Megan Beam, seemed interested in the premise, so I hope she’ll have feedback for me.

I’ve been enviously reading other writers’ posts on creating a calendar for their projects.  I don’t have enough time to break it down the way they do.  But I am still reading different time management techniques.  I enjoy batching similar tasks.  In a world where I could find 3-5hrs a day, I’d enjoy blocking my time.  I’m still trying it on a small scale but results will be slow in coming.

Reviewing

In the next few months I plan to further integrate my reading/reviewing with my writing.  I have a few pieces coming out to link the two.  I think my GoodReads presence is a waste staying separate as it is now, bit I haven’t found the right plan to rope the two in....yet.

Talk to me.  Tell me about your own plans, how are they going?  Is there something key I’ve forgotten or HAVE to try?  What’s the most important part of your routine?  Do you have success on a social media platform I’m not using/considering right now?