Setting Your Self-Publishing Goals For 2021

Well, let’s say goodbye to a dreadful 2020!  Now, it’s time to set our self-publishing goals for 2021.

Why Set Goals?

There are many ways people set goals, but the best ones I have found are SMART goals.  But what does that mean?  How can I apply them when setting our self-publishing goals for 2021?

Well, SMART goals have five elements and must be:

• Specific. The goals you set must not be vague and should have a clear, highly-specific endpoint.
• Measurable. You must be able to track your progress against the goals you set, or there’s no way you will know if you meet them.
• Attainable. Goal setting has to be balanced as well.  Too easy, then you won’t drive your business forward.  Go too far the other way and make them too challenging then you will get demotivated as you struggle to achieve.
• Relevant. Goals have to be relevant to your business and the activities you need to undertake to generate success.  You need to see the direct benefit of setting them.
• Time-Bound. Setting a timeframe for achieving goals enables you to track your progress and make adjustments to bring you back on track.  You can then review goals and see what changes you would make before you set them for the next phase.

Where To Start?

So how do we apply this to our self-publishing goals for 2021?

Paul Marles published a great video on his YouTube channel titled Make Money Online in 2021 for FREE with Amazon KDP. In that video, Paul gave some great tips on how to get started and the benefits of publishing on the Amazon KDP platform.  He also talked about how important it was to set yourself self-publishing goals for 2021.

He even set himself a challenge for publishing and threw down the gauntlet for his subscribers to pick it up.

You need to watch his video Make Money Online in 2021 for FREE with Amazon KDP all the way through, but the essence is to set a goal for the number of books you publish and over what time period.  You must make them SMART using the notes above on what SMART goals are.  Then track progress.

We Can Help Track Your Self-Publishing Goals for 2021!

To help you keep track of your self-publishing goals for 2021 we have created a 2021 KDP Publishing Goal Tracker in Google Sheets.

It’s important to set goals in life, but especially in business, to maintain focus and to track performance. This 2021 KDP Publishing Goal Tracker is designed so that you can set a Weekly publishing target for your publishing schedule, then track how you are doing against that goal.

The file is View only.  You’ll need to make a copy (needs a Google Account) or download it to use in another platform such as Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet application.

Note: There is conditional formatting in the file which is only tested to work in Google Sheets.  It may need adjustment to work in other applications. I may work on a Microsoft Excel version if this is needed.  Let me know in the comments below if you have any feedback, or would like a version tested in Excel.

Take a look at the Instructions tab in the file to see how to use the main Publishing Goal Tracker tab and if you have questions, please comment below.