How do you define success–and keep redefining it–in your author career?

You might have hit your goal. Congratulations! So now what?

I have had goals and reached them. Yay! Oh wait, more goals? Higher goals? Oh yes, right. Need to get working on that.

What are your short-term goals? What about long-term? Do the short ones lead in nicely to the long ones?

I’m always finding a connection between much of what I hear and, ahem, yeah, sorry, author’s habit: my own book “Every Single Day.” I like to see how what others say might relate to what I have said–and then link the two.

In a podcast episode (see below), Honorée Corder was talking about making very short-term goals, achieving them, and then moving onto bigger goals.

Not only do I talk about that in my book, but she said it better than I did. 🙂 I think some are “scared” of my book in that they think that it has to be this huge commitment, forever, every single day until they die.

That’s not my point at all. It could be 10 Days of Writing. It might be a month of this. 100 days of that. I kinda don’t care what it is you do (no, really, I don’t). I just want you to start with something because I know how powerful it is to just begin.

That’s all. Begin. Create easy-to-achieve, short-term goals. Celebrate them. Make medium-term goals. Reach those. Then, sure, go nuts, make bigger goals. But don’t plan to lose 50 pounds by Tuesday. You’ll fail, feel terrible, and head right back to the donut aisle.

Today’s post is inspired by Honorée Corder and Ben Hale on the Smarty Pants Marketing for Authors Podcast, episode #78: Write Like a Boss. Here’s a copy of the show notes from that episode, just chock full of important topics:

• The difference between writing as a hobby and writing as a business.
• Why you need a personal vision of success rather than a general vision of success based on what others have done.
• Marketing success is a long game. It’s not instant and it’s never “done.”
• Why “six-figure author” can be a double challenge for some authors.
• Why watching your books sales can be like watching grass grow.
• Why learning is a huge part of your marketing success.
• When to use a professionals to help in your publishing journey.
• Ben’s “good book cover” test.

Honorée is at it again, handing out gems of useful information on a silver platter.

P.S. I defined my “author success” when I hit 30 days of Writing Every Day and kept going. Every single thing since then has been a bonus.