Skip to content

Tag: self-publishing

Book Review: The 2018 Author’s Journal by Audrey Ann Hughey

About The 2018 Author’s Journal

“In this hybrid planner for authors, the writer is guided through comprehensive workflows which address both the creative and business aspects of authorship. It is designed to maximize productivity, implement effective goal-setting practices, and maintain the author’s focus on achieving their writing, marketing, and publishing goals in 2018.”—Amazon description


Disclaimer

I received a free PDF version of this planner in exchange for my honest review. I am also a current member of Hughey’s Author Transformation Alliance, which is a paid-membership support group for authors that focuses on the business, marketing, and social media aspects of being an author. Therefore, I participated in a few polls about preferences for the cover and what might or might not be included in the journal, but I did not see any of the content until I received my review copy.


What Is The 2018 Author’s Journal?

The 2018 Author’s Journal is a combination guide and business planner for authors who have come to realize that they really do need to get a handle on the business end of writing if they are to succeed in today’s market.

If anything can be said about The 2018 Author’s Journal, it is that for the most part, it is ambitious. It covers many of the issues that authors face, especially those who are self-publishing or planning to do so.

Outside of the planner part, the book’s major sections cover author goals and goal refinement, works in progress, editing, story ideas, reading for relaxation and self-improvement, expenses and marketing, blog plans, and advertising. There is even a section for “squirrels” called My Musings.

What’s Great

There are several wonderful things about this planner.

Comprehensiveness

The sheer number of topics that it covers makes it clear that Hughey’s goal was to be as comprehensive as possible, to make this an all-in-one stop for all your writing ideas, plans, goals, and achievements. This is the first such planner I’ve had the chance to look at, and it’s impressive and massive at 356 pages in an 8.5 × 11 inch trim size.

I doubt you’ll find so much author-friendly content and support in one planner, and it definitely has the potential, if used faithfully, to cut the number of sticky notes and miscellaneous notebooks that writers tend to accumulate. That in itself is a worthy accomplishment.

I doubt you’ll find so much author-friendly content and support in one planner. It has the potential…to cut the number of sticky notes and miscellaneous notebooks that writers tend to accumulate. (Review, The 2018 Author's Journal) Click To Tweet

Honoring the Process

Unlike other planners, which might give you spaces to write your goals, Hughey’s gives you space to define, map, check, and evaluate refine your goals. She realizes that goal setting is like writing. We don’t usually get the plan right the first time. Our goals, like our words, sometimes need to get onto the page before we can properly evaluate them and make them better and truer to our style and abilities.

Honoring the Writer

The journal is available in several cover options (five at the moment, with possibly more to come). Hughey decided to offer the different styles as a hat tip to the different preferences of authors and their personal styles.

2018 Author's JournalDigital Resource Guide

Purchase of the print journal grants access to a specialized digital resource guide, which includes videos, checklists, and spreadsheets to supplement the journal and guide the author through its use and adaptation.

The digital resource guide also includes videos from special guests on topics such as mindset, time management, and overcoming self-doubt and fear.

Space for Your Squirrels

The planner includes a whopping 40 pages dedicated to My Musings, space for you to write down all those ideas, plans, or just notes that might not fit anywhere else. As I mentioned earlier, this might just replace your pile of spiral notebooks, notepads, and sticky notes.

Some authors might be willing to pay the roughly $30 price of the planner for that feature alone.

Gellinger / Pixabay

Where You Were and How Far You’ve Come

In the marketing section of the planner, there is a section on visibility. This is something authors often don’t think about as many (not all!) are introverted and prefer instead to think of invisibility.

I found the table for tracking social media in terms of current and target followers helpful. We often don’t take the time at the beginning of the year to see where we are and then compare the same number at the end of the year to see how far we’ve come.

social media for authors, followers
Social Media Goals, p. 56, The 2018 Author’s Journal

Hughey does this in many places in the planner, and this is just one example.

Although there is a quarterly follower breakdown, I would have loved to see a month-by-month breakdown of social media plans and followers in particular. This would be helpful for keeping track of what one has done with social media and how it has affected the number of (hopefully quality!) followers.

Blog Planner

As an extension of having all of your writing stuff in one place, the journal includes space for up to 52 ideas for blog posts (or one per week).

I love this! Coming up with blog post ideas for both my editing and author websites is the bane of my existence. Losing ideas to some random sticky note purgatory is even worse. So, having this section is just icing on the cake.

I do wish there was more writing space here, however (more on this later).

edar / Pixabay

Opportunities for Enhancement

I do hope this is not Hughey’s only year to produce this journal. With the growing number of author–entrepreneurs that has come with the expansion of the self-publishing industry, the need for something like this is significant.

However, there are a number of items that could be tweaked for maximum usability and convenience.

Writing Space

The great thing about The 2018 Author’s Journal is that it’s so comprehensive. The worst thing about this journal is that … it’s so comprehensive.

Unfortunately, there is so much text and content that the planner is very dense textwise.

In many areas, it seems that room to write—which is the point of a planner after all—has been sacrificed to “fit it all in.” (The exception to this is the My Musings section, which is basically 40 pages of blank lines for dates and notes.) There are many areas within the calendars themselves and after leading questions where you would have to write very small to fit any reasonable amount of text.

From the perspective of a book designer, it seems that less thought went into these practical aspects of actually using the journal day-to-day than to the content and guidance provided within. For example, some intro text was repeated monthly and could have been left out to offer more space for writing.

Alternatively, this journal might better serve authors as a two-book set: a business guide with all the content and instruction and a separate planner—the one that you carry around—with all the space you need to write.

Skitterphoto / Pixabay

Areas for More Focus

The Editing Process

Although most sections of The 2018 Author’s Journal are devoted to author marketing and promotion, not writing craft, there is a section devoted to the editing process. Anyone familiar with me or the Wordy Speculations blog knows I am 100% behind multiple rounds of self-editing and hiring a professional editor. Oddly, more focus is given to editing apps and software than the self-editing process itself or what one should expect from an editor.

However, with the exception of the place to take notes on pricing and evaluating editors, this section felt out of place amidst the business content of the rest of the journal. Also, by its very presence, it highlights the lack of any coverage of how to deal with cover design and interior book design, which, along with editing, are both part of the book production process and often entail hiring a professional.

Postrelease Business

The coverage of the author business that takes place after release is spread out and less organized than other topics in The 2018 Author’s Journal. To balance the Planning My Release and Preparing My Release sections, I would have loved to see something similar for marketing and managing your books after launch.

Author Newsletter

Given the importance of author newsletters, as stressed by Hughey herself, a planner or map for newsletter content, similar to what she includes for blogs, would have also been a great addition.

JuralMin / Pixabay

Binding

As it stands, The 2018 Author’s Journal is perfect-bound. With its sizeable length, this might make it difficult to write in for some, especially toward the middle of the book where the bulk of the monthly and weekly planners are. Coil, or spiral, binding would allow the journal to lie flat and would greatly add to its convenience.

This, unfortunately, is a limitation of self-publishing because most of the major print-on-demand services do not offer coil binding. However, one service does offer it, and Hughey has expressed interest in this binding for the future and/or for possible undated editions of the journal.

Recommendation

If you are looking for something to help guide you through all of those little business aspects of writing and publishing that your creative mind refuses to rein in, I highly recommend The 2018 Author’s Journal.

If you are looking for something to help guide you through all of those little business aspects of writing and publishing that your creative mind refuses to rein in, I highly recommend The 2018 Author’s Journal. Click To TweetWhile there is certainly room for improvement for future editions, overall, it’s a great planner, and it fills a very real need in the author–entrepreneurial space.

Check Out My Other Book Reviews

Book Review: Dictate Your Book: How To Write Your Book Faster, Better, and Smarter

Book Review: Outlining Your Novel by K. M. Weiland

Book Review: Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes

Book Review: Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and into the Stores by Chris Kennedy

Book Review: The Successful Author Mindset by Joanna Penn

 

Leave a Comment

Resources for Fiction Writers—Holiday Update!

It’s Here!

The next update of my massive—and getting even bigger—”Resources for Fiction Writers” page is now live, and it’s right HERE!

I’ve added quite a few new resources, all marked by an asterisk for easy indexing. There are new videos, new podcasts, new websites, and new blog posts, all designed to help you succeed as a writer and, as the case may be, a self-publisher.

And to top it off, I’ve added a shiny new Pinterest-friendly graphic to go with it. (Hint: Feel free to pin the list to your favorite board, along with any of your favorite resources from it!)

resources for fiction writers

A New Way to Access the Resources for Fiction Writers Content

Speaking of Pinterest, I recently created a new Pinterest board that is basically a budding clone of my Resources for Fiction Writers list. It will take me a while to pin every single item on the list but all the new items are already there plus some old favorites.

As always, if you have a resource you highly recommend, I’d love to hear from you so I can check it out myself and maybe add it to the page.

Go forth and enjoy, and I hope you have a wonderfully productive season!

Leave a Comment

Wanted: Guest Bloggers on Genre Fiction Craft and Self-Publishing

Update, November 2020: I am not accepting guest posts at this time.

Are you a writer and an expert on a certain area of writing fiction, self-publishing, or author promotion? Then I want you!

guest bloggers wanted
KraeheMicha / Pixabay

I am now accepting guest posts for Wordy Speculations. This blog is the companion blog to my business website, Speculations Editing Services, which currently gets 500 to 900 visits per month.

As an editor, I offer editing and publishing services to independent authors of speculative fiction, mystery, and romance, so I would love to see posts on writing craft, self-publishing, and marketing aimed at these niches. I will also accept book reviews relevant to these areas.

My own past posts have focused on resources for writers (including book and software reviews), editing (of course), steps for getting your manuscript ready for publication, and self-publishing.

More Information

If you would like to propose a guest post, please send me a proposal via my contact form with the subject of the post, a sample of your writing or a link to your own blog, and the approximate length of the piece you would like to write.

Final posts should be 500 words or longer, depending on the subject area. I may ask you to lengthen or shorten the piece.

If your blog post is accepted, I would be happy to return the favor and write a guest post for your blog on a mutually agreed upon topic in one of my own areas of expertise. Ask away!

One More Note

Once a post has been accepted, it may be edited for grammar and punctuation because—what can I say—I am an editor, and I want my blog to be as error-free as possible (harder said than done, by the way). You will have a chance to review edits on your post before it goes live.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Leave a Comment

Free Self-Editing Checklist

My newsletter has been available for a while, but now you get something extra just for signing up: a completely FREE copy of the Self-Editing Checklist for Your First Draft: The Developmental Revision.

This checklist guides you through the first self-edit, covering general principles as well as specific topics such as audience, characterization, and dialogue just to name a few! Take self-editing to new depths with this comprehensive miniguide for revising your novel.

Sign up today!

 

Leave a Comment

Saving Money on Editing & The Launch of a New Book Series

Post updated August 29, 2017. Updates are marked with an asterisk.

On July 1, my first Indie Author Guide, Saving Money on Editing & Choosing the Best Editor, will be published on Amazon in ebook format.

This book was inspired by and adapted from several earlier posts on this blog and is now available in paperback and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Scribd, and other formats.* It is not simply a compilation of the blog posts. It has been completely edited and integrated. I’ve added updated information.

It’s a handy little resource to have around during the revision phase of writing your book, and it’s a great guide to help you get your manuscript in the best shape possible before you send it to your editor.

It will also help you find the right editor for you and your book.

Saving Money on Editing Availability

I had hoped to offer it on Kindle Unlimited. However, a different version of it, called An Author’s Guide to Saving Money on Editing, is being copublished by the Editorial Freelancers Association later this year. Amazon’s KDP Select program demands exclusivity, so Kindle Unlimited won’t be possible for this book.

The good news is that this means I can publish it more widely later.  I can use services such as Ingram Spark, Kobo Writing Life, and Smashwords to distribute my little book to a wider audience at a later date. *The book has now been distributed through Draft2Digital and is also available in paperback.

A paperback version of Saving Money on Editing will also be available soon. I just need to check the proof, which is on its way to me as we speak.

This Is Just the Beginning

Saving Money on Editing is the first in a series of Indie Author Guides aimed at helping indie authors improve their craft and learn the business of self-publishing. I am learning everyday, and as I learn, I want to share that knowledge with you, to make the process of writing and preparing your book for publication as smooth and achievable as possible.

I may very well use this blog in the process of creation. I’d love to hear what you want to learn about. How can I, as an editor, help you solve your writing problems? What questions do you have about writing and self-publishing?

What issues or challenges do you deal with every day that interrupt writing or make the process more difficult? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter. Let’s start a discussion on how we can help each other as authors. Also, how can editors such as myself help authors achieve their goals?

 

Leave a Comment