No matter how you decide to publish your blogged book—traditionally or independently, to become the author of more than just a blog you need to actually complete your manuscript first by publishing it a post at a time and then by publishing it in some other format. To do that you must set a goal and accomplish it. Will you remain an aspiring author with just a blogged book rather than a published author with a printed book or an ebook? This depends upon four things I write about in my new book, The Author’s Training Manual (Writer’s Digest Books, February 2014):
- Beliefs: Beliefs determine what you accomplish. If you harbor a belief that you and your book idea don’t have what it takes to attract an agent or publisher or that your book may never sell more than an average number of copies, this prevents you from achieving success. Determine if you have old beliefs about yourself or your ability to succeed that prevent you from achieving your goal of becoming a successful published author or of blogging your book or turning your blogged book into a published book.
- Decisions: Your decisions directly affect your ability to succeed. Think about the decisions you have made to date and determine if they have helped you achieve your goal of becoming a published author. Have you taken evaluate the marketability of your blogged book idea and made a decision to angle your content to the market and to the needs of that market? Have you decided to start a blog, to start writing, to write a book proposal, or to begin platform building daily? If you are not making decisions about your idea or book or about how you will get published, you need to make different decisions—ones that help, not hinder, your progress toward your goal.
- Actions: Your actions are simple to evaluate. Every day you take actions that either move you closer to your goal of becoming published or farther away—or you take no action at all and stay stuck where you are. After evaluating what type of actions you are taking or have taken, evaluate why you aren’t taking the actions necessary to become a successful author, if, indeed, you aren’t doing so. Or evaluate the effectiveness of the actions you are taking. Then make changes as required.
- Results: Together your beliefs, decisions and actions help you get results. Change your beliefs and begin making decisions and taking actions that get you closer to your goal of becoming published. Watch your results change as you do so. Evaluate your results. If they aren’t what you seek—if you aren’t achieving your goals, you likely need to change your beliefs, decisions or actions, or all three.
Combine these four aspects of goal setting—beliefs, decisions, actions and results—with the Author Attitude mentioned in this post, which is also a primary concept in The Author’s Training Manual, and you will be will on your way to changing your status from aspiring to published author. Learn more about the concepts in the book in Author Training 101, which is available now as a home-study course with live coaching.
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