To be perfectly honest, I think this is more of a venture to tickle the vanity rather than to provide specific value.

I’m high on the success of 2019, the Year of Reducing, and feel like rewarding myself with a delusion.

I had originally started thinking that writing better would be a great skill – and it is – but I realized I was rationalizing. Sure, my text is not marketing or copy quality; it’s passable and functional. Sales skill would serve a lot better.

It does however align with a long-concocted plan to retire early and if some modest income could be derived by writing, something I always thought I loved doing, then it’ll be a strong pillar of those dreams.

It’s delusional too given that most writer do no make a living out of writing. I am armed with unrealistic hopes, though, and a thesis that bringing an analytical approach to discovering profitable niches will allow me to build this into a revenue stream

To that extent, a Year of Writing it is and its primary goal is to become a published author. I use “author” over “writer” because the goal is to be paid for my work.

Goal #1: make at least $100 during each of the last three months of 2020 from published works.

Goal #2: to learn how to build a modest marketing and sales pipeline that would support and enable goal #1.

To this extend, my plan for the year is as following:

• First quarter: research;
• Second quarter: write;
• Third quarter: refine and market;
• Fourth quarter: profit, of course, but also still write.

I think the following is a good detailed plan for the first quarter:

• January:
  1. read a couple of books on the craft of writing;
  2. create a nom-de-plume, an online persona for my writer as some of the writing venture might take me into territories I may not want connected to my other business ventures;
  3. begin research into literary niches that may be profitable and under-served; create a model or an approach on how to discover these niches;
  4. write at least one, likely terrible, short story on any subject; bonus: write two.
• February:
  1. refine market research and start reading works in those niches;
  2. continue reading books on the craft of writing. If possible, focus on either books applicable to those niches or books that could help in those niches;
  3. write two short stories closer to at least one of the categories researched; bonus: write four.

• March: at this point I expect (hope?) that research has pin-pointed one of more profitable niches and the effort will mostly towards serving those niches;

  1. continue reading material in the categories deemed most likely to be profitable;
  2. write a few (three or more) short stories in each of those categories (likely two or more categories);
  3. research self-publishing venues and eventually publish a subset of those stories online to gather some feedback – hopefully somebody is willing to also read them.