I missed posting last Sunday due to a migraine that I could not shake. The last few weeks they seem to have increased in frequency again, a sign that either my medication has stopping being quite so effective or there is something going on.

But before I get side-tracked, I want to talk about a course that I took last Saturday, and a course that I am retaking again that started this Saturday.

Last weekend was Your Path Forward by Heart Breathings, a great course that has helped me plan in a way that makes it flexible and adaptable, but still giving me a clear direction to be working towards. I will most likely re watch the course videos again and get a better insight of what I want to achieve or aim for, but I feel confident in where I am heading.

This week – Publish and Thrive by Heart Breathings launched. I originally took this course back in 2021, and gained life time access, and it was that first round of the course that prompted me to get serious about pursuing my publishing and a direction to work towards, I started my Social Media journey and setting up author email addresses, and worked out what story it was that I wanted to focus on and push to publish. Since then the plan changed, I readjusted my expectations, decided to work on a different project, a trilogy rather than a series that I didn’t exactly know how many books it would entail, I finished the drafts, books Alpha and Beta readers, booked cover artists and editors and I am a lot further along my self-publishing journey than I was back in 2021.

As this is the year, I intend to publish my debut novel, I decided now was a good time to retake the course and work out my Effective Publishing Strategy now that I have an idea of how long things take, cost. It’s all very well me pulling a random number out saying this is how many books a year I can publish when its not possible for my writing, my circumstances and life and so forth.

Its also going to get me to look at what my idea of success is. Of course, there is the big successes we can all agree on where we sell millions of copies of our books, earn millions, and get movie deals, but honestly, I am a realist in knowing how often that happens, and also as nice as it would be, my introvert self would also be in a complete panic to ever get that kind of recognition/famous. I want to turn my writing into a full-time career that will enable me to continue writing full time, own my own home and also pay my bills with a sprinkle of luxuries added into that – yes, that is my goal.

I’ve always said when we jokingly have those conversations about what would it be like to win the lottery, I don’t need to be rich, rich, – I don’t want to buy my own boat, or plane but I want to be comfortable enough to live without worrying about money or debt and still have those luxuries every so often – though I’m not going to say no to a house big enough to have my own library space in it. Of course with the increasing cost of living that means something totally different these days than it once did.

But coming back to what my version of success looks like, it is vastly different from what someone elses is going to look like, and it will change what my goals are and what my plan is.

Honestly, if I manage to sell 5 copies of my debut novel in the first few months of it coming out, I am going to see that as a success, if I manage to make the money I put into it back, even better, if I get a little bit of profit that would be brilliant.

I am well aware that it’s going to take more than one book to turn my writing into a full-time career, and even with a Ream Subscription which I would love to grow into a thriving community it’s going to take its time.

That’s one of the things I love about this course, it teaches about the publishing world, and how to stack the odds into your favour from the beginning, but it also does it in a way that means you can thrive, while also doing it. I want to do this long-term; I want this to be my career.