Surprisingly, I don’t really have too many goals for Q2.

Just six big ones. Lol! (Talk about raising the bar…)

Believe it or not, keeping my goal list small makes my focus all the easier to maintain, lol. Oh! And I’ve also included my writing & book production schedule, as well as my creative training / course schedule, so that you can get a sneak peek at what I’m doing every day I’m not on here postin’. 😉

As an interesting side note, it seems as though this quarter will focus more on building my knowledge and acumen for my blogging / infopreneur business at The Bohemian Badass, but as always, those lessons in online marketing are definitely translatable to indie authors! Here’s to closing the gap between Sense & Sensibility!

Big stuff coming up for the next three months. And I’m ready. Let the Creative Guerrilla Warfare Reloaded: Q2 Version BEGIN!

Writing & Author Goals for Q2

1. Finish & publish two novels: The Iron Maiden (Book #3) and Blood & Ink (Book #4)

Q2 is important because that’s where work is going to really pop off. If I can get these next two books published before the end of Q3, I will consider myself very much on schedule.

I’m hoping to get all FIVE of the subsequent novels in this arc out by the end of the year, which will really help set me up for the next arc that’s to be published in 2017. #productiongoals

It’s a big, heavy task, and it won’t be easy along with my other responsibilities. So, please, wish me luck! 🙂 To better streamline my tasks (and to give you a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at my process), I’ve included my writing & production schedule below! Check it out!

2. Do a brand blitz (and scrub)

So I finished about 50% of my author and author website re-brand in Q1, and I’m ready to take on the second half in Q2! This is what I’m thinking about doing:

BRANDING ME & MY WEBSITE

• Choosing some distinct brand fonts and colors, and creating a brand board for Colby R Rice
• Creating, distinct branded thumbnails for all of my blog posts and book reviews
• Re-writing and rebooting all my written copy about who I am, what I do, and what my focus is as a novelist and as an artist in general
• Get some new, professional, fierce n’ sexy pictures up. Fierce n’ sexy, not naughty! 😉
• Making sure my website template is fully-functional, loaded, ass-kicking, and mobile responsive
• Fully updating the “About” section on the website & keeping it relevant
• (Lastly) Scrubbing all my social media outlets to make sure they reflect the exact brand on my website

The beginning of the new Colby. You like? 😉

BRANDING MY NOVEL SERIES

• Choosing some distinct brand fonts and colors, and creating a brand board for each novel series
• Getting some concept art done for each series (either contracted or done myself)
• Creating cool marketing banners for each of my novel series
• Designing awesome home pages for each of my novel series
• Writing more series-related blog posts and connecting each post to a “blog post slideshow” on its series page
• Creating a tight author marketing package for each novel series, incl. a great book description (of different lengths), cover art, concept art, a welcome email sequence, a “world”, a landing page, and FB ad copy
• Social media scrub for each series

By the end of June, Colby R. Rice will be officially be rebooted, and I will be a brand BOSS!

3. Finish ALL foundational worldbuilding for The ASYLUM Trilogy.

I’d really love to hit the ground running with this series in Q3. In order to do that, though, I need to have my foundations in place: the world, the characters and their backstories, the culture, and the plot. And obvs, plenty of inspirational research on my themes.

Then, on July 1, the writing frenzy begins!!

By then, my little boo should be in daycare, and I should be writing my ASS off. Pretty much every day, lol. I’ll basically be writing and editing MADLY from July 1 to Sept 30, with an aim to finish, polish, and publish the entire trilogy (incl. the pre-quel novel), before the year is out.

If I can publish this trilogy after I’m done publishing the second arc of The Books of Ezekiel, I will consider myself having had a GREAT publishing year!

4. Expand my mailing list, readership, and encourage more reviews!

I haven’t really been actively pursuing the development of my reader and review list, and I’m going to make a conscious, deliberate effort towards that this quarter.

5. Connect better and more often with my community & reader audience

Of course, getting awesome readers to read one’s work isn’t enough! I honestly consider readers as my cyber family, and so I really want to make a connection with you guys at least twice a month (+1 when there is a book launch). So I’ll do better with sending out a bi-weekly email or so, even if it’s just to make recommendations to other works in my genres! 🙂

6. Implement my action plans from my Q1 training and continue my creative training through online courses!

Of course, the creative ninja training never stops. Like ever. Even though I had to leave my program at LBCC (major bummer), that doesn’t stop me from learning and reaching higher! Now it’s time to implement everything I’ve learned from Q1 into my author brand, marketing, and non-writing-related lifestyle!

And of course, there’s always more to learn. So check out my Creative Training Docket below to see what badass courses I’m taking for Q2.

Q2 Writing & Production Schedule

APRIL

1. Writing The Iron Maiden, BOE #3
2. Writing Blood and Ink, BOE#4
3. Editing The Iron Maiden
4. Researching, brainstorming, and developing ideas for The Asylum Trilogy + Worldbuilding
5. Researching, brainstorming, and developing ideas for The Forgotten Trilogy

MAY

 JUNE

1. Writing Chase the Devil, BOE #6
2. Editing The House of Death, BOE #5
3. Polishing and publishing The Iron Maiden, BOE #3
4. Polishing and publishing Blood & Ink, BOE #4 (end of June / early July)
5. Developing The ASYLUM trilogy – Character Engineering
6. Developing The FORGOTTEN Trilogy – Culture Creation

Creative Training Docket

**order will most likely change!**

1. Week #1: Your First 10K Readers by Nick Stephenson. A kick-ass course for authors looking to increase their readership.
2. Week #2: Create Your Own Profitable Online Course in 30 Days by Ankur Nakpal at Teachable. A course to help online infopreneurs, coachers, and bloggers to create profitable courses and sell them successfully.
3. Week #3: Book Launch by Tom Morkes. An email course to help authors successfully launch their books.
4. Week #4: How to Write Copy that Sells (book + free online training) by Ray Edwards. A book and online course to help people write better, more profitable sales copy.
5. Week #5: The Killer Mini Course Challenge by Regina Anaejionu (byRegina.com). An veritably epic course that helps you to literally BUILD your first mini course that can be sold or used as a lead magnet.
6. Week #6: Epic (List-building) Email Course by Regina Anaejionu (byRegina.com) & Kory Woodward. Another seriously epic course to help you create an email course that will build your mailing list!
7. Week #7: Build Your Audience from Scratch by Regina Anaejionu (byRegina.com). Yet another epic course to help you build your audience.
8. Week #8: From Purpose to Product Challenge by Melyssa Griffin. More course building epicness! Yet another email course on how to build online products.
9. Week #9: Webinar Sales Machine by LeadPages. A course to teach you all about how to host online webinars and teach masterclasses for your audience! (Sign up for a LeadPages subscription to get access to the course!)
10. Week #10: Webinar Funnel System by LeadPages. Builds on the “Webinar Sales Machine” course to teach you all about how to create sales funnels so that you can serve your audience what they want! (Sign up for a LeadPages subscription to get access to the course!)
11. Week #11: Bryan Harris’ 10,000 Subscriber Training. A mini course to help infopreneurs to build their customer bases.
12. Week #12: 75 Ways to Help Your Brand Stand Out by Regina Anaejionu. This training will probably stretch out over the course of the entire quarter, but there are some AMAZING actionable tips in here on how to create a kick ass brand. Will definitely be applying it to both my author brand and my Bohemian Badass brand!
13. Week #13: Pre-sell Formula by LeadPages. This teaches you how to “pre-sell” your course before you actually make it so that you’re creating a product your audience actually wants. (This’ll likely be last on the docket because it’s a great lead in to a major course product (for writers!) that I’m creating and pitching in Q3 & Q4 at The Bohemian Badass.) (Sign up for a LeadPages subscription to get access to the course!)

So that’s how my Q2 is lining up! What about yours? Any goals you want to achieve or big milestones you want to hit before Q2 is over? Let me know in the comments below! And of course, in the meantime…

Rock on, write on, and keep it indie,
<3 Colby