Writer's Goals to Get Published

Planning for Writing and Publishing Success in the New Year

Dec 18, 2007 Jennifer Jensen

Nine specific goals to get published this year.

If your New Year’s Resolutions include getting a story published (or publishing more if you’ve already broken into print), here are some goals to get you on your way.

  1. First, set some year-end goals. By the end of the year, do you want to have submitted six different stories? Sold a story to a particular magazine? Finished the revision of your novel and queried three agents? Once you know where you want to be in twelve months, you’ll be able to set specific goals to get there.
  2. Study one (or five or ten) magazine markets each week. Look at tone, style, word choice, and length in the magazines you’ve targeted. Are all the stories about relationships? Turning points? Are they cutting-edge experimental fiction or traditional? Is the dialogue sparse or does it take up much of the story? What about internal dialogue? You need to write your own story, but this will help you judge if your story fits with the editor’s preferences.
  3. Compare your market study with Writer’s Market listings. Do the listed categories (adventure, mainstream, romance, etc.) match what you’re actually reading? How do the word counts compare?
  4. Research book markets through bookstores, publishers’ websites, catalogs, and Writer’s Market. How do they compare? Browse and/or read books similar to yours. Does your book fit the publishing house list?
  5. Evaluate what keeps you from writing. You’ll never meet your year-end publishing goals if you’re writing is hit-and-miss. Do you get sidetracked by the television or family games? Are you overloaded at work? Do people always call you to help? Decide ahead of time when you are going to fit writing in and how you’ll handle the distractions.
  6. Commit to a writing schedule. It doesn’t have to be at the same time every day, or even stay the same week to week. You might schedule 15 minutes on one morning and an hour the next evening. You may manage an hour for three weeks, but know that the month after that will have to be different. That’s okay – just knowing you’re going to adjust give you permission to do what you can now.
  7. Decide what you want to accomplish during your writing time. Some writers set goals of a certain number of pages or scenes. Others write for a certain amount of time. Still other writers know they want to revise scenes or work out plot details during particular writing sessions.
  8. Improve your writing. Choose more active verbs, create more real characters, be more evocative with your description. Read inside and outside your chosen genre. (For goals specifically oriented to these items, read New Year’s Resolutions for Writers.)
  9. When your writing is ready, set a goal to query or submit to a certain number of publishers each week or month. You can’t meet your publishing goals if you never send your work out!

Be specific with your writing goals – how much, how often – and include notes on how you’re going to make it work. We’ll see you in print next year!

The copyright of the article Writer's Goals to Get Published in Writing Fiction is owned by Jennifer Jensen. Permission to republish Writer's Goals to Get Published in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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