With the obligatory Looking Back At 2020 post out of the way, it’s time for the equally obligatory Looking Forward To 2021 post. So, what’s next for Bryan Mack Books? Good question. I think I have the answers but, as ever, time will tell if they’re the right ones…

2020 was The Year I Published My First Novel and became a self published author of both Fiction and Non-Fiction. What became The Valentine Trap was the culmination of a 25-year old idea that I didn’t want to come out 26 years after I’d first had it.

Having finally self-published a novel, and made the usual mistakes you make when doing something you’ve never done before, it’s time to do it all over again only this time do it smarter than the last time!

Since Goal Setting and Accountability are the things we all need to help keep us on track, here’s where I’m planning on going next in my Self Publishing Adventure…

1] BOOKS

There are two parts to this one: Existing Books and New Books. When it comes to the books that already exist, that’s easy since there’s only two of them!

Existing Books:

The Next Prime Minister: This one still needs to be updated to take account of not only the result of the 2019 UK General Election, which I correctly predicted Boris Johnson would win, but also the outcome of the Brexit negotiations and the disputed 2020 US Presidential Election. It was formatted in Kindle Create first time round but the 2021 version will be done in Reedsy Book Editor. It also needs a paperback version to accompany the updated ebook. 

The Dalek Fan Film Invasion!: The concluding follow up to The Fan Film Book is currently being written and I really need to finish it soon so I can clear the decks and move on to The Paradox Club series without any other Unfinished Projects hanging around taking up creative space.

So the first thing I need to do in 2021 is finish off both of these books before I start writing anything else. Clear the decks of anything still outstanding that I can use as an excuse. Ideally, I want both of these to be done and dusted by the end of January. That’s the plan…

New Books:

Having finally written My First Novel, 2021 will be the year I write My Second Novel. And maybe My Third and Fourth too, but I need to get Novel #2 done first…

The Paradox Club Book Series is where I’m going to be focusing my creative energy this year. Valentine and Milo have a lot more adventures to come, almost all of which are planned out and plotted. Using Plottr will help make that easier than it would have been otherwise, while we wait for the “still coming to PC but not yet” edition of  Scrivener 3, currently only available to Mac users.

Like many fellow writers, I have a folder full of ideas for other Non-Fiction books but The Paradox Club is the writing priority for 2021. The plan is to polish off the two outstanding Non-Fiction Books first, then go full steam ahead into The Ghost In The Mirror, Paradox Club Book Two.

2] YOUTUBE

This is something I need to start doing properly this year. I know I said I was going to start it last year but this year needs to be the year I really get going on it. As ever, the challenge will be finding, no not finding, making the time to do it properly.

First step will be to finish working my way through the YouTube For Authors module that I get as part of my invaluable and highly recommended Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing 101 Course and then take it from there. The plan is to bite the bullet and start doing that this month. Let’s see if I do or not…

3] AUDIOBOOKS

The plan this time last year was to record the audiobook version of AFFAISAT. That didn’t happen and probably won’t. Voice Acting is where I started and it’s something I’ve wanted to get back to for a while now, and my Home Recording Studio is all set up and ready to go.

But given how much time, effort and energy it takes to write Fiction, let alone Non-Fiction, I’m beginning to doubt that recording audiobooks is feasible given everything else I need to do. It’s probably something that can wait until there’s more than one Paradox Club book available. However, there is another audio opportunity I could take advantage of…

4] PODCAST?

All the evidence is that the podcast market is growing and it seems like a good idea to have an author podcast to promote me and my work. Again, making the time is the biggest consideration. As well as coming up with content and committing to a regular release schedule in order to stand the best chance of finding and growing an audience.

This one will require a bit of thought and isn’t the sort of thing that should be rushed into. Again, Author Podcasting & BookTubing are great ideas but time spent doing them is time you can’t spend writing. Still, it’s worth thinking about and certainly worth doing. If I can find a way to make it work. Let’s see if it actually happens…

5] EMAILS!

I don’t know about you, but I get far too many Writing Advice Emails. Which is my own fault for signing up to all those invitations to “Join my mailing list and get my free writing advice book!”. Which if nothing else, proves the point about Reader Magnets….

So I reckon this year is when I really have to start cutting back on the amount of writing advice in my Inbox. You know you’re getting too many emails when you don’t read them as they come in, you just file them to read later. And then end up never reading them! 

In the interests of transparency and accountability, here’s the sad and shocking truth. I’ve just had a quick look at my email and, are you ready?

All together, I’ve got about one thousand unread writing advice emails! I’ve got emails from 2018 still sat there unread!

Wow.

6] READING

This one isn’t quite as bad, but I’ve got about, get this, thirty unread writing advice books that I’ve bought over the past year that I either haven’t even started or started but never finished. So I need to promise myself not to buy any more until I’ve read the ones I’ve already bought!

So, in summary:

1] finish off the two outstanding non-fiction books, 2] write the second novel, 3] clean up my email, 4] make a start on BookTubing and/or Podcasting and 5] read all those unread books.

That’s five goals to achieve over the next 12 months. Can’t be that hard, now can it…

So. That’s the Grand Masterplan for what I want to do with Bryan Mack Books in 2021. It’ll be interesting to see where we are this time next year and how much of these plans I actually managed to achieve…

The Self Publishing Adventure continues – feel free to join me!