I’m spending some time this morning thinking about March—and planning for it.
First of all, I love early spring. It’s wet and muddy in Pennsylvania, and still cold. But it does mean that summer is coming and I love summer. And it means that winter is on its way out, the days are going to be longer soon, and there’s an end in sight for the snow.
This year, I’ve been setting monthly challenges for myself. In February, I challenged myself to write on Medium every day. I’ve done that. I have five days left and I think I’ll make it.
My March Challenge
I have two ideas for my March challenge and, since I invite everyone to take the challenge with me, I thought I’d run them by you guys and see what you think.
Idea One: Email List Building
The challenge would be to do something every day that builds my email list. That might be reaching out to someone who has an audience I’d like to get in front of, tweaking my call-to-action, creating an opt-in for blog posts that are getting regular traffic.
The goal would be to increase the average number of people who join my email list every day. Right now, it’s pretty low. I average about 10 new subscribers a day. A couple of years ago I averaged 50 to 100 a day. Relying entirely on Medium blog posts to bring in subscribers just isn’t viable anymore. And, honestly, it hasn’t been for a long time.
Idea Two: Short Video Content
My second idea is to challenge myself to create and publish very short video content every day in March. I could use TikTok (which would mean learning a brand-new-to-me platform), Youtube Shorts, or Instagram Reels.
The goal would be to get myself used to creating this kind of content, see if it attracts any attention at all, and really, just to have fun. Plus, I’d learn how to do it, if I made myself do it every day.
So, what do you think? Which challenge would you rather participate in for March?
My Short Nonfiction Book for April
In March, I’ll write a short nonfiction book to publish in April. I have a goal of publishing a 10,000 to 15,000 word book once a month in 2022. I’m pretty proud of myself that I kept up with it for all of Q1.
My March book (a book of prompts to help you use your writer’s notebook) will publish on March 11.
For April, I’m writing a book about planning. I’ll talk about both planning projects and scheduling in general. I’m pretty excited about this one. It’s a passion of mine.
The Undergrounders
I’m so excited! The Undergrounders, episode one, launches on Sunday. (I know, that’s in February, but still!) In March, that episode will publish to Amazon and episode two will publish here. So, my Substack subscribers get access to each episode a full month ahead of the world.
If you want to make sure to get that episode, subscribe with this link.
The Murder Club
The Serial Killers (my little serialized-fiction mastermind) is going to host a live call in March (stay tuned for the date) for our collective Substack subscribers. All five of us will be there to talk about writing serial fiction and using Substack.
We’re calling it the Murder Club—because it’s funny. We’re all (you, too?) going to murder it with writing this year. Right? Right.
Okay, I think that’s it so far. I’m going to send an excerpt of The Undergrounders tomorrow!
I love both ideas for different reasons. I love the Tik Tok idea for my Shiny Healthy Dog blog- making videos of the dogs is fun! BUT I want to increase my email list- now that I am writing consistently on my Substack. So, I vote for email lists. I think it would be a bigger challenge with a better result… :)