IWSG: An Indie Author's Five-Year Plan

Welcome to the final Insecure Writer's Support Group post of 2016! Today's co-hosts include Jennifer Hawes, Jen Chandler, Nick Wilford, Juneta Key, JH Moncrieff, Diane Burton, and MJ Fifield.

This month, we've been given the question: In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what's your plan to get there?

I have two goals in mind for the next five years:

1. Publish at least two works a year, even if they're not full-length novels (though I ought to be able to manage at least one novel a year). For example, in 2017 I plan to publish Young Seasons, a short story collection about the Season Avatars, and Summon the Seasons, the final book in the Season Avatars series. I plan to write the first book (tentatively titled Dryads to Discover) in a new urban fantasy series next year, but it might not be ready until 2018. There will be at least two other books in the urban fantasy series, plus I want to develop a spin-off series called Selathen Avatars that takes place after Summon the Seasons. At some point, I'd like to return to the Catalyst Chronicles series (I'm struggling with a short story called "The Unnumbered World," which is told from a minor character's POV. Since Julia is half-Navajo, writing from her perspective is a challenge.) I'm sure there will be even more ideas down the line--the trick is keeping up with them all and giving myself sufficient lead time from first draft to publication.

2. Grow my mailing list to at least 1,000 subscribers. Thanks to a highly promoted giveaway on Instafreebie, over 300 people signed on to my mailing list in exchange for a free copy of Scattered Seasons. I intend to keep the giveaway running for a while; perhaps as my backlist expands, I'll be able to switch out the books I offer for free. The key will be keeping my current subscribers even as I add others.

If you're an author, do you have a five-year plan? Feel free to describe it in the comments.