Now that my first novel is all done, I’m excited to move on. One of the things I’m moving on to is book 2, a continuation of Dark House, so I’m not totally free of that world. But the fact that I’m excited to write another book is promising. It’s a ton of work, and crazy-making work at times, but I love it enough to keep writing.
Goal 1: Get Back to Blogging – I gave up on blogging around when I finished the first draft of Dark House. I felt like I didn’t have anything useful or interesting to say. Now, I feel like I have so much to say I could blog daily. I’m very excited to write about the entire process of writing my first book–why I made the decisions I did, how I felt at each stage, what I’ll do differently next time (a lot).
Goal 2: Sell, Sell, Sell – One of my big, crazy writing goals is to make a living from my books. I know promoting Dark House will be an uphill battle. I should have been promoting it before it came out–blogging on a regular basis would have helped. I’m also not big on social media, so there’s not going to be a whole lot of promotion there either. I’ll figure it out.
Goal 3: Write like it’s my job – If I want to get anywhere with this writing thing, I need to be more committed to it. I am highly prone to quitting. It’s a miracle to me that I haven’t quit writing, even though my progress seems incredibly slow at times. I have no excuse not to write every day (but I’m sure I’ll come up with something :/). I might even force myself to use writing prompts, which I’ve always hated.
So, as per usual, I have lots of big plans. Only time will tell what I can accomplish.
Dark House is currently available on Kindle and will be in paperback in a few weeks. Click here to buy/read a sample.
K. J. Cole 
I don’t do social media either. I built my platform using wattpad, discord, blogging, youtube, and making appearances on other people’s podcasts/other people writing about me.
I don’t make very much money off my writing. Like…at all…lol
But my platform is steadily growing and it might be a nice side hustle eventually.
I think the only genre it’s truly feasible to earn a living with is erotica, but even that’s hard. I know people who actually invest a TON of time into marketing their erotica-like buying facebook and amazon ads, running facebook groups, making marketing materials for tik tok and instagram. I even know one traditionally-published erotica writer-every erotica writer I know has another full-time job.
Basically…I think you should do this because you love it, not for the money. It won’t ever be anything more than a side hustle. Making a full-time income from writing is something very few accomplish and I’m of the opinion that shouldn’t be the goal anyway.
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I agree, it’s very unlikely that writing will make it out of the side-hustle/hobby category for me, but I do like to make big, crazy goals and see how far I can get. I’m a little obsessed with entrepreneurship, so my mind always goes to the money, lol. This year I’m focusing on writing as much as possible and being consistent, we’ll see where that gets me. Thanks for the comment! I love your blog.
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