New Page! Courses, classes and workshops

October 17, 2021-We’ve added a brand new page to our site where you can see the educational resources age opportunities that we’re offering! Whether you’re just starting your education with us, or continuing your quest for knowledge, we have something for everyone. Check out our brand new page here https://pandamoniumpublishing.wordpress.com/virtual-courses-classes-and-workshops/, and visit again soon as we have new classes added frequently.

Happy learning!

Goal Setter Goal Getter

June 3, 2021-Today we’re going to talk about something that most authors never do-set goals for themselves. But today, I’m not going to talk about goal setting in a traditional way, I’m going to talk about the differences between writers who set goals vs. those who don’t. Be sure to check out our podcast today as well available here: https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-idwit-460248

Authors who don’t set goals:

• Have no clear direction. They have no idea where they are going with their writing, why they write, or who it’s for.  They are directionless and nothing ever gets accomplished becasue they don’t have goals, a plan, or vision.
• Give up easily. When the going gets tough, people with no goals give in. They have no higher purpose for themselves or their work as an author. Because of this, when challenges arise, they give up.
• They don’t grow. Authors who don’t set goals stay stagnant. Nothing ever changes for them and they live the same life day after day and year after year. They aren’t growing in their work or as a professional.
• They waste their time.  Without a clear set of goals, authors waste a lot of time doing pointless busywork instead of getting things done that will help them achieve new heights. They focus on mundane, easy tasks instead of the things that are important because they have no idea what they want from themselves or their writing careers.

Authors who do set goals:

• Have a sense of purpose. It’s not just about the money, it’s about a higher purpose, a goal that is not tied to something material. Authors who have a sense of purpose in conjunction with their goals are the most successful. Their goals are bigger than them.
• They have a plan. You’ve heard this before a hundred time, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Authors who set goals have a well laid plan and they know how they’re going to get things done.
• They’re organized. Authors who set goals are organized in what they need to do each day to achieve their goals. They focus on the most important tasks and delgate the rest.
• They set new goals. By setting new benchmarks and continuously reaching higher, Authors can achieve amazing heights. They complete their goals and set new ones to stretch themselves beyond what they thought was possible. They move mountains.
• They’re always learning. If we’re not learning, we’re dying, that’s the bottom line. If you’re not learning new skills for your writing, new techniques, learning from authors who are doing better than you, then your skills, career, and mind are dying. PERIOD. Authors who set goals are always learning, growing, and achieving.

I hope that you realize the importance of setting goals and setting the correct ones. If you’ve got specific goals in mind for your writing career, drop us a line at pandapublishing8@gmail.com to see how we can help and check out our classes here: www.pandamoniumpublishing.com/shop

You Want to be a Children’s Author?

May 6, 2021– So, you want to be a children’s book author! What are your goals?  I often see that children’s authors don’t have any benchmarks for their book figured out or written down, and even worse, when I ask them who their book is for, they say, ‘everyone’. Well, you’ve heard me say this a million times before; if your book is for everyone, it’s for no one. You must be specific in who you’re targeting with your book, or you’re going to waste a ton of money and time on ineffective marketing. We’ll talk about niches and narrowing down targets in another monthly theme later in the year, but right now, let’s talk about how to set goals for your children’s book.

• Define what success means to you-Success is different for everyone. By defining what success means to you, you’ll be able to know when you get there. What do you want to achieve with your book?
• Get SMART-We all learned this in business school. SMART is a mnemonic acronym that stands for Specific (narrow down your goal for your book to be as specific as possible. If you said, ‘I want more money’ and I gave you a dollar, you would have more money…see what I mean?), Measurable (how will you measure your results of what you’ve specified in step 1?), Actionable (what steps can you take to reach your goal?), Realistic (Is your goal realistic for you? If you want to sell a million copies in 10 days does that seem realistic? If yes, get to work!), and Time-based (when will you complete your goal by?) The problem with not putting a timeline on reaching your goal is that you’ll take forever to reach it, or it will fall by the wayside, and you’ll never get it done. This is simply human nature. Also, the more time we give ourselves to achieve a goal, that’s the amount of time it will take, e.g., 5 years, 1 year etc. Parkinson’s theory explains in detail if you want to Google it.
• Dream Big– If you knew that you would reach your goal, would you set a piddly little one? No, of course not. What would you do with your book if you knew you could not fail? Make that your goal!
• It’s got to mean more than money-Listen, I know that money makes the world go round, but oftentimes, people don’t end up reaching their goals because they make it all about the money. I know that bills need to be paid and that you want to cover your investment and make a profit, but your purpose and your book’s purpose must be tied to something higher than that or else when the rough days come, you’ll be more likely to give up. What is your main purpose for your book? To be enjoyed by young readers in every country? To be used as a teaching tool for reluctant readers? To be used to combat illiteracy? Your purpose will remind you to keep going during the hard days.

Write it down, make a plan, and work on it every day. That’s how you reach your goals!

We hope you’ll join us for our Children’s Book Writing Masterclass; check it out here: Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House

Best-Seller Status

January 4, 2020– Today we kick off our month-long exploration of How to Become a Best-Selling Author! As a side note, Best-Seller Bootcamp starts today: Best-Seller Bootcamp January 4th-31st – Pandamonium Publishing House

The first thing you need to do is define your goals for becoming a best-selling author. I like to use the rule of 7 Whys. The process looks like this and it’s imperative that you see the exercise through even though it can be difficult at times. Here’s a sample for you so that you can fully understand the psychology and reason behind your goal.

Start with the question, Why do I want to be a Best-Selling author?

1. Because I want the status of best-seller on my resume. Why? 
2. I want the status of best-seller on my resume because it will give me credibility as an author. Why? 
3. I want credibility as an author because I want respect from my peers. Why? 
4. I want respect from my peers because it will make me proud of myself and my work. Why? 
5. I want to be proud of myself and my work because this will make my family proud of me too! Why?
6. I want my family to be proud of me because I was raised by a single mom and I don’t want to let her down. Why?
7. I want to make my mom proud because she gave up everything for me. I want to show her that I can be a success and that all of her hard work wasn’t all for naught.

Boom. There’s the reason and the psychology behind WHY that particular person wants to be a best-selling author.

By this point, you get the picture. Continue the 7 Whys exercise until you boil it down to one final answer of WHY you want to become a best-selling author. Only YOU know why you want to do this, your answer is very personal; if we set goals for ourselves with no idea of why we want to achieve them, we’re only setting ourselves up for failure. Everything we strive for has an underlying reason as to why we want to do something. Sometimes we lie to ourselves and say that we want to do it for reasons that are superficial such as status, money, or fame, but at the end of the day, that stuff doesn’t matter. What matters is the WHY behind all of that because, during the tough times, you’ll be able to draw on your WHY to keep going, stay focused, and see your goal through to completion.

I hope that you’ll join me this month as we dive into best-seller status! For additional information, in-depth exercises, and access to Lacey as your mentor for the month, check out the Best-Seller Bootcamp here: Best-Seller Bootcamp January 4th-31st – Pandamonium Publishing House 

Breakdown

November 18, 2020-What are your goals as a writer? What are your financial goals as an author? What are your publishing goals? Many you will answer, but a lot of you won’t because you have no idea what they are. Goal setting can take us from poverty to prosperity, from frustration to fulfillment, and from stalling to success. If you haven’t written down your goals, do it now before we continue.

Let’s say that your financial goal as an author is to earn $1,000.00 a day. There are 24 hours in a day (and don’t tell me that you won’t work 24 hours a day, because technology allows us to make money while we sleep!) so, 1000/24=$41.60 per hour is what you need to hit your target. Wow, Lacey, $41.60 per hour is a lot of money! How can I possibly do that every day? Let’s break that down. If you made $1000.00 per day every day, then at the end of the year, you would have earned $365,000, minus taxes off that, and you’re probably around $140,000 per year, depending on where you live.

So, let’s use the $41.60 per hour. If we need to earn this each hour, we can look at how many book sales that would equal. If each book is priced at $14.99, you’d have to sell 3 per hour every hour.

Now, looking at the number 3…does that seem as impossible as the $1000.00 per day or even the $41.60 per hour? When you break down your goals into manageable chunks, NOTHING is impossible. No more excuses, no more I can’t mentality, get out there and make things happen. Listen, we have the ability to connect virtually with people right now more than ever before! If you have an online store, customers can order your products and services. You can pre-record social media posts and info about your products and schedule for them to run while you’re sleeping or on vacation or to reach new customers in different timezones. Goal setting allows us to reach targets and to focus our attention on small tasks that make a big difference to our bottom line.

Let’s use another example; we’ll say that your goal is to write an 80,000-word novel in 12 months. We’ll do the math again, 80,000/12=6666 words a month/30 days is 222 words per day. That’s it. Only 222 words per day. What’s your excuse for not finishing your book? Whatever you’ve accomplished up until this point in time is only a FRACTION of your potential.

I have an author on my team, Tonya Cartmell who has set an amazing goal of selling 1 MILLION copies of her book, The 12 Days of Rescue (which you can get here: https://atomic-temporary-128327429.wpcomstaging.com/product/the-12-days-of-rescue/) and I have no doubt that she will reach her goal!

Math and hard work don’t lie. And whatever your goals are, they can always be broken down to show that they aren’t that intimidating! Don’t let big goals scare you, the bigger the better! They are more than manageable when you break them into easy, bite-sized chunks.

New Year, New You? Probably Not.

January 1, 2020– Happy New Year, Friends! What is it about a new year that gives people so much hope and promise? Is it the turning of a new page on the calendar? Is it the thought of a fresh start and a new beginning? Is it the chance to start over and better ourselves, to break bad habits and create healthy new ones? Or are they all just lies we tell ourselves?

I’m going to go with; They’re all just lies we tell ourselves, Alex for $200! Why so cynical? Because science, that’s why. Researchers at Scranton University did a study that showed only eight percent of people were able to achieve their New Year’s resolutions, the other eighty percent failed, and the remaining twelve percent did what you should do-not make any resolutions in the first place.

Setting goals are entirely different than making resolutions; here’s how:

1.  Goals are Specific. For example, you may want to set a goal of writing for one hour per day, whereas your resolution could be to become a better writer. The best way to word this is to combine the two; To become a better writer, I will write for one hour per day, five days a week.
2. Goals involve Planning. For example, you resolve that this year you’re going to submit your work to a publisher for consideration. Sure, that sounds great, but have you planned for this? Where will you submit your work? Have you done research on which publisher is the best fit for your manuscript? Do you have an email address of the person you will be submitting to? Without a proper and REALISTIC plan, YOU WILL FAIL. That’s all there is to it. Remember the adage that still rings true; if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
3. Goals involve Action. For example, you can be as specific as you want to, you can plan what you’re going to do until the cows come home. But without taking action, you’ll never achieve anything. I know someone who has over 2,000 (not an exaggeration) email leads, from various shows she attended as a vendor, that are sitting in a box on her desk doing absolutely nothing and have been doing nothing for years. Sure, she had good intentions to use them one day, but that day never came, and now most of them are expired, moved, or dead ends. If you don’t take action on the goals you’ve set, what’s the point of setting them?

What are you doing each day to move closer toward your goals? My point is, I hope that you’re not the eighty percent of people who make resolutions and dump them by January 12th. I hope that you succeed in everything you do and know that anything is achievable if you are specific, create a plan, and take action.

Happy New Year, everyone. May the best be yet to come. X LLB

Fortune Favours The Bold…

August 23, 2019– Quick, what is something you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t done? Too often we have a list of things that we set out to accomplish, but the list never gets finished, or worse, we never start. Today, I have an exercise for you to complete! Check it out below:

1.  Dream BIG! The bigger the better! Decide what you want to do and make sure that it’s huge. Examples could be, sign a publishing deal for your manuscript, to have an article that you wrote featured in a major magazine, or to travel internationally to a writing conference. Whatever it is, make sure you really want it!
2. Set a timeline. I personally use the 30-day rule. I set a goal and give myself 30 days to accomplish it. It’s realistic and gives me enough time to get to work on what I’ve set out to do. Without a timeline, you don’t have anything to work toward and even if you don’t fully reach your goal, you’re going to be a heck of a lot closer than you were!
3. Be bold and take steps toward your goal every day. Remind yourself of your goal constantly and do at least one thing each day to help yourself reach it! Let’s use the example above and your dream is to sign a publishing deal for your manuscript, what have you done today to help realize that dream? Have you made a list of publishers to query? Have you polished your query letter? Have you done your research on which publishers fit with your submission? You get the point!I challenge you to dream big and take the necessary steps to turn your dream into reality! Get started today, you’ll be glad you did.  X LLB

What Exactly Do You Want?

June 12, 2019– This is a question we ask ourselves that changes over time and certainly as we get older. The question of what exactly do you want also is based on what matters most in our lives at that moment and is shaped by the experiences we’ve had.

As an author, I ask you this question! You have to define what you want before you can ever succeed in getting it. People who don’t have goals (especially written down) are like rudderless ships adrift at sea…they’re going nowhere, fast.

It’s important to write down exactly what you want for your life and to be as specific as possible while making your list. This list is very personal so please don’t filter yourself and don’t ever think that anything you want is too big to consider. The bigger you dream, the better. Don’t box yourself in by thinking small!

After you’ve made your list, STOP doing all of the things that WON’T get you to your dreams. For example, if one of the things on your list is to finish your novel, then stop wasting time, stop playing on your phone, stop getting distracted.

If we all just took five minutes a day to work on each item on our list of goals, imagine where we would be in a year, I bet a lot of those dreams would be accomplished!

So, get started on your list; What Exactly Do You Want?

X LLB

Publisher’s Corner…

May 24, 2019-On this week’s segment of Publisher’s Corner, I tackle a subject that is close to my heart. Let’s check it out!

Q: “Lacey, You say reading is important for writers, but I barely have time to breathe let alone read! How do you find time to read so many books?” 

A: I love this question! In 2018 I read 60 books; to be clear, I should say that I completed 60 books because I used a variety of mediums to do so. Here’s what I recommend to help you reach your reading goals: 

1. Audiobooks– These are fantastic for people who are constantly on the go. I use audible.com and iTunes to download books on all topics and I love their portability. You can listen to them anywhere-I listen to them while I drive, while I’m waiting at the airport, on the beach, on planes, exercising, and while I’m doing household chores. You wouldn’t believe how many books you can get under your belt just by popping in a pair of earphones.
2. E-books– Of course, I prefer paperbacks, but when in a crunch, I pull out my trusty e-reader. Again, the portability is great because you can download as many books as you want without taking up a bunch of room in your suitcase. You can whip out your phone and read a few pages of a book any time you have to wait somewhere!
3. Read in-between time– During the day we find ourselves with a few minutes here and there. Sometimes we have time between meetings or half an hour before our kids get home from school and we end up playing on our phones or checking our email. I urge you to consciously look for the times-in-between and use them to get some reading done! Five minutes here and there add up over time and before you know it, you’ll be done a novel or two.
4. Set a realistic goal– 60 books a year may not be realistic for you based on your lifestyle. Set a goal that you’ll be able to reach based on what you think you can achieve-don’t set a marker so high that it’s unattainable, but not so low that it’s unmotivating.

Reading is addictive and once you start, you may not be able to stop. Consider yourself warned:) X LLB

Eat the Frog…Don’t Eat the Frog

March 25, 2019-Should you eat the frog? Not eat the frog? Wait, eat what?  We’re not talking about actual frogs here, thank goodness! We’re talking about a book by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog in which the statement is a metaphor for tackling the most essential tasks first on your to-do list.

You and I both know that there will never be enough time to complete each and everything on your list, but the most successful people don’t try to do everything anyway! We need to remember to focus on the tasks that have the highest return on investment (ROI), that being what can we do right now that will have the greatest impact on our business or writing career? Let’s look at my list of to-dos for today as an example:

1. Finish writing Jessica Westlake
2. Send Becoming James Cass to the editor *
3. Follow up with all clients to ensure they have their questions answered *
4. Blog posts for the month (12)
5. Podcasts for the month (8)
6. Inventory and supply ordering
7. Accounting
8. Events
9. Obtain new business *
10. Social media post scheduling

My MIT’s or Most Important Tasks have an asterisk beside them, notice that I only picked three of them:) Why? Because the current tasks have the greatest ROI and frankly, everything else can wait or be delegated. Here’s my stream of thinking: I’ll be able to write Jessica Westlake while I’m waiting in the airport and while on the four-hour flight. The blog posts are done for the rest of the month so I can schedule the posts for April without being in a panic, same goes for the podcasts. I’ll delegate the accounting and inventory ordering to my accountant and I’ll get my assistant to see what events we should be going to. I have three days worth of social media posts scheduled and ready to go, so I’ll deal with scheduling more in a couple of days or while I’m waiting somewhere.

All it comes down to is being organized and knowing what your priorities are. Make your list and look at it truthfully, what can wait? Which frogs do you need to eat first? What can you delegate?

Here are some questions that you should answer to get clear on what you need to do:

1. Which of your daily tasks are really helping you achieve your goals?
2. Which tasks are just really distractions to keep you from doing the important stuff?

Once you can answer these two questions truthfully, you’ll be productive rather than busy (which is another word for unorganized, unmotivated, and procrastination). Eat that frog!