Reflections on my 2015 challenges

Introduction

This post is about reflections on my 2015 challenges. To prepare this post I have found it interesting to revisit My 10 Challenges for 2015. The following discussion identifies the activities undertaken and notes the achievements and areas for improvement.

Activities and Achievements

Self Published eBooks

The first of my 2015 challenges was to self publish two eBooks: Four Days in Budapest and Five Days on the Isle of Skye. I am pleased to note that these two eBooks were published. The second challenge was to prepare an eBook on Program Management/Monitoring for the development assistance industry. Well I didn’t even try and meet this challenge!

The third of my 2015 challenges was to prepare an eBook on our driving trip along the Queensland coast from Maroochydore to Cairns and back. I’d estimate that this eBook is about 80% complete and a job for January 2016.

The 10th item for my 2015 challenges was to explore Print on Demand for our eBooks. No progress I’m disappointed to report, so it remains a challenge for the future.

Overall I’m reasonably satisfied with my achievements in this area.

The OS Wayfarer Website

The OS Wayfarer website received a significant facelift during the year. It looks much more contemporary now with a logo, a simpler and better focussed menu system, and better use of photos. I am really pleased with the new look and underlying theme. This will enable the focus to shift back to content.

I also implemented a mailing list using MailChimp for WordPress. It’s available on the sidebar and at the end of each post. Current thinking is that you need a mailing list to keep in touch with your readers. A give-away is also necessary to entice people to sign-up. I have a couple of ideas for this which I’ll discuss in my post about My 10 Challenges for 2016 – coming soon.

This revamp wasn’t listed as one of my 2015 challenges and it occurred somewhat accidentally. I was looking locally for help to develop my photographic skills, and I came across Geoff Powell at iTeachPhotographers and his one-on-one-tuition. Geoff has eclectic interests – photography, website development and has a writing background – this appealed to me. I spent eight hours with Geoff looking at photography, post processing and my website. I learnt new skills in each of these areas and I was able to redevelop our website between sessions. I also received a lot of positive reinforcement about my photography, post processing and the website. It seems I was doing some things right and certainly heading in the right direction – does wonders for your confidence. Definitely money well spent.

I’m very happy with the totally unplanned revamp of our website. Is there a lesson in this?

Photography

For someone who likes the mechanics of self publishing and writing about our travels I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time on improving my photography skills! My fourth and fifth of my 2015 challenges related to improving my photographic skills and post-processing skills.

The big breakthrough for me occurred after getting up at pre-dawn once a week for six weeks to take photos along the Sunshine Coast. It was during this time that I suddenly had my eureka moment with exposure compensation – for so long I just didn’t get it. I must say that re- reading and re-reading Living Landscapes helped me considerably. Consequently, I took some of my best photos yet on the trip to Cairns and back.

The big news though was upgrading my Nikon D3100 to a Nikon D7200. The trials and tribulations of that decision are discussed here.

This means a continued focus on photography during 2016.

I am also happy with my improvements in photography.

Blogging

This task remains a challenge and I am rethinking my approach (more to say in My Challenges for 2016). I set a goal (my eighth challenge) of writing a post every two weeks, however I only wrote 13 posts. My focus on writing posts diminishes once I start travelling or concentrating on an eBook.

My sixth challenge was to post more travel albums. Actually, I posted four photo essays: Winston Churchill & Chartwell House; Schools of Arts – Heritage Buildings; Post Offices – Heritage Buildings; and A Taste of Townsville Heritage. Photo essays will remain an ongoing focus as readers appear to like them and I quite like preparing them.

However, “How to….” type posts were the most popular. The number of hits on the post about using Sigil (the ePub editor) was a complete surprise.

My efforts in relation to blogging remain disappointing to me. How can I improve this?

Social Media

My only engagement with social media is through Twitter. I do not engage with Facebook other than having my Twitter posts automatically posted to it. I was very keen to re-engage with Google+ but that hasn’t happened. Quite simply, I need to be more disciplined in this area. This was my seventh of my 2015 challenges.

Another area where I am quite disappointed.

Self Publisher & Author Entrepreneur

Becoming a better self publisher and author entrepreneur was the ninth of my 2015 challenges. I would like to think that my self publishing technique has improved. That is, the technical production of the eBooks – layout, writing, photographs, eBook formatting (ePub and Mobi) and gaining acceptance by Amazon and Smashwords Premium. However the same cannot be said for marketing the eBooks. In a way this relates to the issue with Social Media mentioned above. Once again discipline is required.

Conclusion

I have found this process of stating my 2015 challenges and reflecting on the year’s activities and achievements very useful. First, it has taught me that I need to print these goals and “stick them” on the wall near my desk as a reference. Secondly, reflecting on my activities to determine success and areas of improvement is instructive and satisfying. Thirdly, I hope it will enable me to plan more effectively.

Overall I feel quite satisfied with 2015. So, can I do better in 2016?

This is a link to all of our Goals and Reflections posts

This is a link to all our eBook self-publishing posts.

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Thinking of travelling to Bucharest? Checkout our eBook:

Buy now on Amazon for Kindle

Buy now on Apple iBooks

Buy now on Smashwords as an Epub (suitable for Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)

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