The first month of 2023 has come to a close. How are we all feeling?

Somehow I already feel burnt out. But I’m also invigorated and excited about the year ahead.

I spent most of this month setting goals and targets, formulating a five year plan and creating spreadsheets. As a result I’ve updated the format of the stats I’m sharing this month too. I also hit both my monthly pitching and submission targets. Woohoo!

It was a lot and I took a bit of a scattergun approach. Next month I want to dial it back and take a look at how I can be more streamlined in my workflow each day and week.

But for now, lets look at January in review.

Freelance

Pitches and follow-ups sent: 3

Letters of Introduction sent: 3

Rejections: 0

Commissions: 0

Projects completed: 0

Money made: $0

My target for 2023 is to send 30 pitches or non-fiction submissions. This works out to 2-3 pitches/submissions a month. I hit that goal with 2 new pitches and 1 follow-up sent.

I also sent three LOIs to education publishers after connecting with them on LinkedIn. I used to cold email publishers to be added to their database. Now I use a LinkedIn strategy for connecting with clients which has been far more effective so far.

Fiction

Stories written: 0

Stories edited: 0

Stories submitted: 5

Stories published: 0

Money made: $0

I spent a bit of time setting a short story submission target for 2023. At first I picked the rather grand goal of 100 submissions. Then I reassessed.

I took into consideration how many fished stories and rough drafts I already had, the average response time for most markets (made a guesstimate of 3 months) and the fact that many markets do not allow simultaneous submissions.

I then reduced my goal by half. This works out to 4-5 submissions a month and I’m thrilled to have made that this month.