Goal Setting for KDP Success in 2024
Want to make 2024 the year that you succeed with KDP? Don’t leave Amazon KDP low content success to chance! This guide to goal setting for KDP success in 2024 will show you step-by-step how to achieve the success you’ve been dreaming of… and become a reality!
A brand new year, a fresh new start, a good time to set goals for what you want to achieve this year. For most people, the start of a new year is like a big canvas. What do you want your result to be at the end of the year? What do you envision your life to look like at the end of the year?
For me, I like to set aside a day and spend a few hours setting goals and crafting out a plan to achieve them this year.
Looking back at 2023, I don’t want this year to be another wasted year where I fail to reach my goals. I want 2024 to be MY BEST YEAR YET for my KDP business. That’s my goal. And I want that for you too.
Every new year brings so much hope and excitement to achieve those goals. And yet, many people (including myself) just cruise through life and let those goals and dreams slide.
Well, fret not!
In this post, I’ve outlined what you need to do to achieve those goals of your dreams.
(If you stumbled upon this post in other months, i.e. mid-year or later, other than the beginning of the year, let me tell you something. There’s nothing special about January or even February! You can go through this goal-setting process I’m about to outline below any time of the year. If you follow through this process whenever you are, you’ll still see amazing results at the end of the next 12 months.)
How Do I Become Successful on KDP in 2024?
A dream is just a dream if you don’t have a plan. To make 2024 your best year ever, you’ll need to put in some work. Don’t run away yet! It’s going to be well worth it.
Here’s what you need to do: break your goals down into an achievable plan. If you’re doing this for the first time, start small. You need a plan that you can actually achieve and follow through. 2024 is going to be a successful year for you if you take action. I promise!
Set aside a day to do this exercise. This whole process of setting goals should take you an hour or two (max). Then set aside a bit of time on a quarterly basis to review your plans to make sure you’re on track. Jot down any milestones you’ve achieved!
Let’s get started!
Step 1 – Dream And Visualise
The first step in this process is to close your eyes and dream and visualise what you’d want your 2024 to be at the end of December.
Visualise what you’d want to achieve with KDP by end 2024. How will your KDP business look like? What will you be doing at that point in life? Where will you be?
How will your life look like by December 2024? Do you want to earn $XX amount per month by then? Want to earn enough to quit your soul-sucking job that allows you to spend more time with the people you love or do the things that matter the most to you? Will your spouse be able to quit their job? Want to become a digital nomad where you travel the world and still work on your business? Will you lose weight or learn a new hobby now that you’ve got more free time?
Allow yourself to dream big.
Imagine for a moment how great things could turn out to be. Do not limit yourself in this first step. Don’t allow self-doubts like “can I do that?” to creep in. At the same time, be realistic. Don’t say that you want to save the world!
Give yourself a few minutes in this process.
Now, open your eyes and grab a notebook or a blank piece of paper. Write down all the things you’ve visualised.
Step 2 – How To Achieve Your Goals In 2024?
The next step is to write down how you’d like to achieve your goals by December 2024 to get you closer to the dreams you’ve visualised in step 1. How do you want to achieve them? In what ways are you going to achieve them?
Jot down all the things that come to you in this step. Don’t hold back. Now’s not the time to prioritise the tasks – this comes later.
Feeling stuck? Use these prompts to guide you
- Money – Do you want to double or triple your KDP income? How much money will your KDP business bring in per month by December 2024? In what ways will your KDP earn money? Promotion through socials? Amazon advertising? How will having that much money change your life from where it is now?
- Niches – What types of low-content books are you going to publish in 2024? Will you look for new niches to publish in? Will you expand the range of current books you’ve already published in a certain niche?
- Current Books – Will you update the interior (content) of your existing books that sell well? Which books will you update? Will you unpublish any books that are no longer relevant, e.g. dated planners?
- Book Covers – Will you re-design your book covers to make it sell better? Which book covers will you re-design? Are you going to invest and get a professional to design book covers for you?
- Book Interiors – Will you create book interiors from scratch? Or will you purchase ready-made ones from creative markets?
- Tools – How will you design your book interiors and book covers? What software(s) will you use? Will you use Powerpoint? Canva? PicMonkey? Or a software you’re familiar with?
- Resources – Do you need to take courses to fast-track your success? What courses will you take?
- Branding – Will 2024 be a year that you create an Author Central to build a brand for an author name(s)? Will you build a website for the brand? How will your website look like? How will your logo look like?
- Email Marketing – Will you start and build an email list for your brand in 2024? How will you build the list? Create an opt-in freebie to give away? How often will you send out newsletters?
- Productivity – Will you dedicate a room or an area in your house as your work space? Will you get a new computer or laptop? Will you be hiring a Virtual Assistant?
Give yourself 20 – 30 minutes in this process. Write down everything that comes to mind.
Step 3 – Arrange And Prioritise
It’s time to arrange and prioritise what you’d like to do first for the things you’ve jotted down in step 2. In what order will you be doing them? Sometimes, it might not make sense to do them in the order you’ve written them down. There may be things that you’ll need to do first before others.
Take a look at your list. Map out WHEN you are going to do each item in your list. Assign a month to each task. This will become your monthly to-do list for 2024.
There may be some items on the list you feel you’re not ready to do in 2024. Bump those off the 2024 list and create a new to-do list for 2025. Later on, if you’re ready and you’ve got the time after tackling your 2024 to-do’s, feel free to bring those 2025 items back.
As an example, my list would look like this:
January: Productivity – dedicate a space in the house as my work space, re-organize the work space, get a new computer/laptop, get a new external HDD or any other equipments I’ll need
February: Resources – research courses to take to learn about KDP, watch Youtube videos
March: Current books – look through existing published books, update content and book covers for my current books and re-publish it, unpublish books that are outdated
April: Niches – research niches, validate the niches, choose a niche
May: Book creation #1 – research and decide what tools to use for book creation, research creative markets for ready-made book interiors, create/modify book interiors
June: Book creation #2 – search for graphics on creative markets, create book covers
July: Publish and promote your book, research and take a course to learn how to promote your book through Amazon ads, set up Amazon ads, monitor ads statistics
August – November: Rinse and repeat the above tasks from April to July
December: Review and re-evaluate, research and learn how to do branding and email marketing, set up website, create and design website logo, set up Author Central
Step 4 – Evaluate Your Monthly Tasks
Now evaluate your plan to see if everything makes sense. Does it make more sense to do things in a different order? Can each task be realistically done in 1 month? Some task may take more than a month, while other tasks may take just a week or two. Re-arrange your tasks accordingly.
In my example monthly tasks above, I have allocated 2 months for book creation. It is likely this will need more time and attention. On the other hand, learning about Amazon ads and actualy doing it might take you just 2 weeks?
Perhaps, you’re not ready to start branding this year. Or you want to give yourself some downtime. Feel free to adjust the timeline.
Thus, my revised monthly tasks might look like this:
May: Book creation #1 (start) – research and decide what tools to use for book creation, research creative markets for ready-made book interiors, create/modify book interiors
June: Book creation #1 (finish) – create/modify book interiors + Book creation #2 (start) – search for graphics on creative markets, create book covers
July: Book creation #2 (finish) – create book covers + Publish book / Amazon ads
August – November: Rinse and repeat the above tasks from April to July
December: Review and re-evaluate / Off
Step 5 – Finalise And Activate
A plan is just a plan if you don’t activate and act upon it. The advantage of having written monthly actionable tasks is that it makes everything feel less overwhelming. Secondly, it helps you keep track of where you are and what you need to do each month.
But I don’t have the time!
If you feel like you don’t have the time to follow through your plan, ask yourself why. After all, your action plan is to ensure you achieve your goals for 2024.
Take a look at what activities fill up your time. Are the activities super urgent and important that must come first over your goals? Or is it just ‘busy work’ that’s not contributing to your overall goals?
Many people, myself included, are guilty of putting activities like checking emails and social media as a top priority rather than doing the actual work that will bring you closer to your goals. If you truly want to achieve your goals in 2024, it’s time to rethink and re-prioritize what’s important!
If you are working a 9 – 5 job (like me), or have kids to look after, find pockets of time throughout the day to work on your action plan. Use your lunch breaks, in the evenings after work, or perhaps your kids’ nap times. Don’t under-estimate these small pockets of time! Small, consistent actions can give you big results if you focus.
Step 6 – Monitor Your Goals
The process doesn’t stop here. You’ll need to monitor and evaluate your plans on a quarterly basis throughout the year. Look at the past quarter. Did you achieve what you’ve set out to do? What did/did not go well? What remaining tasks are there left to do?
You may feel that there’s nothing to be changed. However, it’s still a good habit to review your goals quarterly and adjust your plans accordingly.
Things that are beyond our control happen. It might not go as planned and change along the way – certain projects will overrun or new projects will emerge.
Project Overruns
Despite having your action plans, some projects will most likely overrun. Evaluate the project at the end of the month and decide what should be done next.
If you decided you’ve done enough on that project, then move on to the next. Tasks like researching a niche will lead you down a rabbit hole and can never be finished. Decide that you’ve done enough on this task and pick a niche to create books in, then move on to the next task for the next month.
Or maybe you decided you need more time to finish a project. In this case, adjust the timeline of your action plan accordingly. Take a look at your remaining monthly tasks. Are there any projects you could take off your plate for 2024? Or perhaps you could shorten the timeline of a particular task?
Rewrite your monthly action plan updated with these changes.
It is better to re-adjust your action plan than to push everything back, which will lead to demotivataion. This is because you’ll constantly feel like you’re behind on your plan and playing catchup. This feeling will make you feel overwhelmed, stressed out and demotivated. You’ll end up less productive and have the urge to give up on your goals altogether.
You do not want that! Thus it is important to monitor and adjust your plan to be on track so you feel you’re in control.
Shiny Object Syndrome
During the year, you’ll encounter instances where something new, aka shiny object syndrome, will come up that you wanted to try. You thought this could help you reach your goals faster and fast track your success.
Stop!
Take a look and evaluate this new project with the monthly projects you’ve already planned out. Is there any projects you can take off from your current plan to accomodate this new project? If there is, which one can you remove?
This will help you decide if the new project is so important that you must do and how you can fit this into your current plan. Rewrite your monthly action plan for 2024 to include this new project. Then add the project you’ve removed onto the 2025 to-do list.
If you decide not to do this new project for now, add this to your to-do list for 2025 and continue with your original action plan.
Make 2024 Your Best Year!
Set aside some time to set goals and establish an action plan in 2024. Work through each of the steps in this process above. It will only take an hour or two of your time to get you set up for succcess this year!
Isn’t it worth it?
Let me know down in the comments below what you’ve planned for 2024. I’d love to hear!
