I’m traveling to Atlanta today to give a speech at a conference managers of independent Christian bookstores. Since all of my time and energy has been focused on composing it over the past several days, and since I won’t have internet access for about thirty-six hours, I thought I’d share the contents of the speech over the next few days. Hope you enjoy! I’ll let you know how it went when I get home!

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One thing that’s not usually mentioned in an introduction of me, or even in my bio that goes out in marketing materials, is that I worked in the sales industry for almost thirteen years. I fell into it by accident—or perhaps by Providence—about a year after dropping out of college. At twenty-two years old, I took a job as a sales assistant at a newspaper, not knowing that job—that high-stress, high-pressure, high-intensity job for which I hadn’t really been prepared when I first started in the industry, would become a comfortable place where I would learn some of the most important lessons I would need many years down the road when I became a published author: lessons about setting and meeting goals, living by deadlines, and belief in my product.

Setting and Meeting Goals
In the newspaper advertising industry, everything is driven by sales goals, and much of my work over the years was in setting, tracking, and analyzing the goals assigned to the sales staff. I would imagine in the book-selling industry, it’s much the same. Stores have sales quotas, which means that those working in the stores have sales quotas. Goals are set to inspire the workers to challenge themselves to rise above what they think they’re capable of and accomplish something that exceeded expectations. But a sales person is only as good as the next goal—because those quotas aren’t going to stop coming.

Working in the sales environment for so long, I learned the importance of setting goals in my own life—goals that would challenge me to strive for them. When I turned thirty years old, I had recently returned to school to finish my college education. I set the goal for myself that I would be finished with my bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and be “well on the road” toward becoming a published author by the time I turned thirty-five. With that goal in mind, I worked hard to finish my degrees and write something that would be publishable. The year I turned thirty-five, I received my M.A., I won second place in the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Genesis contest for unpublished authors, and I signed with my agent, Chip MacGregor. Within another year after that, I received my first book contract, for Stand-In Groom.

I’d met my goal. Yay for me! But wait . . . just like in sales, an author cannot rest on the laurels of having signed one book contract. An author is only as good as her next book contract. That’s why I continue to learn, to write, to practice my skills, to come up with new story ideas, to set new goals for myself, to go to writing conferences and network with editors, agents, and other authors.

Goals for writers come in big and small sizes. I have career goals I’m pressing toward—such as signing another book contract for more contemporary romances, now that my first three-book contract is complete with the submission of the third book in the Brides of Bonneterre series last week. But I also have smaller goals—such as daily word count goals and goals for the number of hours each week I’ll spend working on marketing or how many books I’ll read in a given period of time. I’m continually setting big and small goals for myself so that I’m challenged to keep climbing, keep growing, keep improving, keep surpassing what I thought I’d be able to do. Ten years ago, I wasn’t even thinking about being a published author. But once God put that goal on my heart, I not only had to meet the goal, but surpass it.

J.C. PENNEY said: “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”

Let’s keep setting and reaching for our goals.