The Publishing Performance Show

Audrey Hughey - Write Your Book in One Year: A Busy Author’s Complete Guide

• Teddy Smith • Episode 56

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Audrey Hughey is a planner and workbook creator, and a multi-genre fiction author. She uses her B.A. in English and M.A. in Ancient and Classical History to research and craft riveting horror and thriller stories brimming with cultural nuance and rich with lore. She lives in the hills of Appalachia with her family and sweet-but-bossy felines.

In this episode:

  • The importance of holistic life planning for authors
  • Breaking down yearly writing goals
  • Creating effective daily routines
  • Managing productivity with family commitments
  • Setting authentic and meaningful goals
  • Using time-blocking techniques
  • Monthly review and progress tracking


Resources mentioned:

  • The Author's Planner series
  • Virtual writing retreats
  • Monthly Writing Focus Planners
  • Growth Day app
  • Female Entrepreneurship Association
  • Pomodoro Technique


Book recommendations:

  • The Ritualist by Dakota Crowe
  • Six Habits of Growth by Brendon Burchard
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear


Connect with Audrey:


Get your tickets for the 2025 Virtual Spring Writing Retreat: 


Connect with Teddy Smith:

Support the show

[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the publishing performance show. Today, I'm really happy to be joined by Audrey Huey from the right services. Now I was lucky enough to meet Audrey in person at AuthorNation. And she's such a fantastic person to hang out with. She's really fun. She's really nice. But more importantly, she writes books that are planners to help authors write their books.

[00:00:25] Teddy Smith: Now these planners aren't just any planners, they are up. Unbelievably detailed planners that help you do everything step by step from coming up with an idea to getting your final draft published. Now, these planners work for nonfiction writers, for fiction writers. Well, for any types of writers, really, who wants to get their book out there.

[00:00:41] Teddy Smith: She doesn't just write those sort of books though. She's also an author herself, but she does a lot of work helping authors to stay on track and to stay accountable. So if you're looking for more processes in your business to how you can keep on track and to get your book out into the world, then this is the episode for you.

[00:00:57] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone, and welcome to the publishing format show. I'm here with Audrey Huey, who's a planner, creator for authors, and she's also a fiction writer. So thanks for joining the show, Audrey. 

[00:01:08] Audrey Hughey: Well, thank you so much for having me. 

[00:01:10] Teddy Smith: No worries. I'm going to force this chap because I'm feeling quite disorganized at the moment.

[00:01:14] Teddy Smith: So I'm hoping it's going to give me a bit of a pep talk into how I can plan the rest of my year. 

[00:01:19] Audrey Hughey: I am so excited to help. 

[00:01:22] Teddy Smith: So the, what you do is you create planners for authors, don't you? So let's talk about why planning is such an important part of the authoring process. 

[00:01:32] Audrey Hughey: Yeah, I think it's really important because if you don't have a target, it's really hard to keep a good direction.

[00:01:41] Audrey Hughey: And keep yourself on track. You know, we always use this, this phrase on track. am I on track? Am I off track? Well, if you don't have a target, then you have no idea if you're on track or off track. I think that boils it down really well to why we need to have a plan and have a goal. yeah. And I always talk about planning.

[00:02:02] Audrey Hughey: Like, it's just setting guideposts. Like, If you're on a mountain in a snowstorm, you need guideposts to make sure that you're getting to your destination safely. And so planning is just guideposts. It's okay. If things kind of don't go to plan in between. 

[00:02:18] Teddy Smith: Right. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I mean, the way I plan most of my books is generally just with sort of bullet points, so it's not the most organized way of doing it.

[00:02:29] Teddy Smith: So what's the method that you use? In order to make yourself, you know, as organized as possible. 

[00:02:37] Audrey Hughey: Yes. So I use a number of things, but my biggest tool is my planner that I created. And I was just, I was doing a lot as raising toddlers. I was writing for local magazines. I was working, I was going to school and just trying to keep track of all the things without letting my writing fall off again.

[00:03:00] Audrey Hughey: And like, I stopped writing when I was in the army and I didn't want to stop writing again once I had found it again. And so I created that tool for me and thought if other people like it, that'd be great too, but I really need this because there's no planners out in the market that really fit my needs and they're all too big in general.

[00:03:21] Audrey Hughey: So I wanted something to kind of like, Coach me through the hard times and keep me planning because I think planning is a practice. So I would say it's my planner because life, no matter the season, whether it's busy or whether it's feeling a little more free, I need to be practicing planning all the time to improve.

[00:03:42] Audrey Hughey: Or to fulfill my potential. 

[00:03:45] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. So was there a particular, was there something that happens that meant you needed to be as organized as you could? What was the background to you creating that planner? 

[00:03:56] Audrey Hughey: Yeah, I was really stressed out again. I had two toddlers at the time. They're only 12 months apart.

[00:04:02] Audrey Hughey: So, you know, uh, they call those ones that are within 12 months of mine are 12 and two weeks, but still it was very difficult to a diapers. And, I was taking classes double time for my writing, my English writing degree. And it was just so hard to kind of try to balance everything. And I was like, I need to build routines, which is really hard with children at home.

[00:04:27] Audrey Hughey: And so. I was like, I need structure. I need routine. I need to know what day of the week it is versus this is the day that, you know, we're body training today. Right. And I didn't want another month to go by where I wasn't making big progress towards my writing, um, my fiction writing. So, cause I was doing plenty of writing in school, reading and writing.

[00:04:52] Audrey Hughey: And I was doing for local magazines for about 16 to 17 months. I did that. And that's, that's hard work. You know, that's a lot of research hours and interview hours and things like that. So, but I was like, I don't want the only time of year I write to be in November, you know? So it was just a combination of being really stressed out, having high anxiety because I felt like my life was never my own.

[00:05:21] Audrey Hughey: I was like, I need something. And actually I did this in the middle of NaNoWriMo. I put my beloved project aside and I was like, I really need this thing. I need it printed before the new year starts and and I needed. Something to make sure that I was actually writing every month, working on my fiction and staying organized in my schoolwork.

[00:05:46] Audrey Hughey: So this did it. This helped me stay on top of all of those things and it revolutionized my life. Not just plug that, but. Finding something and make, really making something that worked for me allowed me to, I wouldn't say balance. I think balance is this mythical thing, this, you know, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we're always chasing.

[00:06:12] Audrey Hughey: But as far as we can say balance, it helped me balance my life. It helped me feel less stressed and less anxious. I knew where I was going. I had a better idea of how long it would take me to go there. And I didn't have to sacrifice my writing anymore or put it on a shelf. 

[00:06:29] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I know what you mean about balance.

[00:06:31] Teddy Smith: I've, I've got a toddler and it's just completely crackers. I thought it's, it's, it's way harder than looking after one child. So getting your writing in at the same time is, you know, that's a good job just doing that. It's quite interesting that you did the planner during NaNoWriMo. You kind of use NaNoWriMo to make your planner, which I guess is, there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

[00:06:51] Teddy Smith: That's the time you use for it. Yeah. You still created your book. It's just not the book you set out to create. Now, I've seen your planners and they're, they're really in depth. Like they really go step by step, everything you should be doing throughout the year in order to get your book written.

[00:07:06] Teddy Smith: Just before we go on to what the steps are, is it, is there a different way of doing it for maybe nonfiction and fiction authors or other steps, more or less the same process? 

[00:07:17] Audrey Hughey: Yeah, so I set this up to be like, feeling like I'm right there with you and kind of guiding you along and coaching you and reminding you of your thing of the things that may be important to you.

[00:07:29] Audrey Hughey: But I'd say for fiction and nonfiction writers, it's really close. You still have project goals. You still have, target deadlines. You still have these different aspects of marketing and sales and what are you, what is your writing goal? If, especially if you're nonfiction, you're writing a lot.

[00:07:45] Audrey Hughey: With blogs or with guest blogs or with any kind of feature, you know, you're trying to publication you're trying to get into. So you still have a lot of writing goals every month and you still have sales goals and I think I do a good job regardless of your genre or style of giving you ways to track that and to set goals or set targets.

[00:08:09] Audrey Hughey: I like to say better than goals. 

[00:08:12] Teddy Smith: So that's really important about the setting the goals because a lot of authors they struggle with their organization and being clear So obviously you've got goal setting as one of the key areas. They should focus on are there any other focus on every other focuses?

[00:08:26] Teddy Smith: That's disorganized people or people who don't feel there's organized. There could be should be focusing on first 

[00:08:32] Audrey Hughey: Yeah, I would say do my favorite exercise and that is a brain dump because every, everything that's going on in your brain that isn't attended to is like an open loop. So to close the loop, those loops, or at least kind of put a salve on them, we have to write them down.

[00:08:51] Audrey Hughey: So write them down. I prefer writing by hand because I think. That more effort helps you kind of focus your thoughts. And then, you know, you don't have tabs open on your notebook. You have tabs open on your browser. Like, I've got like a million tabs, which I closed for you, by the way. So but yeah, so write it all down and then highlight, like, don't I know a lot of people really like to separate their list.

[00:09:14] Audrey Hughey: This is what I need to do for the house and the family and my writing and my sales and my marketing. But I really like when you put them all together because when you put all those things together and I tell you. Take a highlighter and pick three, three things that must be done. And hopefully there are things that are easy and can be done real quick because then you build momentum.

[00:09:37] Audrey Hughey: So pick three things that really need to be done today. And you start building that momentum and you start seeing what's really important. If you have all those different lists, it's easy to still feel overwhelmed versus make one giant list and then start, just highlight your three. And this is what I need to do before anything else is done.

[00:09:59] Audrey Hughey: And it feels a lot more doable. And then take a big fat marker and cross them off and you get that little tiny dopamine hit that helps build your momentum so you can do the bigger things. Sometimes you know, writing the blog post feels a lot more overwhelming if you've built it up in your mind to be overwhelming.

[00:10:21] Audrey Hughey: It feels a lot more overwhelming than changing out the laundry, you know, do something that you know needs to be done, but can give you that little dopamine boost and give you help you build momentum. And then you can say, okay, I can't procrastinate on this thing that feels scary anymore. Hopefully that's helpful.

[00:10:41] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. When I, when I used to work in project management, I had a really boring corporate job, but I was quite good at being organized in that. And we had this concept in Agile delivery, which is like a way of delivering projects where you've got these big projects and we'd call them rocks and you'd break them down into pebbles.

[00:10:58] Teddy Smith: And one rock is made of loads of pebbles, but a pebble you can pick up and a rock you can't. And so it's about taking those big things and break it down into things you can actually achieve. Um, my, my, uh, organization method is very similar to yours. I think I basically just have this long list that I'm looking at on a big book.

[00:11:14] Teddy Smith: I get really nice notebooks so that I'm, I like writing in them and then I just spray and then I just break it down into the things I want to do those days. So that's a really good tip. And I think it's the best, best way to progress. 

[00:11:26] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. I feel like it's really helpful for people who are just feeling like, Oh, nothing works or I'm stuck or I'm just overwhelmed or in a functional freeze, especially.

[00:11:36] Teddy Smith: Hmm. It's the, 

[00:11:37] Audrey Hughey: I think the fastest way to get out of it from my personal experience. 

[00:11:40] Teddy Smith: Yeah, for sure. So let's have a look at this planning process throughout the year. So what are the steps that authors need to go through in order to plan their book throughout the year? Cause I know your, your planner focuses on a whole year.

[00:11:52] Teddy Smith: That's kind of the aim of it. So let's go through those steps. 

[00:11:56] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. So the first thing I like people to do is really set their big vision. Like what do you actually want from life and how does writing fit into that? Yeah. You know, think about how you envision yourself in your ideal life and where would writing fit in your day?

[00:12:14] Audrey Hughey: Okay. So if we know that we can connect to more authentic and meaningful goals about you as a person and what you desire in this very finite life. So I think that's a huge step that a lot of people just kind of they either don't get encouraged to do it, or they don't take the time to do it because they say, oh, well, all these people I admire are doing X, Y, Z.

[00:12:39] Audrey Hughey: So I want to do that too. I want people to be really authentic about their goals because. That's that meaning carries you through the hard times and carries you through the dips and the struggles and the night dark night of the soul. So first it's that, and then it's saying, okay what is my time?

[00:12:59] Audrey Hughey: My average time to write a book? How long was my target length? You know, how do I break this down? What months do I have vacations or family events, or if the kids are home during the summer? Are they pretty independent or are they? You know, high attention needs. So what do they need from me? Cause when they're teenagers, they don't want anything to do with you, which is a blessing and a curse.

[00:13:22] Audrey Hughey: So but yeah, so it's, you know, it's different for everybody. And that's why I think you have to look at your year and understand what happens in each season, what happens in each month your energy levels, because we're not machines. So I'm really leaning into this The, the planner actually helped me do this was realize that I have fallow periods and that is the end of the end of January to through February and to about early to mid March.

[00:13:51] Audrey Hughey: That is my fallow period. That is when I don't know if it's and I've talked to my doctor about this. I have, you know, she, she loves my coping and. My coping is just to do, to have as little on my schedule as possible to avoid like the depths of seasonal depression, but that if I just lay fallow, you know, like we're, you know, we, we have done for millennia, you know, during that season, during the winter, then I come out of it with so much more fire.

[00:14:22] Audrey Hughey: So understand your own energy cycles. So that's what I like you to lay out 12 months. Make notes about each month and what your obligations are, what your energy is usually like, if you know, if not, you can start tracking it and then start building your plan around that. Yeah. Okay. So, so 

[00:14:40] Teddy Smith: for the first, as I say, so it, it's interesting that you start with, not the book, you, you, you start with looking at your life and thinking, okay.

[00:14:46] Teddy Smith: When am I most effective? What are the roadblocks coming up? You know, is my son doing his exams this year? Have I got a football final this year? Are there any events I want to go to? So you want to plan yourself around that. You know, is it my 50th birthday party? You know, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be working a week either side that, because I'm going to be drinking, you know, that sort of thing.

[00:15:06] Teddy Smith: So it's that's interesting that you say, okay, before we even think about the book, let's think about your year as a whole. And if you're like, you know, you kind of hibernate a bit during the winter, then you need to fax that in and say, well, we're not going to get much done then. So we can use that as family time and take that out.

[00:15:23] Teddy Smith: That's really interesting. I haven't even thought about doing that. 

[00:15:26] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. Yeah. Just, just like, you know, our agricultural cycles. So it's, it's, it's just super important. But yeah, that's, I, I actually have a course in my thing and in my website, but in the course library that is just holistic planning and is the foundation for everything that I teach holistic planning.

[00:15:49] Audrey Hughey: I don't think you can plan your writing and your sales and all that well. if you're not integrating it with the rest of your life. 

[00:15:58] Teddy Smith: Yeah, that is very interesting. So what's the next step after that? So once you've planned out what the rest of your year is, when, what's the next step for the book? 

[00:16:06] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. So then it's about, you know, the drafting phase.

[00:16:10] Audrey Hughey: So how long is it going to take you to draft your target length book? And that, you know, ensuring that your target length is Well, at least me, I do my market research and I say, okay, what's the target length? I love K lytics. Okay. I love K lytics. And I use that and say, okay, what is the target length of the best, you know, or the average length of the best sellers?

[00:16:30] Audrey Hughey: And then how do I replicate that? Or, or that's what I'm going to set my thing, my target word count for. And then I say, okay, how long is it going to take me to write a book? How long does it take me? Okay. I can write. As long as I'm getting my time every day, I can write about a thousand words an hour. I know it's not 5, 000 words per hour like Chris Fogg, which I love, but it works for me and it works for how much I get pulled away for family stuff.

[00:16:58] Audrey Hughey: Um, especially again with a toddler at home, I don't have daycare, so it's, it's just me and she comes first, but if she takes her nap, then I get, you know, two hours where I can just write. And I can get easily 1000 words an hour and 2000 words a day adds up pretty quickly. Yeah, definitely. With three or 4000 words a day on the weekend.

[00:17:21] Audrey Hughey: So, 

[00:17:21] Teddy Smith: yeah, so it sounds like you use some sort of different productivity methodologies inside your planner as well. This sounds a bit like time boxing to me, you know, where you think, how much can you do in this time? And let's set that time apart. Have you been taking inspiration from those sort of?

[00:17:37] Teddy Smith: Project management type books. 

[00:17:39] Audrey Hughey: Yes. Well, I don't know if I listened to product a product or project management, but I do have, I do have friends who are project managers who tell me it's a lot like, like I, I kind of embody those kinds of principles, but I do listen to a lot of. Productivity books and I listened to like Brendan Burchard and of course atomic habits.

[00:18:00] Audrey Hughey: I really, really love those books. I listened to Brendan Burchard's daily fire every day on the growth day app. And that's not a plug, but. It it's, it's incredibly helpful because I think you have to add the motivation to momentum or motivation to discipline to, to gain momentum. But I love time time blocks because there's this fallacy where the work will expand to fill the time allotted.

[00:18:32] Teddy Smith: Yes. 

[00:18:32] Audrey Hughey: So if you don't put an end cap, On tasks that aren't moving the needle. You could spend so much time on stuff that isn't making a difference. And so, yes, I, I love time blocking. The Pomodoro method is okay. If depending on what phase you're in, if it works for you, great. Like, I am the last person to say.

[00:18:57] Audrey Hughey: You know, or to, to dispense prescriptive methods for, for working or planning or productivity. I don't think there's one way that works. I think it depends on the season you're in. It depends on your personality based on a lot of stuff I've seen and a lot of feedback on my planner. Um. They, you know, a lot of people tell me it's ADHD friendly and they're like, do you have ADHD?

[00:19:18] Audrey Hughey: I was like, I'm told I might, but I'm not diagnosed with anything, you know? But it's, it sounds, it sounds a lot like me. And so I think there's just so many variables on what's going to work for you. I think the important thing is actually trying something for 90 days. I really think it takes a 90 day trial period, not a.

[00:19:40] Audrey Hughey: I'm going to try something for a week and see if it works. Now, you got to give something 90 days of really really decent focus and commitment in order to determine whether or not it works for you. 

[00:19:52] Teddy Smith: Yeah, it feels achievable doing stuff just for 90 days. I found the Pomodoro technique works quite nicely for me because it works well with the time boxing because you split your, yeah, hours up and then you say, okay, here, I'm gonna work 25 minutes on this.

[00:20:04] Teddy Smith: That seems doable. Even if you're thinking, I'm really not looking forward to work today. I just want to go on Twitter or do something else. If you can, you can usually do 25 minutes and then you can say, okay, well after that we can go have a cup of tea or something. So the time boxing, that, that aspect of it, you're planning out how many, how many words you're going to write.

[00:20:21] Teddy Smith: What's the, what's the next step in the planning the book? 

[00:20:24] Audrey Hughey: Okay, so what I like to do is and some people takes them a whole year to write a book.

[00:20:30] Audrey Hughey: Some people it takes a lot less time. I don't lay out those steps explicitly in the book in the planner. I mean, but if somebody is trying to write a book. I would say the next step is contact your cover designer if you're an independent publisher, you know, contact your editor, contact your formatter, contact a proofreader who will proofread before you send it to formatting, you know, and then kind of start getting your ducks in a row, plan a marketing month while your book is with your editor.

[00:21:03] Audrey Hughey: I like to say that's not your month to rest. That's your month to do all the marketing you've been worried about. So 

[00:21:09] Teddy Smith: yeah, 

[00:21:10] Audrey Hughey: that's kind of thing how I do things kind of leapfrogging different tasks and you know around of course the holistic planning of life 

[00:21:17] Teddy Smith: Yeah, brilliant. So those are the kind of the three steps It's like working out your year working out how much you can write and then working out the steps for each.

[00:21:25] Teddy Smith: Yes Each plan you're going to do 

[00:21:27] Audrey Hughey: breaking down into pebbles. 

[00:21:29] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Breaking down as pebbles. Exactly. Yeah. You can become a project manager. Yeah. Does the now once you've got that book written, obviously that's just the first step you've then got how you get that book to get out to the market, how you get it sold, how you get it on Amazon, you know, however you're going to sell it.

[00:21:48] Teddy Smith: So how do you focus on those parts of of the authoring journey during the planner? 

[00:21:54] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. So in the planner, I actually have sections in the monthly planning that say, okay, what do I need to do to prepare for future releases? And there's different boxes you can or lines you can write on with boxes you can take.

[00:22:08] Audrey Hughey: And there are, there's a section where you can focus on your sales and you can put your like, Target, uh, your audience targeting notes and things like that. It's again, it's very open and adaptive to whatever you have going on because so many people are like, well, I like this method and I like that method.

[00:22:25] Audrey Hughey: Well, as long as you're writing it down and recording what you're doing, then I think that's very helpful to do whatever you think is working for you. So I really leave it open. Like if you want to advertise on Facebook. Go for it. You know, what is your advertising platform? What is your budget for that?

[00:22:44] Audrey Hughey: I have like sales. What are my sales? And you know that I'm focusing on getting this month and I'll say, instead of saying a title of a planner, it'll say the planner or planners and it'll be a target number of sales and I'll put my marketing budget for it. And then I'll say, like, Okay. My thriller series, and then I'll set targets for that and my marketing budget for that.

[00:23:09] Audrey Hughey: So, and then any art audience targeting notes I have, I put down there so that if I need to go back and say, Hey, you know, this month was a better month. I can go back and see what I wrote in my targeting notes when I was setting up those ads or those campaigns or whatever I was doing, or even if it's a.

[00:23:27] Audrey Hughey: Social media campaign with a 0 marketing budget and it's just organic. You know, looking for organic reach, then I can still take, you know, take those notes and say, okay, this actually worked. Let me replicate. What worked before or kind of hone in on what may have worked that month? 

[00:23:45] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely It's I mean the planners are great.

[00:23:48] Teddy Smith: So what's so good? Is it just sets out everything you need to do? I think especially especially for first time writers But I'm guessing you get lots of repeat customers because they're so good. But especially for first time writers It literally shows you everything you need to do and the steps you should be taking in order to get a book written.

[00:24:04] Teddy Smith: And it's not, it's not like a course on how to write a book, but it's more how you can be productive and how you can keep on track. And that for so, so many people will have those problems where they're just not staying on track. Yeah. 

[00:24:17] Audrey Hughey: And that's why I like the monthly review sections and it's probably my favorite part because it's like monthly coaching.

[00:24:24] Audrey Hughey: Okay. What went well last month? What would you like to go better this month? What lessons are you carrying forward from last month and how can you make this month better? You know, what would you be most proud to achieve? I think is the most important question I have in that monthly planning section.

[00:24:44] Teddy Smith: Definitely. There's a really good book I read on that called traction, which is all about how it creates what's called an entrepreneurial operating system for your business, which I know sounds quite nerdy, but it basically, it basically helps you to set your KPIs for your business and how you can track those each month.

[00:25:03] Teddy Smith: And then at the end of each month, you review what's happened so that you can plan your KPIs for the next month. And it sounds like that's exactly the method. You sort of follow, you do that in the end of month review and go back and check what you've done and how you can set your goals the next month as well.

[00:25:17] Audrey Hughey: Exactly. And that's actually what I took a lot of inspiration was from was my the entrepreneurial side of my journey and things I was doing back then. And. What I was learning, what I was taking in. I'm a huge fan of Kerry green. she's from the UK. She's from Manchester and she runs the female entrepreneurship association.

[00:25:40] Audrey Hughey: And it's just, it's this monthly thing where, and she also created a really cool website software, like software as a service. It's, Oh my gosh, it's the whole deal. But anyway, so I was just so inspired by what she was doing and how she was serving the community. And I was like gosh, these things are so helpful and they're, they're really basic concepts, but the way that they're presented in kind of a.

[00:26:05] Audrey Hughey: A coaching format without the cost of coaching. I think this is really important to have that kind of resource available to writers as well. I think we need writers to have that ability to have, you know, just a monthly check in a monthly coaching monthly. Hey, explore this topic that you've been avoiding.

[00:26:25] Audrey Hughey: You know, and that's what I try to do in my planner is give everybody the opportunity to kind of have coaching, but not for like four, 10, 20, 000 a year. 

[00:26:36] Teddy Smith: Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, a lot of, a lot of authors struggle with that element of consistency with their writing. And that coaching is great because you're looking back and looking exactly what you've done and working out how you can improve the next time.

[00:26:50] Teddy Smith: How. What, have you any tips for helping people to be effective with staying consistent, especially, you know, when they're stressed, you know, they've got toddlers. 

[00:27:00] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is again being in touch with your goals and making sure that those goals are actually authentic and meaningful for you.

[00:27:09] Audrey Hughey: I've been really harping on this meaning thing because it is what ties you to an outcome on that goal. If it doesn't actually mean something to you deep down, you're not gonna stick with it. You're going to find every excuse in the book to not feel like doing it. So if, but if it's meaningful to you and you think, you know, who would I be without this goal?

[00:27:34] Audrey Hughey: Do I want to be that person or do I want to be the person who achieves this goal? And this is part of who I am. You know, this is this mountain that I want to climb and put my flag on top of. You know, then, if that is what you tie to your identity, you're going to be thinking about it more. I actually keep.

[00:27:56] Audrey Hughey: My published works, my whips list and my yearly targets and quarterly targets on my wall over here, you can kind of see. Oh, I can't see. Okay. But basically it's on the wall here between the windows because I've got lots of windows here and it's just really helpful to keep me in touch with and at eye level.

[00:28:16] Audrey Hughey: I can see my targets for the year. And I can think about what they mean to me you know, I, I write because these characters in my head are like clawing at their prison trying to get out. And it's just part of who I am and who I want to be and how I see myself in the world. And I think once you really explore that explore that feeling and explore what that looks like to you as in your place in the world as a writer, I think you connect more deeply with that goal.

[00:28:45] Audrey Hughey: And it's a lot easier to not snooze the alarm. It's a lot easier to not just say, Oh, I'll do my planning later, or a lot easier to say, you know, planning sucks. It doesn't work for me. You know a lot of people get turned off by the idea of planning. They feel like it's, you know, they get, they get kind of triggered by the word planning or planner.

[00:29:07] Audrey Hughey: And if you need to do an anti plan, just set goals. Okay. And figure out what you're doing every single day to move that needle forward. 

[00:29:16] Teddy Smith: Yeah, 

[00:29:17] Audrey Hughey: and that is technically a plan, but we'll call it an anti plan. Okay, so, but whatever you need to do to help you, if you're, if you're struggling with staying consistent, get in touch with your goals and what they mean to you and set alarms, set reminders.

[00:29:34] Audrey Hughey: Sometimes it's hard for people who are not in practice, and it's really a practice. If you don't have a routine, you don't have practices set up, it's really hard to get into those and feel like you're, you're getting there. But if you set alarms every time you're supposed to switch priorities, it can help trigger you and cue you.

[00:29:53] Audrey Hughey: If you build in cues and triggers like James Cleary talks about in Atomic Habits, then it's a lot easier or. You can build those routines and habits a lot more quickly, but, like for me, I like to get fancy cheap candles from T. J. Maxx, and then I light a candle, I put on music for whatever I'm writing right now, it's Wardruna, Danheim and Skald.

[00:30:22] Audrey Hughey: is what I'm listening to for what I'm writing right now, which is horror. It's early medieval horror. Um, so I listened to Viking music but I put out my music and then I open for the words, which is really helpful. And those are my cues and my triggers to. This is my time to write. 

[00:30:41] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. I think those habits can really help because they build up over time.

[00:30:45] Teddy Smith: One of the ones, one of the ones that I've found that is the most effective when I'm trying to do something creative, but really with anything. And I learned this from John Cleese, who's a British comedian. I think he's famous in America as well. He is, he's famous everywhere. Yeah, but he wrote a little book called creativity.

[00:31:01] Teddy Smith: It's really small. It's like that big. And he basically works anything he wants to work on before he goes to bed. He, uh, just works on it just before he goes to bed and lets his subconscious kind of work on it in the background. And it is one of the habits I found that has really helped me. move forward.

[00:31:17] Teddy Smith: I thought it was very interesting. I tried it and it really does work. You know, if you're, even if I've just go through my to do list and just make some notes about it, I find the next day there's stuff to, I didn't even know it was happening. And I wake up in the morning and I see all this, all this new things I can work on.

[00:31:32] Teddy Smith: It's great. 

[00:31:33] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. It's like attuning your mind. I don't want to get too woo, but what I find interesting about the idea of manifesting is that you're just really focusing your mind on finding solutions. to the thing that you want. So like when I first got my, my dream truck , I have my truck and I was, all of a sudden I was seeing white.

[00:31:58] Audrey Hughey: You know, white extended or, or King cab trucks everywhere. I'm like, where are all these white, you know, full cab four trucks coming from? I've never seen these before and it's because now I have one, my mind is looking for that similar thing. And so when we, what I tell my clients is, you know, cause I work with a very small handful of writers that I coach.

[00:32:21] Audrey Hughey: And one thing that always ends up coming up right in the beginning of working someone with someone is like, You can't stay focused or can't stay organized, or it's, it's hard to be consistent is you have to get obsessed with the outcome. 

[00:32:36] Teddy Smith: Hmm. Yeah. 

[00:32:37] Audrey Hughey: I think that's what manifesting really is. It's being obsessed.

[00:32:41] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. Especially as a 

[00:32:42] Teddy Smith: writer. Yeah. 

[00:32:43] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. Not obsessed in the stressful way where you're like, I have to have it or I'm going to ruin the world. No, like, like obsessed with thinking about it, thinking about solutions. Don't think about, you know, um, what you're going to have for dinner while you wash your hair.

[00:32:57] Audrey Hughey: Think about how am I going to solve this problem, you know, or think about the story, what's going to happen next. If I'm thinking during those times where I'm touching water about my story, I will have this massive burst of ideas, you know, about how the story can go. And it's just fantastic. What just focusing, you know, It's like meditation, actually.

[00:33:24] Audrey Hughey: It's like anytime, you know, if you want to focus on something, you're going to have trouble, but if you keep just gently bringing your mind back to center, right, bring it back to whatever you're focusing on, gently bringing it back without guilt or shame or like frustration. Oh, no, I didn't focus again.

[00:33:42] Audrey Hughey: It's a lot easier to get used to focusing. It's like practice, you know, it's building new neural pathways and, and kind of getting out of the old grooves. And even just with building new habits, I would say build one at a time. Let go. Your brain, uh, get accustomed to one new habit at a time and it makes it all a lot more manageable.

[00:34:05] Teddy Smith: Yeah, brilliant. And you're clearly a productivity nerd. And that shows up. I love Excel. Yeah, the spreadsheet queen. Yeah, no, I mean, it shows up really clearly when you go through your planners. I mean, it literally is, this is what you should be doing today. This is how you can set your goals for the year.

[00:34:23] Teddy Smith: And this is when you should be. goals and what the plan is. I think it's really great what you've done. If people want to have a check out your planners, where's the best place to find you and where to find the planners? 

[00:34:34] Audrey Hughey: Yeah. So www. audreyhuey. com. So a U D R E Y H U G H E Y. 

[00:34:42] Teddy Smith: Yeah. And are all the planners like agnostic for anyone, or do you have particular planners you recommend for particular people?

[00:34:49] Audrey Hughey: So if you are a new writer, I would say my monthly writing focus planners are a good place to start. If you don't have a lot of things to market. If you have a couple of books and you're saying, Oh my gosh, I want to improve sales. Then you need my big signature planner, which is my yearly planner. It's like the 2025 author's planner is coming out.

[00:35:11] Audrey Hughey: I have that on preorder until November 1st. If you want the non dated version, if you want a little more flexibility with how you build this new habit of planning, then you can get the ultimate authorship planner. But if again, if you're a new writer, I have my simplicity writing planner coming out this fall, um, hopefully in conjunction with author nation in Las Vegas.

[00:35:36] Audrey Hughey: And that will just be for just writing a full year of planning just to write without the marketing and sales focus and without a lot of the extra stuff that applies to writers a little bit farther along. Because I do hear a lot of people saying, and I wanted to take that in and create something special for more writers in this phase, but they say they don't like wasting the pages, even though they know they can just skip the pages that don't apply to them.

[00:36:05] Audrey Hughey: They don't like wasting the pages and I totally get that. And so I wanted to honor that and create a simplicity writing planner. 

[00:36:13] Teddy Smith: Great. And you've also got retreats. Can you tell me a bit about those? Because that's quite an unusual concept, I think. 

[00:36:20] Audrey Hughey: Oh, yeah. So I actually do this yearly writing retreat.

[00:36:26] Audrey Hughey: It's virtual ever since the pandemic, but, um, we do have an in person retreat that we do at an Airbnb now in person again, but that's super limited. It sells out right away and I have small kids. And so I can't, I can't do a lot of them in the year, but the main one is the virtual retreat. And that is, I try to keep it super cheap.

[00:36:50] Audrey Hughey: It's 25 a day, three days, and it's instructors. It's morning writing sprints. It's a day focused on writing, a day focused on editing and formatting, and then a day focused on marketing and motivation. And that way you kind of get a little bit of all those things, but the mornings are spent sprinting. Okay, and this last year, we actually had 3 editors and we were able to do like editing workshops.

[00:37:17] Audrey Hughey: So you could get on a workshop with an editor and have them like. Watch them do a live markup and work walkthrough of somebody submitted work so you can see, okay, what is the editor's process for kind of copying in line or content or proofreading or developmental? So what is this person's approach?

[00:37:39] Audrey Hughey: And then I think it helps writers who were newer. You know see, like, this is what editors are typically looking for. This is how they work. This is what you can apply in future drafts. You know, we're catching a lot of things like passive voice is so hard. I think when you're a newer writer, it's so hard to wrap your head around that concept.

[00:38:00] Audrey Hughey: But when we're using real examples and we're coming up with alternatives live and in an interactive workshop, it just helps. Bridge that gap so much more quickly. So I really love what we do there is usually really small and intimate. And so everybody gets time with the instructors and we have where you almost, except for the mornings when we're sprinting, you always have a choice of which class you can attend because we have so many wonderful instructors presenting on different topics.

[00:38:31] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. It's all really exciting. I think if you are wanting to be organized, you should definitely check out those planners. I mean, it's literally a step by step for you need to do so it's gonna be absolutely invaluable for you. So thank you very much for, for joining me just before we go, but one more question and that is a book that you recommend that everyone should be reading at the moment.

[00:38:49] Audrey Hughey: Okay. Can I make two? 

[00:38:51] Teddy Smith: You can make two, you can make two or three if you want. 

[00:38:53] Audrey Hughey: Okay. So fiction. I would say The Ritualist by Dakota Kraut. Okay. And he even has a Kickstarter for the Grimoire edition and it's all lux and beautiful. And I'm so excited about it. So I backed as soon as I heard about it, but that, I love that whole series and I love that book one just really sets the world so well.

[00:39:15] Audrey Hughey: And I think Dakota Kraut is just such an example of what is possible. In the industry for independent writers and publishers, I think there's so much we can learn from what he's done and how he's. Built a really, really healthy community of readers and how he's really honed in on what his style is, which is family friendly.

[00:39:40] Audrey Hughey: Thank goodness because I have long drives. That's actually 

[00:39:44] Teddy Smith: really handy because I interviewed him last week. So that's a nice little plug for my episode coming up. 

[00:39:50] Audrey Hughey: Dakota's amazing and his wife and his sister. I love them all. So I get, I get, I have special little things. I like to deliver to them because they're so just so nice, such nice.

[00:40:01] Audrey Hughey: But yeah, and I, I found out about him just cause I loved his writing and then he surprised me at Vegas one year and came to my table with my planners and plopped down the rich list and signed a copy for me. And I was like, Oh my gosh, and you know, that's, I think the way he approaches his fans, it just, you, you don't forget Dakota, you know, once you've met him, you don't forget him.

[00:40:24] Audrey Hughey: So. Yeah, and then for, uh, nonfiction, I would say it's, it's, it's between, I love atomic habits. I love it. But I also love Brendan Burchard's Six Habits of Growth. Six Habits of Growth, I think it's, it's crucial and we're talking about habits and people want to grow into the writer that they are, they have been dreaming of, you know, 

[00:40:54] Audrey Hughey: so 

[00:40:54] Audrey Hughey: Six Habits of Growth by Brennan Burchard.

[00:40:57] Teddy Smith: Great. I haven't, I haven't got that one and everyone's read Atomic Habits, so I think we'll six that one. But thank you very much. It's been great chatting to you. Yeah. I'm feeling energized to go and be organized the rest of the year. So thank you. 

[00:41:10] Audrey Hughey: I'm so glad. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:41:13] Teddy Smith: No problem.

[00:41:13] Teddy Smith: We'll see you soon. Thank you so much for tuning into the publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about Publishingformance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but are not really sure where to start.

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