2017 Round-up
Fennel reflects on the 21st Anniversary Year of Fennel’s Priory. He shares what went well, what didn’t go well, and what he learned.
The big year
Back at the start of 2017, I stood in Priory Wood and recorded three videos about the things I hoped to achieve during the year. They ranged from getting my writing and publishing activities back on track after working overseas for three years, to celebrating the 21st Anniversary of Fennel’s Priory. I watch them now on my YouTube channel and sense the passion (and a slight nervousness) in my voice as I begin a significant year in the Fennel’s Priory timeline.
I’d long had the dream of rebuilding my life and forging a successful career as a writer, and 2017 was the year that would ‘make or break’ that dream. So, with the year complete, how did I fare?
What went well?
Things have moved forward a great deal during 2017 and – as was my main goal – Fennel’s Priory is back on track. Tasks, however, have taken longer than expected. Living a constantly meaningful life, where developing a career as a writer/broadcaster is central to my dream, is an uphill push that sometimes requires me to trade happiness in return for doing the right thing. Good thing that I love what I do.
The effort and joy for me are in the doing, more than letting go and sitting back. Indulging my passions gives me a great sense of purpose and reward. But, at a defined point, I have to complete one thing and begin another. Such is the nature of a deliberately never-ending programme of publishing activities.
Huh. So much for ‘Stop – Unplug – Escape – Enjoy’?
Be assured that all my Fennel’s Priory activities are my way of pursuing a meaningful life and escaping things I’d rather not be doing. I’ve enjoyed doing each and every one of them.
Six achievements spring to mind as being the most rewarding and successful things I’ve done this year. Here they are, presented in chronological order:
1. New website
2017 began with the launch of the new Fennel’s Priory website. It was a vastly superior, better-looking and functioning platform than we had before. With 49% of visitors viewing the website on their mobile phone, and 17% using a tablet, it was essential that the website could ‘flex’ so it could be viewed on screens of different sizes. The new website achieved this brilliantly. It also had a look and feel that that reinforced the Fennel’s Priory brand and didn’t look corporate. I thank Andy Roberts at Exact Marketing for his brilliant work in designing our new website.
2. Fennel on Friday
In January I began sharing a weekly email that contained links to either a blog, video or podcast. It was my commitment to staying proactive with my communications – the opposite of what had happened in 2015 when I was stuck working in Asia Pacific and unable to maintain my Fennel's Priory commitments. The Fennel on Friday email can be created and sent from wherever I might be, so long as I have an Internet connection. So there are no excuses for me to slacken off the messaging or to hide away from my friends.
I’m an author and independent publisher. It's my job to write and publish books. But you don’t need to buy my books to read examples of my work. There are now more than 200 blogs on the Fennel’s Priory website, driven by the weekly Fennel on Friday email. That’s a quarter of a million words – or several weeks of reading – available to you for free. So, if you’ve not already signed up to Fennel on Friday, then please do so.
3. The Contented Countryman
I took my first steps into broadcasting with the soft launch of The Contented Countryman podcast. This served three goals: firstly to help you to know me better by hearing my voice and receiving a slightly different message (my intention is for The Contented Countryman to focus exclusively on country living and natural history), secondly to start building the medium and brand that will succeed Fennel’s Journal in 2020, and thirdly as practise for the audio books I’ll be recording in 2019.
I’ve really enjoyed exploring this medium and adding personality to my message. Currently there are 11 podcasts. My intention is to produce a minimum of one per month to keep it building, ahead of it becoming a weekly podcast in the future.
4. Fennel’s Priory YouTube channel
This has been my biggest surprise success of 2017. It’s the one that’s required the least effort but seen the biggest uptake in interest. I started by recording some straightforward and unscripted pieces to camera, giving encouragement to authors and talking about the developments of my author platform. I’ve since added a mixture of documentaries (the one about the Tentipi camp has proved to be especially popular), spoofs (that I’d purchased a famous carp water), book readings (both filmed and as audio-only), demonstrations (the ‘Kelly Kettle Challenge’ and ‘Ultimate Hobo Stove Cooking’ are my most popular videos) and podcasts where I share The Contented Countryman with those who prefer not to listen via iTunes. There are now 33 videos, which have been watched more than 20,000 times.
5. Favourite quotes
300 of my best quotes are available at Goodreads. I’ve also begun creating these quotes as images, sharing them as a repository on Pinterest, and as daily posts to Facebook and Twitter.
My most popular quote, according to Google, is: ‘Neither a clone nor mimic be’. I’m rather proud of this, as individuality is central to my message. It’s followed by ‘Exams test your memory, life tests your learning; others will test your patience’ – a quote that’s now being used in schools as far afield as India. Third is ‘Nature, in her untamed state, is savage and relentless’ which was requested for use in American TV survival series Alone.
6. Fennel’s Journal books
These are my biggest achievement. I’ve republished three books this year: Fine Things came out in May, Traditional Angling in July, and A Writer’s Year in November. Each is extended by a third, with chapters that now flow from one to another, making them significantly different to the magazine and early eBook editions. They’re now presented in a way that makes them read from beginning to end ‘as a book’, while still maintaining the informal conversational tone of the original letters that enables you to dip in and out of them as time permits.
My challenge now is to publish the remaining 11 books during 2018 so that I can begin working on completely new material in 2019. A book a month is an audacious goal, but I want to keep pushing towards documenting a contented countryside life rather than the journey that led me to find it.
What didn’t go so well?
2017 didn’t all go to plan. Well, half of it didn’t. I was on track until June, working full time on Fennel’s Priory projects. But I was unable to generate royalties quickly enough to keep my family in the lifestyle to which they’re accustomed. Faced with a domestic rebellion, I was forced to get a day job to supplement my income. This impacted things in several ways: reducing the time and energy I had for Fennel’s Priory activities (60 hours per week were wiped out straight away), negatively affecting my morale (being forced to live 250 miles away from my family led to some very dark moods), and juggling the identity compromises of existing within a corporate environment made it difficult to maintain an honest voice in my writing.
There are five things that didn’t go as planned:
1. The big 21st Anniversary Party didn’t happen
I’d planned to host an ‘all invited’ summer party to celebrate 21 years of Fennel’s Priory. I had the venue and catering lined up, even a shortlist of speakers. But, as with the year before, I was away with work when it was scheduled to happen. I therefore had to put this plan on hold and resort to smaller online activities.
2. Not enough Friends events
I only got out to meet Friends four times this year. The first was a grayling fishing trip to the Welsh Dee in January with Andy Roberts, the second was a Tentipi gather in May, the third was a Hobo stove cooking event on the banks of the River Trent with Bob Brookes, Shaun Harrison and John Haynes in September, the fourth was a camping-fishing trip with Peter Whipp and Andy Roberts in October. That’s it. No annual dinner, no quarterly events, no quiet pints in the pub or big adventures to wild places.
3. No book launches or press publicity
I still battle shyness when it comes to sharing my work, but I know that developing press relations and hosting media events can take more time than writing the book in the first place. I elected to work on the books, to get them back ‘out there’ (they’d been sold out for 18 months), rather than promoting them. The publicity will follow, once I’ve made the back-catalogue of titles available again.
4. Not enough contributions to other publications
I only wrote for The Flyfishers’ Journal (continuing my series on Bushcraft Flyfishing) and contributed chapters to two books: Jon Edy-Berry’s Beside a Carp Water (published by Medlar Press), and a chapter for Tony Meer’s new book about Redmire Pool (publication date TBC). Once all my 14 books are published, I’ll begin the transition back from blogger to magazine contributor. But oh how the publishing industry is changing, with so many magazines folding or moving to electronic-only formats. I wonder which titles will be around when I seek homes for my regular columns?
5. I struggled to maintain a balanced life
I really didn’t expect to be working away from home and only spending 1-2 days per week with my family. I’d worked overseas for three years, and moved to North Wales to enjoy a green and quiet life with my family. Being dragged away from that life was crippling, being back there at weekends was very nearly worse as it reminded me of how wonderful life can be, and the delicate balance of knowing I’m doing the right and wrong things at the same time led to a deep sense of burden.
Whilst I’ve loved living in a tipi while away, I’ve struggled to remind myself that I’m working towards an end goal. As I wrote in A Meaningful Life: ‘A meaningful life is not necessarily a happy one’. I’ve known and felt this since moving away. Perhaps selfishly, I’ve felt really crappy about sacrificing so much of my happiness to provide security for others. This is the cost of love and duty. I’d feel worse if they left me. So I keep striving, albeit remotely, doing things alone so that I might – at some point in the future – be reunited with my wife and daughter. I'm stuck in a sidestream, but I haven't lost sight of the main flow.
What did I learn?
‘Failures’ are opportunities to learn. So I’m upbeat about the challenges I’ve faced this year. There are six things I’ve learned that will have the biggest influence on my future:
1. I was further off track than I realised
In 2013, a year after I launched Fennel’s Journal as a magazine and two years after I launched fennelspriory.com, the website was receiving 7,000 unique visitors per month and I was selling up to 600 magazines a week. I was then sent to work overseas, working 2-4 weeks away and 1-2 weeks at home. I didn’t properly return until October 2016.
That’s three years away, where I wasn’t able to give Fennel’s Priory the attention it deserved. I knew I’d neglected things, especially regarding regular content on the website and features in the media, but I hadn’t appreciated how quickly one’s audience dissipates when one moves out of the limelight.
By November 2016, when Andy Roberts and I were busy rebuilding the website, the old website was receiving just 400 unique visitors and the magazines of Fennel’s Journal had long-since sold out. I naively thought that I could quickly nudge the numbers back to where they’d been in 2013. But, after a year of activity, I’m still only a tenth of the way towards my previous readership figures. So what’s changed?
2. People’s reading habits – and attention spans – are changing
As a writer of long-form articles and blogs, it pains me to acknowledge that people don’t read as they used to – at least online. My website statistics show that people are spending less than four minutes per visit, with 1-2 minutes per page; my YouTube stats show that people spend an average of 3 minutes watching a video.
It appears that people are shorter on free time than before, thus ‘skim’ for information. I think this is why my YouTube channel has been so successful, because we can process information 60,000 times quicker in video form than the written text. Fortunately there are still genuinely interested parties who visit regularly and explore my work. These are my best and most loyal readers, whom I believe to be the ones that buy my books.
I maintain that Fennel’s Priory is a place of quiet reflection and an opportunity for you to ‘Stop’. So while I’ll continue to share videos and podcasts, I’ll also share long-form blogs to help you read at a leisurely pace.
3. We still love books
My hardback books sell more than paperback and eBook versions, proving that people still value quality books. There was a time, only a few years ago, when people were ringing the death knell for printed books. But this no longer seems to be the case. This reassures me, as I’m always encouraging people to ‘Unplug’ and find a quiet place in which to savour the fine things of life. Reading a printed book beneath a tree on a summer’s day – it’s what it’s all about. You just can’t get the same experience with a Kindle, tablet or laptop.
4. People are interested in the message more than the messenger
The danger with writing about one’s journey and observations is that one’s messages become introverted. It’s better to write about things that people are interested in, in a way that interests them, than focusing too much on one’s self. Vanity is not appealing.
People mostly stumble upon, or are referred to, my website and books. If they’re searching the Internet, it’s likely they’re interested in a specific subject rather than searching for me. My videos and blogs about Tentipi tents, Pashley bicycles, Kelly Kettles, and Hobo stoves are a hundred times more popular than the ones about Fennel’s Priory or my books. What does this teach me? That I need to apply the same principles to my writing as to my fishing: creating a ‘net’ of material about which people are interested, to catch their attention, then invite them to read my blogs and books. One leads to the other. It doesn’t begin with me.
5. I’ve neglected my friends
Not all my friends and readers are online. Sending a weekly email, and having a website, only serves a proportion of my current and potential readers. It’s very efficient communication – writing or broadcasting once and allowing it to be consumed many times – but it’s broadcasting to many, not speaking to one. There’s greater value in keeping things personal and 1-1, sending handwritten letters, making phone calls, and meeting up.
I need to be smarter at maintaining friendships, proactively reaching out to my friends to share my appreciation of their company and friendship.
6. Keep going, no matter what
The biggest learning is, above all else: dogged determination to keep going. Perseverance is everything.
I’ve been writing as Fennel for 21 years, working as a commercial copywriter for 19 years, writing for magazines for 13 years, public speaking for 10 years, publishing for 5 years, and 'giving it my all' for the past year. I’ve made a living from writing, but I’ve not fully achieved my dreams.
I’m at least five years away from seeing my vision mature, and ten years away from it becoming something that can be managed by others. That’s thirty-plus years for my body of work to be properly ‘out there’. If I’d known this at the beginning, would I have started? Of course I would, just as I keep going now. I’m in it for the long game, with the ultimate ambition of creating a legacy that enhances the lives of others.
I couldn't do it without you
This blog is about achievements, which lends itself to 'measuring' success. But success isn't just about numbers and ticks in boxes; it’s about doing something consistently well so that people value the output. You’ve read this to the end, so you must value what I’m saying. For that, I thank you.
I trust you are working towards and realising dreams of your own, making a difference by being different, and not doing anything that offends your soul. Let me know your goals in the comments below, so we can chivvy each other along.
If you like this blog, you'll like Fennel's book A Writer's Year.
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