Words: 1894
Time to read: 10 minutes

Everyone is saying that 2024 was a hard year, but looking back, I honestly got a lot of stuff done. It didn’t feel like it because all I did was edit, but those edits were on a series that is my best work. I’ve said I may never match that quality of writing (plotting, I mean) again, and I don’t know if I want to try. Four years of blood, sweat, and tears went into over half a million words and they may always be my biggest, most impressive accomplishment. Then I had a couple other wins, like going to the Mayo Clinic and seeing a doctor who actually knew what was wrong with me. Between a diagnoses I never thought I’d get and finishing my King’s Crossing Series, 2024 was actually a pretty stellar year. Not that editing all those words over and over again and going through treatment and knowing I’ll always have maintenance until I die was smooth sailing, but compared to the previous years, things were pretty okay. I have my 2023 year end blog post up, so let’s compare.

Books/Novels/WIPs

Number of books written: 0
This is the first year in many, many years I didn’t write a book. I’m not sad about it because I got so much other stuff done, and I know for sure I’ll write one next year, if not three if things work out how I want them to.

Number of books edited: 10
Obviously, this is where I spent all my time. Right after I published A Heartache for Christmas in November 2023, I jumped into editing my King’s Crossing Series. I think I did three editing sweeps before I thought they were ready and the first one, Cruel Fate, was published in October of this year. The others were either published or I put them on preorder and they’ll release up through April of 2025. Once those were up and I could work on something else, I decided to re-edit my Rocky Point Wedding series and I finished the last book of four over the weekend. I edited those in Vellum, ordered the proofs, then edited the proofs to look for typos. All that takes such a long time, and after ten books, my brain is sufficiently fried.

Number of books published: 3
I published three of the six in my King’s Crossing series. In 2025 I’ll have four, just because the rest of the series will release and I already have a standalone almost ready to go that will release on September 15th, 2025. (Don’t ask me how many books I’ll have ready to publish in 2026. I’m not quite that far ahead, but it would be really nice if I had another series done.)

Royalties for the year: Ugh.
I’m actually kind of over shouting out how much I made because I always break even or I’m in the hole, so it really doesn’t matter how much I end up with at the end of the year. It wasn’t that much more than last year if you want to take a look. I would imagine my spend is the same too. I spent $776.43 on Amazon ads this year, something I again intended not to do, but my FOMO gets so out of control. I make ads then just cannot force myself to turn them off. I spent less than I did last year, by about 100 dollars, so that’s something, I guess. But I’m afraid that if I shut them off, and/or keep them off, I won’t sell any books at all. The struggle I constantly contend with is this: I spend XXX.XX money on ads and if I only make enough to cover the cost, is it worth it? It is in the long run because even if I’m breaking completely even or bleeding some red, I’m finding readers when, if I didn’t spend a dime, no one would find me. I just wish I could find that magical way of leveling up. I know you have to spend money to make money, but there has to be a way to get ahead. I spent $3,842.58 on Facebook ads, which means after all my subscription costs, I’m in the hole about $500 dollars. I say every year I’m going to have to do better keeping an eye on my ads, and even if it means my sales go down to zero, I may have to suck it up and turn them off or drop my spend down to a dollar or two a day which is pretty much the same thing.

Fun fact. This is the list of my books in order of popularity. These are my first person books–my third person titles are at the end of the list and not worth mentioning. It’s not a surprise my rockstars are at the top. They’ve sold well since I published them last year. What I really like to see is that my Lost and Found Trilogy and my Cedar Hill Duet have read through. It would be a shame if a Book One was on the list but then the other books were at the bottom or fell off completely. That means your first book isn’t good, and there’s no point in writing a long series if readers won’t go on to read the other books.

Website/Blog Stats

My Canva tutorial is still my most popular blog post. It was viewed 5,399 times this year, and overall 8,100 times. I’m super glad I’m helping people.

I posted 55 times in a total of 94.4k words.

In my last year-end update I said I had turned this blog into more of a personal journal, and it felt like that this year, too. I’m hoping next year I can change that a bit, as I’d like to start walking and listening to more podcasts. I used to listen to podcasts all the time and I guess with feeling bad, I just didn’t want to deal with it. I’m going to try to open myself up more, and maybe that can reflect in the things I write about. Especially since I’ve said I’m going to take it easy in 2025 and not treat writing and publishing as this desperate thing I have to do no matter what.

I only gained 22 subscribers this year, but that’s okay. I get around 50 hits a day on various blog topics, mostly my Canva tutorial, though I didn’t start this blog to gain followers. I really just wanted to blog about writing and publishing and I was happy if I could help someone along the way. I’ll always blog, seems I always have something to say, so we’ll see what 2025 brings.

I almost forgot to mention that I made a list this year, and it was the first time I’d ever done that. I had a spike in traffic for a bit and that was fun, but it died, more than likely because there is so much content out there about indie publishing, writing, and books in general. You can find the list here, and I would bookmark it too-there’s a lot of informative blogs you might enjoy reading: https://books.feedspot.com/contemporary_book_blogs/. Thanks to Anuj Agarwal for choosing mine.

Health Update

I think we all know what I’ve been up to with that, and there’s no need to regurgitate all the details here. My last resort doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, knew what was wrong with me, and now I’m dealing with my lichen sclerosis, endometriosis, and side effects of the hysterectomy I had in 2022. That’s about as far as I want to go into it, and I recently updated my mental health blog if you want to read it:
chaoscoffeeandconfessions.blogspot.com

What’s next for 2025?

What’s next for next year? Lots of things but this year I’m not taking things so seriously. I’m going to edit the next book I’m going to publish, write another standalone, and then when those two things are done, look over the last two remaining books I wrote during my COVID frenzy and finish that series. Those are my immediate plans. I have a loose publishing plan I’m going to try to stick to, but I want to read more books, listen to podcasts to try to stay up to date on the publishing industry, and when the colder part of winter is over, I’m going to spend more time outside. I’m not going to spend every waking second I’m not working writing, and I’m going to cut down on my ad spend. Not really because I want to, but my finances will need tightening up due to a few things going on that I can’t do anything about.

I think the biggest change is realizing that I’m chasing after a brass ring I’ll never capture. Many many many romance authors make a living wage, but I have finally realized I’m not going to be one of them. This isn’t a defeatist attitude, more realistic on my part. I’ll never write a book that will blow #Booktok away or enthrall an influencer so much they spill it all over the internet. My books are quiet, my heroes are kind, and I really think to make an impression on readers right now, the darker (violent) the better. That’s not me. I’ll keep writing the books I love, and if I find a few readers who love them too, that will be my success story. You can’t be in it for money and I never have been, but we can’t fool ourselves, either. When you publish a book where readers have to pay to read you, royalties are indicative of sales and no royalties means no one is reading. It can be disheartening to the point of just giving up. I’m not giving up, but I do know when to quit hoping for something I’m never going to have.

I used to share this quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger: I will always stay hungry, never satisfied with current accomplishments.

I guess in my own way I am sharing it just by posting it, but I don’t agree with it anymore, and it’s not how I’m going to live in 2025. It’s like being at a buffet but it doesn’t have your favorite food, so you make do with second best. You’re not content, but you’re not unhappy, and that’s how I feel. I’m not content, but I’m not unhappy. The only thing that could make me content is actually making some money off all my hard work so that maybe my finances wouldn’t be so stressful. I’ve said before that even just an extra 10k a year (that I didn’t have to pay for with ads) would go a long way. I’m never going to have that, so instead of living on hope like I have in the past, I’ll set it aside. It’s better, honestly, for my mental health anyway. Who wants to type their fingers bloody for nothing? I never did, don’t get me wrong. I wrote for a myriad of reasons, joy being a big part of it yes, but I had a lot of hope when I started my pen name. I had a lot of hope I could turn my writing into a business. Now it will just remain a hobby and I’ll do other things when I’m not working my day job. I’ll still be around helping other authors format and do covers when they can’t afford to hire out, and I’ll still blog, and write and publish, but my mindset has softened and I’m going to have a “What will be will be” attitude going into the new year.

I’ll still write and publish. Like I said, I’m not unhappy. I just wish things would have turned out differently.

Good luck to you in the new year!