2,230 words
12 minutes read time

The summer is cruising along, and here in Minnesota, it hasn’t been that great. We’ve had some warmer days, but a lot of rain and humidity, too. A lot of the state has seen some tornadoes which is rare, but unless we get a very early winter, we still have quite a few weeks of warmer weather, so I’ll take what I can get.

Since it’s the middle of July, and the middle of the year, I thought I’d do a mid-year check-in. It’s nice for you guys to hear what I’m working on, and it’s a doubly nice reminder that even though I feel like I’m not getting anything done, I’ve actually accomplished quite a bit. Let’s jump in.

Books published:
Three, and there’s one on the way. This number is kind of a cheat, because I released three books in my King’s Crossing series earlier in the year but those were already written. Still, I published Shattered Fate, Shattered Hearts, and Shattered Dreams, and I plan to release Loss and Damages in September. That should go smoothly unless Amazon does something drastic like close my account, but so far the only thing they’ve done is ask for copyright information for a couple of my books’ covers and they’ve always accepted screenshots of my DepositPhoto account and the licensing information they provide. Loss and Damages is already loaded into Bookfunnel and Booksprout. The files are uploaded into KDP, but I won’t do anything with them until my ARC campaigns close. I don’t like having my book on preorder if my book is available elsewhere. There’s no rush anyway, and being patient and taking my time usually pays off. So, I will have four this year, but only two next year. Maybe three. I don’t know yet. It depends on how fast I can write and how much I care.

Books written:
So far I’ve written one. I wrote Wicked Games earlier this year, but that feels so long ago now that sometimes I forget I wrote it. I don’t know when I’ll publish it. I was going to release it in January of 2026, but then I decided to write my hockey romance and that turned into a duet, so, it really depends on how fast I can write Frozen Assets and Cold Mercy and how long of a wait I want between books. It’s mostly edited, all I need to do is listen to it and proof the proof. The cover is done, but I don’t have a blurb for it yet. So, it will sit until I’m ready to publish. I hope to write Frozen Assets this year–I’m researching like crazy and have a lot of it plotted out. If I can write that and some of Cold Mercy this year, I’ll be happy.

Royalties so far:
This year I’ve made a little over 800 dollars. But taking into consideration all that I’ve spent, I’ve mostly broke even. Since January I’ve had to renew subscriptions like Bookfunnel, Booksprout, WordPress and Canva. I’ve also bought promos like Fussy Librarian and BargainBooksy from Written Word Media. Add in some Amazon ads I started up again because I hate seeing an empty dashboard, and, well, it’s really easy to make all those royalties disappear. I mean, it’s fine. I made my peace with that at the beginning of the year, and I’m content to write the books I want to write, pay for what I need to pay for, and simply call it good.

How my King’s Crossing serial is doing:
I released the last book in April of this year and have tried unsuccessfully to market them. My Amazon ads are actually doing well, my cost per click hanging in there around .40 and my impressions are through the roof–which is a good thing. As of right now, I attribute 95% of my sales to those ads. While I did do a Fussy Librarian back in March and a BargainBooksy in June, those two promos didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. I’ll never be one to ask for my money back because I truly believe that if a promo doesn’t produce results it’s my fault, and I’ll have to be more careful with the hook in the future.

So, after saying that, I’ll let you know my numbers:
Cruel Fate: 72 sales, 55 books read in KU (page read equivalent)
Cruel Hearts: 26 sales, 47 books read in KU
Cruel Dreams: 14 sales, 40 books read in KU
Shattered Fate: 9 sales, 32 books read in KU
Shattered Hearts: 10 sales, 24 books read in KU
Shattered Dreams: 12 sales, 19 books read in KU

I won’t analyze these numbers, though that might be a good blog post for later (because I’m wondering how advantageous it is to write in longer series anymore). For now I’ll just say that Kindle Unlimited subscribers are my readers and I may need to look into how I can market to them specifically. Between Amazon ads and the promos, I’m not making any money, but that’s okay. Every time someone reads to the end an angel gets their wings, and I’m more than happy with that.

Blog stats:
My blog is still doing well, my Canva tutorial and my blog post about KC Crowne doing the heavy lifting. I can’t share overall numbers with you because a bot in Germany got a hold of my blog a while back and skewed my numbers. Not by a lot, but enough that my stats aren’t accurate. For now, my Canva tutorial has been viewed 3,284 times this year and people read about KC Crowne 1,994 times. I get a few new subscribers here and there, but for anyone who needs the reminder that building any kind of traction anywhere takes time, I’ve been blogging for over eight years and haven’t reached a thousand subscribers yet. That kind of fact could send me low if I let it, but honestly, I still blog just for myself and if I happen to help anyone along the way, that’s just an added bonus.

I’ve already blogged 33 times and have written a novel’s worth of words: 52,630. Every once in a while I don’t know what I should write about, but I got great feedback when I talked about a week of indie industry news, and I should try to do that more often. I’ll keep on keeping on, if only because it keeps my head in the game and makes me feel like a “real” author.

Health Update:
I haven’t given you one of these in a long time, mostly because talking about something incessantly can be boring and I feel I used up my allotted time. Since my last appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota in August of 2024, I’ve made more changes to my lifestyle. I stopped taking the birth control she prescribed me because the side effects outweighed the benefit, then in May of this year, my sister, daughter and I went out of town. Long story short, I felt better than I thought I would and as an experiment, stopped drinking our tap water here at home. I looked up our city’s water treatment results and needless to say, Moorhead, Minnesota’s water is gross. So, I’ve been drinking bottled water for the past two months and it has made a big difference in how I feel.

I’m not nauseated so much anymore and I’m starting to feel more like myself. My anxiety is gone, but I still worry a little about being “trapped” like at the dentist’s office or getting my hair cut, though as I feel better and better I hope that fades too. I’m always going to have the skin issues “down there” and be on steroid cream for the rest of my life to control it. I’ll always have nerve damage and scar tissue from the hysterectomy I didn’t really need, but all in all I’m doing a lot better than I was. There’s a lot of bitterness, you know? The dryer sheets causing this to begin with, the doctors who didn’t know what they were doing or straight-up lied to me. I lot of what I’m going through now could have been prevented if my gyno had known what was wrong with me and the rest of it was just me being driven to desperation and making bad choices. I may still write about it some day, if only to give women a chance to diagnose themselves or at the very least, find empathy and sympathy for their own undiagnosed issues. Women’s healthcare in the United States is fucked and I will, in some way, pay for that for the rest of my life. Despite that, I’m hopeful as time goes by I can feel even better drinking bottled water and taking magnesium for nerve and bone health. Tenacity got me to where I am and I’ll never stop working to feel better.

A new addition to our family:
Last month we adopted Pim! One of my son’s friends moved out of state and couldn’t bring her along, so we went through the steps with our property management (we live in an apartment) to adopt her. She’s a three-year-old black tuxedo and she’s very cuddly and playful. She’s especially needy in the morning after being left alone all night. It took a bit to figure out what food she prefers (Sheba cuts) and she has a habit of jumping on you and draping herself over your shoulder. Her favorite thing is being walked around the apartment like a baby. She’ll tuck her head next to my neck and I’ll just pace the apartment back and forth while I scratch her. It brings back a lot of memories of walking my kids around when they were infants.

Luckily she’s healthy because after the time Blaze and her health issues gave us, there’s no way I would have been able to tolerate having a sick cat around, especially not after dealing with my own issues for the past five years. It would have been way too stressful. So, I’m glad it worked out as Drake’s friend didn’t have a plan B and the shelters here are full. I’m looking forward to many happy years with her.

What’s next for the second half of the year?
Right now I’m re-editing Rescue Me. I’m about halfway through and would like to finish up in the next couple of weeks. I played the fun game of “what are they reading?!” when I saw someone had bought it a couple weeks ago, so I decided since I haven’t read it since I published it (back in 2022) that it was time to look at it again with fresh eyes. I’m glad I did because either my writing style has changed or I just got better, but I’m fixing a lot of things and found a small timeline issue I was able to clear up. I also updated back matter, so it was a good decision all around.

Finishing up will take a me a bit of time as it’s slow going to make sure I’m not editing in typos, but after I’m done with it, I’d like to start writing Frozen Assets. I wanted to start it last month but with the amount of research I’ve been doing and then deciding to re-edit Rescue Me, I just didn’t get there. (Plus, after getting Loss and Damages ready to go, I needed a break.) I don’t think it matters too much. If I stay true to a writing schedule, I should be able to publish in September 2026, a year after Loss and Damages comes out. I don’t think a year wait for two books is too terrible. I also have Wicked Games in reserve that I can always put out if needed, but for now, I’m going to focus on writing once Rescue Me is updated and go from there. I’m looking forward to digging into the world of professional hockey and I want to enjoy myself without worrying about speed.

Writing Wrap-Up
I think that’s about all I have for this recap. At the end of December, I’ll write a full recap of the year. Hopefully I have some good news to share.

All in all 2025 so far has been good. I owe some of it just to relaxing and letting things go. Trying to turn my books into a business didn’t work, so I had to adjust my definition of success. Right now I’m finding readers and breaking even (if not a little in the red) and that makes me happy and helps me stay motivated to keep writing. That’s all we can ask for in the publishing landscape these days. I know authors are plowing on with less.

I will leave you with this meme I saw on Facebook. Now that Pim’s here I can enjoy cat stuff again. It was sad to see it before, but I’ve been a cat mom (now grandma) for most of my life. It’s nice to be one again. Enjoy your week, everyone!