This past year was a very productive one for me. I wrote and released a brand-new novel to kick off The West Hills series, the second book in my lesbian Colors series, two novels in my co-written The Speakeasy series with K Evan Coles, the third novel in my Midwest series, and a holiday novella in a shared universe with Hank Edwards.
In addition, I have two more books that are around the 2/3 complete mark so there will be plenty to come in the new year. But before I dive into 2020, let’s recap all that happened in 2019.
I celebrated my six-year publishing anniversary in December.
I attended a record number of author events this year, including Pride Events, Penguicon, and the Gay Romance and Literature Convention in Albuquerque. I sold a record number of paperbacks, more than doubling the number I sold in the previous year.
My fan group increased in size and K Evan and I reached an amazing milestone with our joint newsletter. I taught myself how to make my Amazon and BookBub ads more effective.
I found new ways to build on the organizational plans I made last year and came up with some new ideas for how to continue that in 2020. I worked on building better reader engagement in my fan group and giving back to readers so they know how much I appreciate all they do to help support my writing.
I signed a contract to have my holiday story translated into French. It’ll be released next winter as apart of an amazing anthology and I am very excited about that.
Writing more books and enrolling them in Kindle Unlimited allowed me to more than triple my writing income.
This chart shows my sales from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019.
Much of the profit I made was rolled back into things I desperately needed like a new laptop, desk chair, and ads. As I said last year, it’s all relative. I’m nowhere near where I need to be (namely, living somewhere other than my parents’ house) but I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was last year. The trajectory for everything is upward and I know I’m on the right track.
I have a lot of hope that I can build this into the career I’ve always dreamed of.
Being a full-time author is still a hard job but I love it every bit as much as I did in the beginning.
I still love creating characters and stories and making them come alive. I love the feedback from readers and the connections I make with them through my books. I love that I have the opportunity to keep trying to support myself. It’s an amazing feeling to check my dashboard and see that I am reaching more readers. My books are finding their way to more people. I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve accomplished.
So once again, I want to thank all of you who helped me get there this year. K. Evan Coles, my co-author for more things than I can possibly sum up in a few lines. My parents for allowing me to pursue this crazy dream. My friends who cheer me on. The bloggers and reviewers and organizers and every single person who shared my book releases and helped spread the word about my books. My beta readers and my editors for making my books better. And all you readers. Because your joy in my stories is what keeps me going.
2017 and 2018 were tough for me but by the end of last year, I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In 2019, I moved forward with a lot more hope and confidence than I’d felt in a very long time.
So I’m going into 2020 with even more optimism and a plan to keep building on what I’ve laid the foundation for in the past two years. And a lot of hope and determination to make it all happen.
I can do this. I just need to keep trying.
I’m eager for what 2020 will bring and I look forward to celebrating the new successes next year. There’s so much to look forward to.
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