Looking Back & Plunging Forward

We learn to take the good with the bad and 2016 featured plenty of both. Both my parents passed away during the year and finding the motivation to write was a real struggle. Getting Jill finally published in December was a big step for me and I hope to get more writing done in the coming year.

Early in 2016 I got the publishing rights back for my first two books, Jade & Jane. New edits, new covers, the addition of chapter titles, helped make Jade & Jane: Re-Vamped a huge success. Over the summer I sold roughly 1,300 eBooks and made over 3,000 in royalties.

If I could get these kind of results all the time, I could afford to leave my regular job and write full time. Overall sales doubled from last year with roughly 2,500 eBooks, 100 print copies and about 6,000 in royalties. If I can double that in 2017, I might just be able to write full time. Getting sales on a regular basis is not easy. Not only are you fighting the pirate sites that give your book away illegally, you are competing against the plethora of freebies the Indie Author Community insists on throwing out there, making it harder for people like me to sell a few books.  I wrote about that in this post:  Peer Pressure & Reader Expectations.  Fortunately, I am seeing more and more Indie authors come to the conclusion that the whole free books thing is hurting us in the long run.

2016 gave me more reviews, both good and bad. My best review ever as well as a few that were not so nice. Again, you have to learn to cherish the good and deal with the bad.

I also had a couple of reviews that touched on the Mary Sue issue, which I decided to embrace in this post: Embracing My Mary Sue.

Writing Jill, I inserted a bit of a Science Fiction element to go along with the Urban Fantasy.  I decided I like that combination and you can look forward to seeing more of that in 2017.  Just last week, I plotted out my next project and I will be writing the first chapter in the next few days.  Because I find that having a cover done helps motivate me to get the book written, look for a cover reveal in the first month or so of 2017.

I had a good many health issues in 2016 and I am taking steps to get better in 2017. I hope that the year ahead is filled with less pain than this one.

I was able to host many outstanding authors on my blog in 2016. I will continue to do that on occasion in 2017 but I will focus more on the writing business and will feature some guest posts on writing from some really great authors.

Thank you to my readers ♥ May you be blessed in 2017!