Happy 3rd Author Anniversary ♡
Well, it’s currently 8 PM, and I just realized maybe twenty minutes ago that today is my third??? author anniversary.
Uhhh… what?
It feels so strange that it’s been three whole years since I published Deepest Obsession (which has now been unpublished for rewrites, thank god).
Remembering that today is my authorversary, I’ve realized that I’m not very good at tracking my accomplishments.
So that’s what I’m gonna do in this post.
It’s gonna be my place to write down the good, the bad, and the lessons I learned from my third year as an author.
The Good
Because I tend to focus on the negative, but looking back, this year had a ton of really good stuff happen.
This was the first year I hit my income goal.
(I think? I still have to run the final numbers, but I’m pretty sure I hit it.)
To be fair, I didn’t have one in 2022. I was just in awe the entire time that I was actually making livable money off my books so quickly.
Which again reminds me how lucky I got. My publishing story isn’t a common one. Looking back, I know it wasn’t all luck—I had quite a bit of experience in digital marketing, and I can’t deny how much it helped me. But there was definitely a lot of luck involved.
But anyway, my 2024 income goal was a bit of a stretch. For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d hit it, despite working so hard to get there.
I’m incredibly proud of myself that I did.
I ran a really successful Kickstarter campaign.
My readers really came through to show support for me and my books. I’m so grateful that there are so many people who love Ruthless Desires enough for me to be able to produce special editions. They’re almost done at the printer, and I can’t wait to see them in person.
Was the campaign super super stressful? God, yes.
Was researching, working things out with my printer, and commissioning all that art so time-consuming? Again, yes. It’s why I barely published anything this year.
Were there unexpected problems that freaked me out a lot a little? Yes. Just… yes.
But now I have beautiful special editions to show for it. (Or, I will soon.)
I’m proud of myself for all the work I put in, grateful to everyone who backed, and excited to have these beautiful in my hands.
I learned a lot.
More on this later, but I really did learn a lot this year. I did so many things, had so many new experiences. It was confusing and frustrating at times, but now I know a lot more about corners of this industry that I hadn’t even touched before.
Some of that knowledge is what helped me reach my income goal this year. And it’ll continue to help me in the years to come.
I moved away from being Amazon-dependent.
Just about every day, I wonder if this was a mistake.
Pulling Ruthless Desires from Kindle Unlimited was fucking terrifying. But having Amazon be 100% in control of my income is more terrifying.
The books I publish will probably all start off in KU, but my hope is to not keep them there forever. Being a wide author (meaning my books are available at all retailers) and being able to sell my books myself is a way more secure business model, even if it means sacrificing income from KU readers.
I set myself up for a really good 2025.
At least, I think I did.
I figured out a lot about what I want out of my author career, and I started to lay a solid foundation. (I already had one, but it was built unintentionally, and now I’m getting more serious about it.)
Now, I have to keep building, but I think it’ll be a little easier from here on out.
I managed to hold at least one boundary with myself this year.
I work a lot. A lot. In my 2nd anniversary post, I mentioned working a lot of 12+ hour days. And I’m really, really happy to say that doesn’t happen anymore. At some point in 2024, I told myself I was going to stop working after dinner.
Bare minimum, I know.
But I’ve held myself to it. There haven’t been many days where I worked after dinner.
And guess what? My business didn’t disintegrate.
Imagine that.
I’m so grateful I was able to keep this boundary with myself, and I’m hoping to go even further with forcing myself to take time off in 2025.
The Bad
I was so stressed this year.
I did way too much. Tried way too many new things. And, frustratingly enough, stopped doing what I knew worked business-wise.
Everything still turned out okay.
But I’ve gotta say, to other indie authors out there: going wide, starting a direct store, learning Facebook ads, and running a special edition Kickstarter is too much to do in one year.
Holy wowza was I tired and exhausted and so, so overwhelmed.
I had too many firsts this year.
Firsts are great. They’re wonderful. But too many is overwhelming and incredibly time-consuming.
I missed out on so much writing time because I had to do all these random admin things that I didn’t know how to do. So not only did I have to do the thing, but I had to spend time researching how to do the thing.
It was a lot. Too much. I wanted to give up so many times, and I’d like to not feel that way this year.
Life was just… sad, from a personal-life perspective.
In late May, my father-in-law was admitted to the ICU, and he died in early June. It was heartbreaking. I still can’t really think about him, or that time, without my chest literally aching.
It affected all of us, and on the days where we thought we’d have another year with him—birthdays, holidays, anniversaries—we had to face the fact that he’s gone, and not in an upstairs-taking-a-nap kind of way.
None of us are truly okay at this point, and I don’t know if we ever will be. Not entirely. But life moves on, and I’ve heard that as it does, life gets bigger and grows around the grief.
It doesn’t make it better, but supposedly it makes it less worse.
My personal life suffered a lot because of my career.
I got a little better at maintaining relationships/friendships, but I’m still woefully behind from where I want to be.
I could probably write a book explaining why this happened, but what it all truly boils down to is that trying to survive in this economy is really fucking hard.
It’s really hard to feel secure when the future feels so unsure. And that leads to overworking.
To trying to fix everything.
To neglecting the ones you’re working to take care of because you have to focus on financial security before you can focus on anything else.
This has been the case for a long, long time. It’s what my dad did, and I’m reminded just about every day that I’m my father’s daughter. There’s no escaping it.
But I can do better than he did.
And I will.
The Lessons Learned
Well… probably not all of them. I learned a lot of lessons this year. But here are the ones that are on my mind the most.
It’s time to simplify.
In 2022 and 2023, things were so blissfully simple.
Did that simple-ness hold me back some? Yes, of course. As businesses grow, they’re obviously going to get more and more complicated.
But this year, I made things too complicated too fast.
My goal this year is to focus on three main things:
Writing books that I adore working on
Publishing and marketing said books
Selling my special editions through my store
Sure, there’ll be other things that I do. Fulfilling the rest of my Kickstarter, proofing audiobooks, tweaking Facebooks ads, etc. But the majority of my focus will be on the things above.
Simple, simple, simple.
I have a group of truly dedicated readers who’ll support me no matter what.
Hey. Hi. Very possibly, that’s you, because uh???? I’m not planning on sharing this post, and wow, you’ve read really far, and that’s some dedication.
So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all your support. It truly means the world. I love you all. <3
Apparently, I actually do have limits.
Pretty sure this is obvious to everyone except me. I pushed myself way too hard this year, and in November/December, my body couldn’t take it anymore.
I went through a pretty scary period where I really couldn’t do anything. I was exhausted, to the point that I missed out on a holiday dinner with my family because I literally couldn’t stay awake.
For a while there, I couldn’t work. Couldn’t do anything, really, except try to relax and eventually fall asleep.
My doctor and I have solved the problem for now, although I think the solution is more of a bandaid than anything else.
But that’s okay. I know what I need to do to fix the problem.
Mainly, I’ve gotta stop working so much and get my stress levels under control. And really, truly, I think my plan for 2025 will get me there.
Well… I think that’s it.
I feel like the overall tone of this post is kinda sad. And while I can’t deny that this past year was really, really rough for me, it also caused a lot of growth.
And the main thing I’m focusing on is that I have a lot of hope for my fourth year as an author. I need 2025 to be a good year, and I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make it that way.
So here’s to a year of security, peace, rest, and dare I say it, abundance.