~2013~ The Year in Review

As is often the case with bloggers, I start each year with a list of goals for the year (writing-related) and end each year with a summation of the year and which goals I managed to reach. I don't always do the end-of-year post, but I really want to get on schedule with that. 

That said, you can see my original blog post HERE. Let's see how I did... 

I've clipped my original goals post (above) and crossed off the things I accomplished. As you can see, again, I managed to complete 3 of 11 goals. I almost made 4 of 11, but I only managed part of goal #4. On the other hand, Intrigue actually made it to the "published" stage, so that goal was taken a step further than planned. 

Other projects morphed and changed through the year. Two of my Regency shorts that were meant to be in anthologies (#7 on the list) became something slightly different. As both are closely related to Heartless, I decided they should be in their own anthology and then I decided to write a third short story to kind of tie them all up. The third story is nearing completion and the cover for the anthology is done. Watch for it to be released early in 2014. 

I'm disappointed in myself for not having accomplished #9 and #11. I managed 3 critiques. I hope to do much better with that goal in 2014. :) Number 9 went fine for the first part of the year, but I let RNC2013 (August) get in the way and while that convention was fun, in so many ways it was just too much stress. I think conventions aren't really for me. 

This year held quite a few firsts for me, the best of which was meeting some awesome online friends in real life. :) I was able to meet my very best friend, fellow writer Linda Boulanger, which was the highlight of my year. Meeting the lovely, wonderful ladies of InD'tale Magazine was a very, very close second.

And the icing on the cake was this year's book sales. This was by far my best year for sales. I made My Lady Coward free at the end of August and experienced a sales spike for all my books in all the stores they're in. My Apple sales went from 14 (seriously) to almost 7,000. Granted, since all sales (including free titles) are reported to Smashwords, the majority of those, about 5,000 or so, were copies of My Lady Coward. However, those sales didn't happen until the last ten days of August through the end of November. (Apple hasn't reported my December sales to Smashwords yet.) Yeah, this was definitely my best year for sales. :)

Last, but certainly not least, I am deeply grateful to my readers, followers, friends, and supporters. You make this all worthwhile and I certainly could not do any of it without you. ♥ 

Tomorrow I will post my goals for 2014.

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ The Smashing Pumpkins ~ 1979 (The year I was born. How great is that? lol)

Goals for 2012 UPDATE

I just read my first post of 2012, the one where I outlined the writing goals I'd set for myself. Well, here are the results. 

There's bad news. I only accomplished three of my eleven writing goals. Three is so much better than none, or one, or two, though, so I'll take it! 

Heartless was on the agenda for 2012. I managed to get that done, even though it wasn't until November that I finally got it submitted. It's now [again] my bestseller. 

My Lady Coward got her HEA and the compiled short stories were submitted and published by TreasureLine Publishing. It's now my second bestseller, even though all the shorts are still free for online reading (with a little site-hopping). 

The biggest [and hardest for me] goal that I accomplished was SELL MORE BOOKS. This goal was achieved beyond my wildest dreams. The only reason it happened was due to all the lovely book lovers out there who decided to take a chance on one or more of my books.

Just to give you an idea of the upsurge, in October 2012, my Kindle sales totaled 23 books. That's for six (6) titles, worldwide. The combined sales of my titles from all the other eBook retailers was even less. Sad, right? 

Then Heartless came out in early November and I enrolled it in KDP Select. I sold a few dozen copies of Heartless and a handful of my other titles before making Heartless free for two days near the end of the month. After that, sales spiked. Over 14,000 copies of Heartless were downloaded worldwide during the two free days and my November sales totaled 191 books (7 titles) worldwide. Quite a difference. 

My December sales have been through the roof and I couldn't be more pleased. I had another free day mid-month where 1825 copies were downloaded. Sales didn't really spike after that but remained between 25 and 50 books sold per day.

As I watch these numbers I experience a certain amount of shock and awe. There was a time when I considered 50 sales in ONE MONTH as a good month. This month I've sold over 1300 books worldwide, just in the Kindle Store; over 650 of those were Heartless. It may be possible to make a living at this writing thing after all. ☺

I am deeply grateful to everyone who has taken a chance on one [or more] of my books, written a review, told their friends and family about it, or even just enjoyed the story. Thank you! ♥

In other writing accomplishments of 2012, I scored a fab job with InD'Tale Magazine as a regular columnist. I write serial romances—currently Regency-era—for this rising star in romance magazines. And I LOVE it!! ♥

Stay tuned for my first post of 2013 where I'll reveal my NEW goals—OK, I admit, some won't be new at all.

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing
♫♪ Linkin Park ~ MY◄DSMBR