2024 - A Year in Review

Gosh, what a year.  It’s incredible to think that this time last year I had three books published, now I have none.  On the face of it, I’ve gone backwards, but the reality is I’ve leapt forwards by leaps and bounds.

2023 – A summary

You see, this time last year the second trilogy in the Gallantrian Legacy series, The Offspring Trilogy, was available to buy.  In 2023 I published three books, and by this time last year I’d sold 352 copies of my books and had a total of 44,627 pages read on Kindle unlimited – that equates to roughly another 118 books.  If you add them up, you could say I sold the equivalent of 470 books, which many self-published authors would be happy with.
 
But I wasn’t.
 
Why?
 
Because when I decided to write and publish my own books, I didn’t do it just to scratch and itch, like so many indie authors do.  There are plenty out there who will say “I wrote my book for fun, if anyone reads it that’s a bonus”.  I have absolutely nothing against this view point, but I’m going to be honest, that’s not why I write.
 
I write so my books can get read – by as many people as possible.
 
Success as an author is perhaps one third skill, one third marketing, and one third luck.  Obviously, you can’t control the last third, but the other two are within your control.  I spent a fair old whack on marketing for the first book in The Offspring Trilogy – I’ve made a loss, but I’ve also learned lots, so it wasn’t all wasted money.
 
One of the things I learned was marketing can sell one book, but your book needs to be good if you want to sell the sequels.
 
My read-through figures from book 1 to book 2 weren’t great.  The bulk of my sales were for book one, but no where near as many people as I’d hoped went on to read the sequels.
 
I had a niggling suspicion for months something was wrong, until Peter, from Snowdon Publishing helped me see some of its flaws, and after a manuscript review from his daughter, Karen, the rest of its flaws were suddenly crystal clear.  Early in 2024, I un-published The Offspring Trilogy.
 
I’ve talked about the journey that led me to pull The Offspring Trilogy off the market in previous blogs.  You can take a look, here. 
 
But if you’ve read them before, or want to skip straight to the lessons of 2024, read on…

2024 – The Slog

Gosh, what a year?  Another 12 months of writing and changing careers (that's another story).  At the start of 2024 I was still attempting to get a traditional publishing deal for book 1 in the Gallantrian Legacy.  I self-published the second trilogy; the plan was to try to get a publisher to take on the first trilogy (you can more about that here).  But I didn’t get a single full request for that book.  The decision to pull The Offspring Trilogy came with a second decision – early in 2024 I decided I’d self-publish The Homecoming Trilogy. 
 
So I stopped querying, took a deep breath, and decided to sort The Homecoming Trilogy out.
 
Boy, did it need work.
 
The Queen of Vorn
 
The Queen of Vorn is book 1 in my 6-book, 2-trilogy series, The Gallantrian Legacy.  This book had already been re-written once.  I didn’t think it was in that bad a shape, until Karen from Snowdon Publishing got her teeth into it.  After her manuscript review, I knew another re-write was in order.
 
Different authors have different definitions of what a re-write looks like.  My view is its where you have to make so many editorial changes to your story, it is almost a new book.  I’d suggest at least 50% of the words are thrown in the bin and re-drafted from scratch.  The general idea might be the same, the characters might be the same, but there will be minor and major plot changes, and bad prose and dialogue will be replaced.
 
Last summer, The Queen of Vorn got another, rather significant makeover.  It is now almost un-recognisable from the first draft I wrote in Autumn, 2021.
 
It was finished this autumn and is now being line and copy edited by Peter at Snowdon Publishing.  This book is now very close to being ready for human consumption.  But what about the other two books in The Homecoming Trilogy?
 
The Prince of Vorn
 
Book 2 in The Homecoming Trilogy has also a lot of work.  This one had barely been touched since I wrote it in 2022 and needed even more work than its prequel.  Its plot didn’t need as much jiggling about, but the writing itself was awful.  Writing and having professional edits, then dealing with your editor’s subsequent suggestions is a very good way to learn to write better, and between drafting this book and taking another look at it, I’d had a pro-editor pull three other novels to bits.  I’ve improved a lot as a writer as a result.
 
The Prince of Vorn was re-written, sent for a manuscript review, then all the points that came out of that review were addressed.  I’ve almost done this, I’ve just a few chapters to proofread then it will be ready for a line and copy edit.
 
The King of Vorn
 
Book 3 in The Homecoming Trilogy needed even more work than The Prince of Vorn.  The writing and the plot needed a lot of adjustments before I was happy to send it to Karen to get her feedback.  But I finished a pretty comprehensive re-write of that book in November, and it is now under review.
 
Magic Breakers
 
I also did an edit of Magic Breakers, which is the first book in a whole other series, and I did some querying of that one.  So far, I’ve had no luck.  But I have been invited to talk about querying by The Writer’s Workout.  A link to the website is below. In March 2025, you will have the chance to watch a video of me waffling about querying, plus you can watch loads of other people who are involved in writing and publishing.  The conference is fully online and free.  I really do recommend you take a look.

click here to discover the Writers workout

​That pretty much summarises what I’ve done writing wise in 2024, so what will 2025 look like?

2025 – PUBLISHING

This is the year of my re-launch.  This is the year I will publish all three books in The Homecoming Trilogy.  It is the year I will take everything I learned about marketing in 2023, and use this knowledge to build a proper strategy – one that I hope will work.  It will be the year when I find out if all my hard work was worth it.  If I end 2025 with more book sales than I made in 2023, then I think I’ll be happy with that.  Tune in this time next year to find out…