This has been a crazy, awesome, exciting year. You guys made it all of those things.
Thank you. Thank you times a hundred.
When I published Witch for Hire, I didn’t expect it to do much. I’d been working on it intermittently for years. The bulk of the story was written during NaNoWriMo 2010. Over the next few months, I finished the story and started the edits. For the next four years I occasionally did some edits and often did nothing.
In July 2013, I got a bee under my bonnet and decided that I had to publish. I’d like to say I had some great insight about how fantastic my work was or that I had faith that I’d find readers, but either of those would be a lie.
The truth was that I didn’t care if I failed.
If you’re an aspiring artist of any type, read that again. I didn’t care if I failed. I figured that it would be worse to be sitting in front of a TV years from now wishing that I’d done something with my writing than to publish and be laughed at. Truth be told, I hoped to do well, but that wasn’t the expectation. I figured that if I sold enough to buy a Starbucks goodie once a month I’d be doing good.
The first month blew that expectation out of the water.
Witch for Hire was published January 11, 2014. It sold two copies in the next three days. I bought one of those copies. On the fourth day it entered a free promotion. I woke up in the morning and 20 people had downloaded the book. I was ecstatic. By the end of breakfast it was up to 25 downloads.
The next day was even crazier. By late afternoon I’d had over a two hundred downloads and by the time I finished dinner over five hundred. The craziness continued for the rest of the promotion, and when it was done over 8,000 people had downloaded a book that didn’t have a single review by an author who hadn’t published any other works. To date, I’ve sold over 17,000 copies of Witch for Hire.
After publishing Witch for Hire, I got to work on A Witch’s Path. During NaNoWriMo 2011 and 2012, I worked on A Witch’s Path, but when I restarted on it in January 2014, it needed another 30,000 words and significant restructuring. A Witch’s Path was published September 5, 2014. It’s gotten better reviews than Witch for Hire, and I’m counting that as a huge success. Between publication and now, it’s sold over 5,000 copies.
After publishing A Witch’s Path, I got to work on my third book, A Witch’s Trial. I finished the draft of A Witch’s Trial at the end of November and it’s currently in my editor’s hands.
As soon as I finished A Witch’s Trial, I started on the fourth book. Right now I’m about halfway through the rough draft of the fourth draft and enjoying every second of it.
In early December, I got another bee in my hat and partnered with a voice actor who’s currently working on the audiobook of Witch for Hire. What I’ve heard so far is fantastic, and I can’t wait for it to be out!
This year has been a learning experience and a steep one at that. I’ve had to learn about pricing, perceived value, branding, marketing, production schedules, and so many other things. Some things I’ve done well, others not so much. Part of that learning experience has included my production process.
I know a lot of you had hoped that A Witch’s Trial would be out by now, but with the changes in my editing process, the release has been pushed back. Right now I’m eying February. This wasn’t an easy choice, but I’m choosing to give you a high quality product rather than a faster release.
I’m really excited about 2015 because I think it’s going to bring amazing things. A Witch’s Trial will come out, as will Witch for Hire’s Audiobook. The current plan is to publish the fourth and fifth books in A Witch’s Path Series, and at least one book in a new series.
There will also be some changes, most of which I hope will be good changes. With how amazing 2014 had been, I was able to drop to part time at work. To continue spending half my time writing, I have to maintain my income. One of the things I’ll be looking at this year is expanding outside of Amazon. If there’s a place you prefer to buy ebooks, let me know and I’ll look at that retailer.
2014 has been an amazing year, and this is the happiest and most accomplished I’ve ever felt. Alright guys, on to 2015!
