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2024 in creative review
Today seemed like a good day for the annual year-end roundup post. (See tag for past years and even earlier years at my old blog.)
This year's publications: 4 full-length novels, 3 novellas, 1 collection with some new material. (By pen name: 3 Julie, 5 Lauren with one co-published with Zoe.)
This year's theme was planning and intentionality. And I did that like a boss - all of these books were preorders, most of them were long preorders, and I hit all of them.
This year I separated my business from the Zoe Chant project. I wish them well, we all had a great run, and I got a really excellent start on selfpub, and now I'm ready for a solo career. I had a plan to scale up Lauren to make up for my loss of Zoe income, and I did that. This ended up being my second-best ever year for income; I absolutely blew past the modest income goals that I set up (with the idea in mind that I might take a hard income hit because of leaving Zoe). Not only did I not do that, but it was an excellent year all across the map, at least on paper.
.... and I also crashed and burned HARD from burnout in March, struggled my way in and out of it all year, struggled with personal life issues too, and ended up feeling like I was on a preorder treadmill I couldn't get off. I now know I can do what I did this year (consistently hit preorders, almost monthly releases) and I also know that it's absolutely exhausting and I need to not do that again for a while.
Consequently, 2025's theme is planting seeds and watering my crops. I mean this in several senses - I plan to start some new projects that probably won't bear fruit until a while down the road, I plan to nurture myself and my business, and generally work on sustainability and seeking a sane work-life balance and setting up systems that will benefit me long-term. In 2023-24 I was really worried about torpedoing my career and not making any money. I'm not worried about that anymore, and I'm reasonably well placed to take an income hit for a little while if I need to while I'm setting up some building blocks for the future and also taking some necessary breathing space.
More concretely, some of what I have planned for 2025:
* Combining my pen names into two "ecosystems", one for steamy romance, the other for the non-steamy, non-romance stuff (mystery, urban fantasy, etc). This ought to make social media management way easier; one of the contributing factors to burnout in 2024 is that I was juggling so much apart from writing.
* Write thrillers.
* My ongoing Lauren series(es) will get new installments (Shifter Agents and Fated Mt Lodge) and I also want to start something new in the general cozy fantasy/romantasy vein.
* I'd like to try a few more group projects, just generally looking for other ways to get my name out there and diversify apart from advertising.
* I have one more Julie preorder for mid-2025, and after that Julie is going on the back burner.
All of this is subject to change and evolve as I go forward.
But genuinely, in spite of pushing myself so hard and dealing with various personal life stuff (and even though it felt like my word counts were way down), I'm amazed at how much I do actually have to show for 2024. In addition to publications, I signed four of my series for audio production, I laid down a ton of social media infrastructure and grew Lauren's mailing list by a lot, and I figured out a lot about where my limits are, how far I can push myself, what I can do and what I can't. In 2025-26, I want to continue to nurture my solo pen names, have more fun, nurture my personal life as well as my business, and take more time off.
This year's publications: 4 full-length novels, 3 novellas, 1 collection with some new material. (By pen name: 3 Julie, 5 Lauren with one co-published with Zoe.)
This year's theme was planning and intentionality. And I did that like a boss - all of these books were preorders, most of them were long preorders, and I hit all of them.
This year I separated my business from the Zoe Chant project. I wish them well, we all had a great run, and I got a really excellent start on selfpub, and now I'm ready for a solo career. I had a plan to scale up Lauren to make up for my loss of Zoe income, and I did that. This ended up being my second-best ever year for income; I absolutely blew past the modest income goals that I set up (with the idea in mind that I might take a hard income hit because of leaving Zoe). Not only did I not do that, but it was an excellent year all across the map, at least on paper.
.... and I also crashed and burned HARD from burnout in March, struggled my way in and out of it all year, struggled with personal life issues too, and ended up feeling like I was on a preorder treadmill I couldn't get off. I now know I can do what I did this year (consistently hit preorders, almost monthly releases) and I also know that it's absolutely exhausting and I need to not do that again for a while.
Consequently, 2025's theme is planting seeds and watering my crops. I mean this in several senses - I plan to start some new projects that probably won't bear fruit until a while down the road, I plan to nurture myself and my business, and generally work on sustainability and seeking a sane work-life balance and setting up systems that will benefit me long-term. In 2023-24 I was really worried about torpedoing my career and not making any money. I'm not worried about that anymore, and I'm reasonably well placed to take an income hit for a little while if I need to while I'm setting up some building blocks for the future and also taking some necessary breathing space.
More concretely, some of what I have planned for 2025:
* Combining my pen names into two "ecosystems", one for steamy romance, the other for the non-steamy, non-romance stuff (mystery, urban fantasy, etc). This ought to make social media management way easier; one of the contributing factors to burnout in 2024 is that I was juggling so much apart from writing.
* Write thrillers.
* My ongoing Lauren series(es) will get new installments (Shifter Agents and Fated Mt Lodge) and I also want to start something new in the general cozy fantasy/romantasy vein.
* I'd like to try a few more group projects, just generally looking for other ways to get my name out there and diversify apart from advertising.
* I have one more Julie preorder for mid-2025, and after that Julie is going on the back burner.
All of this is subject to change and evolve as I go forward.
But genuinely, in spite of pushing myself so hard and dealing with various personal life stuff (and even though it felt like my word counts were way down), I'm amazed at how much I do actually have to show for 2024. In addition to publications, I signed four of my series for audio production, I laid down a ton of social media infrastructure and grew Lauren's mailing list by a lot, and I figured out a lot about where my limits are, how far I can push myself, what I can do and what I can't. In 2025-26, I want to continue to nurture my solo pen names, have more fun, nurture my personal life as well as my business, and take more time off.