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Year in review and next year's plans
I normally do this at the end of the year, but I'm doing it early this year because I'll be out of town 'til the 27th, and I don't really expect much to change; all my publications for the year are publicated. See the tag for previous years' updates!
This year's cover grid:
3 full-length novels, 2 novellas, 1 collection. That's honestly much better than I was expecting; I spent most of the year clawing my way back from burnout, and the final two books were slammed out at the end of the year when suddenly my creative brain came back online.
Checking in with last year's plan:
My 2025 theme was "plant seeds and water my crops" (which I later changed to "sustainability and renewal"). I went into the year very badly burned out and not really sure what I was going to be doing long-term. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to drop out of writing, but what shape it would take and what I would be working on was very unclear.
So 2025 was mostly just for figuring that out. Which I think I have done! I went into the year thinking I was going to start at least one new pen name, but what actually happened was that I spent a couple of months spinning my wheels, trying to think of anything I wanted to write that was really calling to me and getting nothing, and ended up deciding to stick with Lauren Esker for a while, as it was making most of my money anyway.
That was June, and that was when I felt like things finally started clicking again. I set up some preorders, started some new projects, and generally stopped feeling like I was spinning in circles.
My specific goals for 2025 from last end-of-year post, and how I did on them:
* 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.
mmmmmmmmmm not really. I was correct that I needed to simplify, but I seem to have gone a different way instead, which was to backburner most of my pen names and focus on Lauren exclusively for now. I think I could probably support one steamy and one non-steamy pen name simultaneously
* Write thrillers.
LOLnope. But that had a lot to do with deciding to go with Lauren as my main focus for the medium term.
* 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 mean, sort of. I definitely did do those, and I started a new cozy-adjacent series (the Christmas Ranch ones) but decided to keep Lauren in PNR for now.
* 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.
No, in fact I ended up doing the opposite, dropping out of the group projects I had signed up for. Which I think was the right decision for me at the present time.
* I have one more Julie preorder for mid-2025, and after that Julie is going on the back burner.
Done! I got Bookshop 2 out, and now Julie is quietly backburnered for a while.
My main achievement in 2025 was honestly just starting to get out of burnout. But I also think I did do a lot of what I intended to do. I have a general idea of where I'm going moving forward, I'm doing better at building a lot of recovery time into my schedule, and I also outsourced some stuff to a part-time PA in a skill swap that seems to be working out really well for both of us! And I got my Patreon up and running again.
2025 was the year I really got underway on launching myself into a solo, post-Zoe career, and I feel like I did a good job with that, and have a pretty solid plan for moving forward.
Next year's theme: Flexibility and leveling up.
Flexibility: What this means is that I don't plan to do long preorders in 2026 (other than the ones I have already) so that I have more ability to flex with my moods and changes in the market. Part of what caused the burnout was locking myself into books that I had to write, so I'm going to ease up on doing that at the present time. (I do plan to reinstate longer preorders once I've done some testing and have some new series established, just not right now.)
I have preorders set up for Windrock #1 (the Pinerock Bears spinoff, currently set for April) and Westerly Cove #4 in June. Beyond that, I would like to have another Christmas Ranch book in November if possible - I do think Christmas Wolf did well enough to justify it - but otherwise, I'm leaving a lot of the year open for whatever I end up wanting to work on. And the end-of-year plans are very open, since I don't currently have any preorders locked in.
Leveling up: I want to get better at both craft and marketing. Basically, I want to write stronger, hookier books, and I want to become more skilled at areas of marketing I'm weak on (or outsource them). I have some various ideas for this, but it's still kind of vague and I don't think I want to get into the details here. I plan to set aside some dedicated blocks of time just for learning and honing my craft (writing-wise and market-wise) without being distracted by other things.
But also, it's not just that; I want to start throwing things out there that might hit it big. I want to keep writing the same books I've been writing, but also try new, exciting, and interesting things. I want to achieve a mix of "safe" books to keep my pen name floating along nicely, as well as throwing out interesting new projects that might catch fire - or might not! These might be new projects for Lauren (will this be the year I try romantasy? will I capitalize on Shifter Agents' current success with another romantic suspense series?) or new pen name projects (will this be the year I achieve mystery/thriller? or fantasy maybe?).
Specific plans for 2026:
* Write and publish Windrock 1 and Westerly 4. [Stretch goals: Shifter Agents 7 and Christmas Ranch 2. But we'll see about those.]
* Try something new and different with each new book to see how readers react to it. With Wolf, that was putting darker themes in a Christmas book (and it went over very well!). With Windrock 1, this will be a more ensemble-type plotting style. I want to try to hit a balance between writing books that appeal to my existing market, and testing out riskier experiments that could either cost me readers or hit it bigger than I have in the past.
* Work on craft - hooky openings, hooky premises, chapter beginnings/endings that make the books hard to put down.
* Launch something new. Either a new series for Lauren that explores new territory (currently thinking about something similar to Shifter Agents in the paranormal mystery/suspense vein) or a new pen name, or new non-romance series for an existing one.
* Do something with Patreon. A serial maybe? Or just get a plan together so I have regular content and can let it motor along in the background and make me some passive income without spending a lot of time on it.
* Put some dedicated time into marketing, and try to get some marketing systems into place that I can outsource to someone. Last year, my focus really wasn't on making money, it was on recovering from burnout and figuring out which way to go next. So I didn't feel like I could really justify hiring help. This year, I plan to make Lauren succeed, and part of that is going to be offloading the things that are hard for me to other people so I can focus more on what I really want to do (write books!).
If I have to drop anything to avoid overloading myself, it'll be the last two - I want to keep my focus in 2026 primarily on writing, and on getting enough rest and recharge time so I don't burn out again.
Edited to add one more thought, especially for Next Year's Me when I inevitably review this post as part of my end-of-year planning.
2025 was the 10th anniversary of when we started Zoe (back in March) and my first books for it (April). It all feels so long ago that I completely forgot about it when I wrote up this post!
But I feel like 2015-2025 marks one decade-long stretch of doing more or less the same thing in my professional life: writing paranormal romance for money. I mean, there were side trips along the way, there's been a lot of other stuff going on, but 2015-2025 was the decade in which I learned how to write commercial romance and market it successfully. And now I'm looking forward to think about where I want to be another decade from now. I don't think I still want to be doing the same thing. Either I'd like to level up exponentially on what I can get romance to do for me, or I'd like to get good at something else (mystery? fantasy?) and make that my main project by the time I check back in - god help us - 2035.
This year's cover grid:
3 full-length novels, 2 novellas, 1 collection. That's honestly much better than I was expecting; I spent most of the year clawing my way back from burnout, and the final two books were slammed out at the end of the year when suddenly my creative brain came back online.
Checking in with last year's plan:
My 2025 theme was "plant seeds and water my crops" (which I later changed to "sustainability and renewal"). I went into the year very badly burned out and not really sure what I was going to be doing long-term. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to drop out of writing, but what shape it would take and what I would be working on was very unclear.
So 2025 was mostly just for figuring that out. Which I think I have done! I went into the year thinking I was going to start at least one new pen name, but what actually happened was that I spent a couple of months spinning my wheels, trying to think of anything I wanted to write that was really calling to me and getting nothing, and ended up deciding to stick with Lauren Esker for a while, as it was making most of my money anyway.
That was June, and that was when I felt like things finally started clicking again. I set up some preorders, started some new projects, and generally stopped feeling like I was spinning in circles.
My specific goals for 2025 from last end-of-year post, and how I did on them:
* 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.
mmmmmmmmmm not really. I was correct that I needed to simplify, but I seem to have gone a different way instead, which was to backburner most of my pen names and focus on Lauren exclusively for now. I think I could probably support one steamy and one non-steamy pen name simultaneously
* Write thrillers.
LOLnope. But that had a lot to do with deciding to go with Lauren as my main focus for the medium term.
* 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 mean, sort of. I definitely did do those, and I started a new cozy-adjacent series (the Christmas Ranch ones) but decided to keep Lauren in PNR for now.
* 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.
No, in fact I ended up doing the opposite, dropping out of the group projects I had signed up for. Which I think was the right decision for me at the present time.
* I have one more Julie preorder for mid-2025, and after that Julie is going on the back burner.
Done! I got Bookshop 2 out, and now Julie is quietly backburnered for a while.
My main achievement in 2025 was honestly just starting to get out of burnout. But I also think I did do a lot of what I intended to do. I have a general idea of where I'm going moving forward, I'm doing better at building a lot of recovery time into my schedule, and I also outsourced some stuff to a part-time PA in a skill swap that seems to be working out really well for both of us! And I got my Patreon up and running again.
2025 was the year I really got underway on launching myself into a solo, post-Zoe career, and I feel like I did a good job with that, and have a pretty solid plan for moving forward.
Next year's theme: Flexibility and leveling up.
Flexibility: What this means is that I don't plan to do long preorders in 2026 (other than the ones I have already) so that I have more ability to flex with my moods and changes in the market. Part of what caused the burnout was locking myself into books that I had to write, so I'm going to ease up on doing that at the present time. (I do plan to reinstate longer preorders once I've done some testing and have some new series established, just not right now.)
I have preorders set up for Windrock #1 (the Pinerock Bears spinoff, currently set for April) and Westerly Cove #4 in June. Beyond that, I would like to have another Christmas Ranch book in November if possible - I do think Christmas Wolf did well enough to justify it - but otherwise, I'm leaving a lot of the year open for whatever I end up wanting to work on. And the end-of-year plans are very open, since I don't currently have any preorders locked in.
Leveling up: I want to get better at both craft and marketing. Basically, I want to write stronger, hookier books, and I want to become more skilled at areas of marketing I'm weak on (or outsource them). I have some various ideas for this, but it's still kind of vague and I don't think I want to get into the details here. I plan to set aside some dedicated blocks of time just for learning and honing my craft (writing-wise and market-wise) without being distracted by other things.
But also, it's not just that; I want to start throwing things out there that might hit it big. I want to keep writing the same books I've been writing, but also try new, exciting, and interesting things. I want to achieve a mix of "safe" books to keep my pen name floating along nicely, as well as throwing out interesting new projects that might catch fire - or might not! These might be new projects for Lauren (will this be the year I try romantasy? will I capitalize on Shifter Agents' current success with another romantic suspense series?) or new pen name projects (will this be the year I achieve mystery/thriller? or fantasy maybe?).
Specific plans for 2026:
* Write and publish Windrock 1 and Westerly 4. [Stretch goals: Shifter Agents 7 and Christmas Ranch 2. But we'll see about those.]
* Try something new and different with each new book to see how readers react to it. With Wolf, that was putting darker themes in a Christmas book (and it went over very well!). With Windrock 1, this will be a more ensemble-type plotting style. I want to try to hit a balance between writing books that appeal to my existing market, and testing out riskier experiments that could either cost me readers or hit it bigger than I have in the past.
* Work on craft - hooky openings, hooky premises, chapter beginnings/endings that make the books hard to put down.
* Launch something new. Either a new series for Lauren that explores new territory (currently thinking about something similar to Shifter Agents in the paranormal mystery/suspense vein) or a new pen name, or new non-romance series for an existing one.
* Do something with Patreon. A serial maybe? Or just get a plan together so I have regular content and can let it motor along in the background and make me some passive income without spending a lot of time on it.
* Put some dedicated time into marketing, and try to get some marketing systems into place that I can outsource to someone. Last year, my focus really wasn't on making money, it was on recovering from burnout and figuring out which way to go next. So I didn't feel like I could really justify hiring help. This year, I plan to make Lauren succeed, and part of that is going to be offloading the things that are hard for me to other people so I can focus more on what I really want to do (write books!).
If I have to drop anything to avoid overloading myself, it'll be the last two - I want to keep my focus in 2026 primarily on writing, and on getting enough rest and recharge time so I don't burn out again.
Edited to add one more thought, especially for Next Year's Me when I inevitably review this post as part of my end-of-year planning.
2025 was the 10th anniversary of when we started Zoe (back in March) and my first books for it (April). It all feels so long ago that I completely forgot about it when I wrote up this post!
But I feel like 2015-2025 marks one decade-long stretch of doing more or less the same thing in my professional life: writing paranormal romance for money. I mean, there were side trips along the way, there's been a lot of other stuff going on, but 2015-2025 was the decade in which I learned how to write commercial romance and market it successfully. And now I'm looking forward to think about where I want to be another decade from now. I don't think I still want to be doing the same thing. Either I'd like to level up exponentially on what I can get romance to do for me, or I'd like to get good at something else (mystery? fantasy?) and make that my main project by the time I check back in - god help us - 2035.
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(HOW is it the end of the year already?)
I love every part of this and I'm so glad you came back from burnout. It seems, at least, that rolling out two unexpected books in a row worked well, so hopefully you've rebuilt some creative stamina! Can't wait to see what you do next year!
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That's amazing! Yay for knowing what direction you want to take, and for outsourcing what you can.
Cheering you on for next year \o/