2025 Review
It’s the last post of the year! If you are new to this site, thank you for checking in and I hope you keep coming back in 2026. If you’ve stuck with me all or part of this year, many thanks to you as well. It’s been a good year overall from the writing perspective, with a little bit of an interruption when I broke my collarbone at the end of October. I was a third of the way into writing the third season of The Drop and the injury ended up meaning less typing for a while and more editing, allowing me to polish Next Step. I’ll talk more about my goals for the new year in the next post; in the meantime, let’s list those 2025 goals one more time and see where I landed:
Publish First as an audio book - Year-End Status: Sadly, this never happened. Professionally-narrated audiobooks are not cheap and I just didn’t have the funding this year. I don’t know if this’ll happen in 2026, either. We’ll see how it goes but I don’t think I’m going to list this as a goal next year. If it happens, it’ll be a nice bonus.
Publish Assignment Day - YE Status: That’s another whiff and that makes me 0 for 2 on the goals so far. The book is in a publishable state and it’s just been sitting in the drawer due to lack of funding. WIth my experiences publishing The Drop, I think all I need is a cover for Assignment Day and I can publish it on Amazon KDP. This should happen in the first half of 2026.
Edit First Step and prep for publishing - YE Status: Yes! One that’s done as of last week. The book is ready for the world and all it needs is formatting and a cover. Expect this in the first few months of 2026.
Finish writing the first book in the new series - YE Status: Done and published. It’s good to see people reading and enjoying the series. Now I just need to come up with an effective advertising approach since the ads I run every weekend aren’t as successful as those I run for my other books.
Write the second book in the new series - YE Status: Also done and published. I’m not sure yet how to make sure people keep reading the series. I say this because the page count in my Kindle reporting view shows more pages read for Season One than for Season Two. I hope this will change as I release more books in the series.
Set a publishing date for First Step - YE Status: Done. As soon as I get confirmation in January about a few financial things, I’ll commission a cover and publish the book faster than Usain Bolt racing for a bathroom. As of now, the publishing date is January 2026.
Set a publishing date for first book in the new series - YE Status: See #4 above. Done. The Drop: Season One debuted at the beginning of September, followed closely by Season Two in October. The audiobook versions for both went live in November.
I set out to do a lot this year, and I did do a lot. 2025 overall was a successful year and the first time I had more book income than expenses. Not by a lot since we’re talking small numbers here, but enough to make sure the IRS doesn’t consider my writing a hobby for tax purposes. That was a nice surprise and let’s hope the trend continues next year. It’s not about money for me; it’s about writing stuff that people enjoy. Based on the ratings and reviews that came in during 2025, I’d say I was successful in that as well. Both First and Next Time maintain an average of 4.4 stars on Amazon, which I feel good about. I went beyond my goals in the publishing of The Drop and I want that momentum to continue. Thank you for your support of my writing endeavors!