The End
It’s fitting that on the last day of the year, I look back on the year and how things went versus my goals at the beginning of the year. We’ve reached the end of 2024. How would I categorize it? I think it went very well. I published Next Time, won numerous awards for it and First, and got a lot done otherwise. Let’s take a look.
1. Publish Next Time - Done! My time-travel romance came out on June 11th. I’m proud of this book and the reviews and reactions to it.
2. Promote Next Time and First - Done! I used BookBub all year in various ways, but also utilized other services, especially with the release of Next Time. Some of the services I used were geared toward the romance segment and that seemed to pay off okay.
3. Do a featured deal on BookBub with First - Not done. I found after I recorded my goals that this is a tough one. Not impossible, but really tough for small-press authors like me. Once I dug in a bit to how it works and the books featured in BookBub’s emails, I realized this was not going to happen. It would’ve been nice, but I trashed this one early on.
4. Do a new release deal on BookBub with Next Time - Not done. I also found this was a tough nut to crack and decided to spend my resources in other ways.
5. Finish writing the first book in the new series - Not done. I started it and made it a good way through a first draft, but ultimately left it unfinished (for the moment) in order to write the sequel to First. I’ll return to it after the first of the year and see what I can make of the concept.
6. Write the second book in the new series - Not done. See #5 above.
7. Set a publishing date for Assignment Day - Kind of done. I’m about a day away from my final, final edit of this book. I have a goal of spring or early summer, but not a hard and fast date yet. Almost there.
8. Get a total of 500 reviews for all the published books across all sites where sold - Done! I just tallied up reviews across Amazon, Goodreads, Reedsy, Apple Books, and B&N, and tallied 503! I know I missed a few, but to all who left a rating and/or review, thank you! They mean a lot and honestly, I didn’t think I’d meet this goal.
9. Be a guest on at least three podcasts - Not done. I only did one podcast this year that I recall. Enjoyed it, but tbh I didn’t really spend a whole lot of time trying to accomplish this. Instead, I put out weekly videos on the run-up to Next Time’s release on various platforms and that seemed to work well.
As far as goals go, it appears to be a mixed bag. Thank you for your support in 2024 and I’m looking forward to big things in 2025.