Okay, okay, I know I am massively late on this…but I was so excited about my new book, Don’t Judge a Duke by His Cover, that I almost forgot to tell you about my New Year’s Resolutions!
I don’t always make them, because sometimes it’s easy to get frustrated if you don’t manage to hold them. It’s like making impossible goals that you never meet, and then get all despondent about them.
But first, let’s look at what New Year’s Resolutions I made for 2022…
- From August onwards, have a book published every other month. It’s a big goal, but now I am a full time author, I should have the time.
- Plan and launch a super secret pen name! I have so many ideas and I am so excited to get them out there in the world.
- I will get my newsletter up to 10,000 readers who love my books. It means so much to me to know that people are out there reading and loving my books, and I want to collect them together!
So, how did I do?
Well, I did have a book published every other month from August onwards – huzzah! Though I can’t claim all the credit, because it was thanks to my publishers, the amazing Dragonblade, that this was possible.
You can see all the books I have published here.
And I did plan, and soft launch, a secret pen name! This is in a different genre so I didn’t want the branding to get all confused with my gorgeous historical romance. This pen name has a book in the world, and two more on pre-order. Maybe one day I’ll reveal who it is…👀
And in a way, I did get my newsletter up to 10,000 readers…but just recently, I realized that there were over 2400 people who hadn’t opened my emails in over a year.
They must have wanted to sign up once, but obviously I was no longer a priority. And that’s okay! I sent them a quick email and asked if they wanted to stay on my mailing list, and if they didn’t, then I removed them.
So I’m back to 7600 subscribers…which is where I started the year.
On the surface, that looks like a disaster–but my open rate has gone up from 18% to 45%, and that is a huge achievement. One, I think, I’m probably more proud of than I would have been keeping the numbers to 10k!
So, that was 2022. What about 2023?
Well, here are my new New Year’s Resolutions.
- Sell a non-fiction book! I now have an agent, Kate Walsh with United Agents, and we’ll be going out on submission with a non-fiction book in the coming weeks. Watch this space!
- To continue to diversify my publishing income. I love everything I do right now, but I never want to be so dependent on one source in case that collapsed.
- I want to improve my editing skills. It’s something I’ve really been working on recently after such useful insight and feedback from my publishers, so I want to write even cleaner manuscripts for them.
What are your New Year’s Resolutions – or have they already fallen by the wayside?! Let me know in the comments!