My 2023 in review

In my review post of 2022, I promised to write more blog posts in 2023. And then I didn’t write any—on this blog anyway. I wrote 52 posts on my book review blog, so that’s something, though far short of the total I read last year, 230 books by the Goodreads count, most of them manga and other comics.

So already this year is off to a better start.

The reason I didn’t write anything here is two-fold, like my year. For the first part of the year, I suffered from the worst writing block of my career. Usually, I can write at least something. Now, I had nothing. It was likely caused by exhaustion, as I published several books the previous year, so I tried to rest, but it wasn’t easy. Once I had my writing mojo back on, I still had nothing to write here. I considered writing about the writer’s block, but didn’t do that either.

I started writing again around May, and managed to write and publish three books. The fourth that I published early last year, Magic by the Book, House of Magic 4 I’d written already the previous year. I wrote and published The Perfect Hoax, Reed Files 2; Tracy Hayes, Vacationing P.I., book 11 in P.I. Tracy Hayes series, and Beloved Warrior, Two-Natured London 8. They’ve all been well-received, though it’s early days for Beloved Warrior yet.

Last year was the first in eleven years as a self-published author that I was able to pay myself a little something too. So far, everything the books have brought has gone to the expenses. It still wasn’t much, 3300€ for the whole year (about $3500), so not exactly a living. But it’s encouraging, and hopefully will only grow from there.

As for 2024, my twelfth year as a self-publishing author, I have a busy year planned. I’ll publish four books this year too. There will be House of Magic 5, P.I. Tracy Hayes 12, Reed Files 3, and Two-Natured London 8.5, if everything goes well. The start of the year hasn’t been auspicious though, and I’m already a bit behind the schedule. Hopefully I’ll catch up eventually.

2024 will also see new covers for old books. I’ve created new covers of my stand-alone contemporary romances. They’ve barely sold a copy in their entire existence, so putting effort into them might seem redundant. But whenever I get stuck in writing, I tend to turn to creating book covers. This time I was inspired by a stock photo series, purchased them, and went with it. The result doesn’t necessarily represent the books very well, but I don’t care. They delight me, and no one buys them anyway.

I haven’t uploaded the new covers yet, but here they are for your delight too. There will be an official cover reveal later.

I won’t make any promises concerning this blog for this year. I won’t be able to keep them anyway. But hopefully it’ll be more than this post. I wish you all a good year.