Spacefreighters Lounge : 2016

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

2016 - Looking Back

It's that time of year when I look back at what I've achieved (or haven't - and this year there's a whole lot of haven't!). Overall, I think it's been a bad year worldwide for one reason or another. Maybe it's social media highlighting so many celebrity deaths. Maybe it's the shock result of Brexit and the US election. Whatever, I'm glad to see the back of 2016 even though there were positives over the past 12 months. Let's hope 2017 is an improvement, huh?

I'm actually away from social media right now, enjoying Christmas with my family but I doubt much will have happened in the past week that means altering this post. ;)

2016 was the year:
I became a fully indie author when the rights to Gethyon returned to me in June. It also got a revamp including a stunning new cover from RavenFire Media, and an extra 11K of material (including The Bones of the Sea added at the back as a bonus story and to get that into print).

Gethyon

A Scifi Adventure Novel

Goodreads | Webpage

Amazon | Omnilit

B&N | Kobo | iBooks

Smashwords

Print:
CreateSpace
Amazon | B&N

I finish the year with eighteen titles listed on Goodreads (though two are yet to be released, one having been delayed since May already).
Failed to hit a release date (see previous sentence). Reunion at Kasha-Asor is still awaiting edits at my end.

Went cosplay crazy, creating four Star Wars costumes, including one for a friend.

Got to go to Star Wars Celebration and at least be in the same room as my childhood crush, Luke Skywalker.

Met my name twinsie Pippa DaCosta and had my photo taken with Andrew Lee Potts at London ComicCon.

Got my 50th review for my debut novel Keir.

Got my eldest into cosplaying, and she won the BristolCon cosplay contest as Rey.

Came the closest I've ever come to completely quitting. As it is, this past year has proved I can't make this a paying career for myself so 2017 will be the year I go back to work as something else because I've seen my sales plummet and die. The stress of promoting and the constant need to do it (plus costs) have killed my love for the actual writing. I can't do it any more. Writing will have to go back to being a hobby that I might earn the odd few cents from, because I certainly haven't been able to make it pay a living wage.

Spent four months trying to get Kobo to pay me royalties due, resulting in me pulling my books from their site and putting them back through Draft2Digital who will ensure I get paid monthly. Not going through all that again!

Went to NorCon for the first time.
Turned 45, two years older than my mum made it to.
Saw my son get taller than me so the threat of 'I'm bigger than you so do as you told' became invalid.

I failed in most of my aspirations for 2016. Of the seven titles I planned to release, only the re-release of Gethyon went to plan. The SFR short story I submitted to an anthology didn't make it because the project was cancelled due to insufficient entries. However, having already gotten it edited I went ahead and published that myself.

I wrote 60K new words, though mostly as part of edits, but 7K was my first ever Christmas scifi romance story (at last!). Editing was just under 300K words. Better than I thought considering I spent nearly four months unable to write and not giving a damn about it.

So I have mixed feelings going into 2017. I've achieved some great things this year, though mostly not in the publishing side. I feel like I'm putting being an author behind me as I move forward. I'm sad, but the stress has made it untenable for me. I will go back to writing for pleasure, and if I have the money, maybe I'll publish it. We shall see...