State of the Writing and Publishing Situation 2024

The goal I’d set for 2024: “More workshops, lectures, talks, speaking engagements. Let’s do this.”

I absolutely did all of that.

What I did not get to do was release a new book this year. I’m learning that staying on track with the work-in-progress is harder when I’m editing (we released new Blush Books!) and also writing my scripts for the speaking engagements (I have a script for every talk I give, nothing is off-the-cuff over here). I’ve absolutely been working, just not on my own books.

As an indie author, here’s how the books did in terms of retailers and countries. This is not a surprise to me, except that maybe it’s the lowest showing of Overdrive ever. I have some thoughts on why that is, but this reminds me to resume the outreach to libraries on Overdrive, especially as I’m more active on Bluesky now.

Not surprised also with the country breakdown of my 2024 readership. This exercise is all the more useful to me as I’m thinking of what to focus on, when it comes to international book fairs and distribution efforts.

In a year of no new books from me, this is how my titles did:

First Time for Everything (2023) continues to be the achiever among my titles lately, and I really should keep up the momentum by…releasing the second Cafe Titas book. That’s the goal for 2025!

2025, by the way, is the 15th year that I’ve been self-publishing. [See this post from 2010, when I announced the release of Fairy Tale Fail.] I used to say that it’s not for everybody and the path you choose is yours, but now that I have 15 years of decisions behind me I’m going to say: Everyone should try self-publishing. At the very least learn it, and/or make preparations to do it if not right away then when they get their rights back to their books.

My catalog, reinforced by every year that I do my “state of the writing and publishing situation” post, is an example of a backlist that retains and increases value over time. Because I care about the books and keep the books alive (available and accessible) for new readers to discover. This is a career that has been built through many rejections and dismissals, and it has outlasted entire companies that were going to be the future of publishing.

This last part is wild actually and a bit of a shock (imagine my self-publishing career outlasting Twitter lol), but my books and my brand (my pen name is now a registered trademark) are still around because I’ve kept all rights, and partnered strategically, i.e. these people have to see value in what I’m doing. I feel fortunate to have found people in the industry who are that for me, and I wish every author the same.

But one really does pick up the skills to create this for themselves, and recognize where they need partnership to extend their reach, when they self-publish. Learn and start sooner rather than later. Think of Future You who will be thanking you for this!

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