I know there’s still a week or so of this year left but lets face it, that’s not much of the year and I’m unlikely to get much done in the way of work.

This year I had quite big hopes in terms of book releases both in print and ebook and I think it’s the first year that I’ve just not managed what I set out to. at the start of the year I intended to publish my Tales of Ethanar anthology, Sherdan’s Country, The Fire of Winter and write and publish at least one more novella in the same world as my novella in the Kiss anthology, The Slave Who’d Never Been Kissed.

The only one of those I achieved was finishing and publishing Sherdan’s Country. It doesn’t mean I didn’t write much this year. I wrote more this year than I did in 2013, it’s just not all ready to be published yet. I did write and publish the first novella in a new series under a pen name I invented this year. The Hundred Year Wait under Amelia Price is one of my best selling books this year so I’ve also now written two sequels. The Unexpected Coincidence and The Invisible Amateur.

The fantasy publications intended for this year haven’t been forgotten. Both of them require some maps to complete the information inside (as well as a few other bits and pieces). Those maps have proved incredibly difficult to handle with my limited skills when it comes to computer graphics and formatting an ebook. I’m getting closer with them but will definitely need help with the last part.

I’ve also started two other series works this year that I didn’t foresee at the beginning. Both are collaborations with other authors. I’ve mentioned the story in the works with author TR Harris and that it will appear under my Amelia Price pen name. The second I’ve not made mention of before and I’m hoping to have a blog post dedicated to that early in the new year.

Sales wise, the year hasn’t been my best, stopping my trend of at least doubling my sales every year but this has still been my second best year so far in terms of sales numbers and if it wasn’t for having no print release this year would be my biggest grossing year, so it comes in second for that as well. Considering the releases I’ve had and expenses it’s not been a bad year.

Across the board authors are talking about how it has been a harder year this year for indies. Several changes have lowered the visibility and I’ve noticed it has been harder to get ads and promote my novels than it was in 2013. I only expect that to get worse in 2015. There’s also Amazons Kindle Unlimited program which is not good for indies. A few have said it’s raised their exposure and royalties but most have found it has cannabalised their sales and made them less per borrow than they would get if they had a sale. On top of that the traditional publishers are finally working out that ebooks should sell for less. That means more and more competition at the lower prices Indies are used to dominating. Something great for the reader, so in a lot of ways I’m not complaining about that one, but it does mean more competition for visibility even if it doesn’t for spending budget.

Over all it’s been a tough year and reminded me that being an author is a fickle business and hard work. I’m definitely not giving up, however. Instead I’m already working out a plan I’ll have more hope of sticking to that should make more use of Amazon’s rankings and the different books that are selling well this year despite the tougher climate, but I’ll post about my plans for 2015 next week.