Once again with the year coming to an end I take a look back at the twelve months just gone and set out goals for the next.

I had two clear objectives for 2022. The first was to get the first book of my new weather apocalypse series ready for release early 2023, but it ended up on the shelf in favour of my new episode based zombie thriller staring Agent Carrie Harris. My second objective also didn’t have the staying power and I’ve done no work on the IN THE END standalone book.

Other goals included releasing the second in the James Fisher series, the sequel to FATE’S AMBITION, but that didn’t happen and so I’ve carried it forward to this year.

2022 was also the year to determine whether the events I attend made financial sense and its now obvious to me that they do as this year has been a wonderful success. With Operation Dawn Wolf the standout seller, each of my novels and bundle of short stories have held their own too.

Despite the lack of hitting my specific project goals, I achieved my over-arching goal to make 2022 primarily about producing written content having written over 135,000 words.

The first release of the year came in January with my first short story. Harm’s Way ended up sparking a new interest for the writing format and I’d written a second short, Out of the Blue, only days after finishing the first. Hot on its heals came the idea for Stopping Power, a new short story to test the crossover format of Agent Carrie Harris battling to stop the zombie apocalypse from happening.

With Out of the Blue released in April, I was contacted by someone interested in looking at whether Operation Dawn Wolf could be made for the screen, and although we’re not much further forward with that process, the idea is not completely dead in the water.

Stopping Power, the original short story, also released in April. All this while I’d been working on the edit of the first book in my weather apocalypse series, but in May after deciding to release the new zombie crossover book as a series of episodes, and very much enjoying the writing process, I decided to shelf the weather apocalypse for a short while. Well I’ve been writing Stopping Power solidly since then and I’m really pleased I’d made this decision, knowing I can pick up the other unfinished book at some stage.

Today marks the release of the tenth episode of the planned fifteen!

https://mybook.to/stoppingpowerseries

This month also marks the first complete year of switching to MailerLite and signing up to BookFunnel to boost subscribers, sales and page reads. Although I can’t be sure either directly effect my sales to an extent that covers their costs, both services are a must for the modern author trying to get their books to the masses.

2022 IN NUMBERS

Figure show units for 2022 against 2021.

Ebook & Paperback Sales (Online) = 391 (-1,400)

Paperback Sales (In Person) = 400 (+300%)

Short Story Sales (Signed Paperbacks) = 550 (Zero in 2021)

Kindle Unlimited Page Reads = 144,716 (-750,000)

Audiobook Sales = 147 (-609)

Paid book sales total = 1,901 (-3,148)

The drastic drop in sales may look terrible at first glance but with the change of focus from working heavily on advertising in 2021 (and paying huge amounts of money in the process) to concentrating on creating content and in-person sales, 2022 is looking to be more profitable and doesn’t come with the constant stress of paid advertising.

LOOKING TO 2023

I see 2023 as doing much of the same. I plan to concentrate of generating content, in particular finishing season one of Stopping Power, plus writing the book version of this blog and finally getting the at least one of the Fate’s Ambition sequels edited and released.

The only other objective will be to build up the events, not just on quantity (I have more booked this year than last), but also to increase profitability. To me that means finding more things to sell, be it my work or side line products such as the book page holders and other merchandise.

Right. That’s it for the review. With my book sales able to pay for new content I consider 2022 to be a success and I’m glad to raise a glass to the next year! See you in 2023.