I hope you had a safe and fun end to 2024. In this edition of my newsletter, I have a brief report on how 2024 went for me as a writer, what I'm working on now, and what you're likely to see from me in 2025.

My 2024

I had a pretty great 2024 with my writing, which I adopted as my more-or-less full time job starting in fall of 2021. In 2024, I released two books, the mystery What Grows From the Dead and the comedic fantasy novel The Glorious and Epic Tale of Lady Isovar.

Both had a great start. I was able to land a competitive BookBub promotion for What Grows From the Dead, and that really helped the book take off with over 30,000 downloads in a week. The book now has over 585 reviews on Amazon, the most for any of my books (by a margin of over 200), and it's been among the widest read of any of my books, both this year and all-time.

The Glorious and Epic Tale of Lady Isovar had a good launch too. Coming out around the middle of the year, it got some good early buzz and ended up being a semifinalist in the SPFBO competition with some very positive reviews. It's up to 63 reviews on Amazon now, and at a 4.7 average rating, is one of my most beloved books as far as reviewers and raters go.

My sci fi book Kenai, released in 2023, had a great run in the 3rd Self-Published Sci Fi Competition (SPSFC) founded by Hugh Howey a few years back. The contest started with 221 books and nine judging teams back in summer of 2023. Kenai survived several rounds of cuts to reach the semifinals and then the finals, one of six remaining books in April of this year. A couple of months later, Kenai came out on top, winning the competition. That's been wonderful for the book, and I've gotten to meet a bunch of great authors, bloggers, and readers thanks to the competition. It's had a very strong second half of 2024, reaching 318 reviews on Amazon and tons of page reads via Kindle Unlimited. A couple of months ago, we completed work on the audiobook version narrated by the great Jennifer Pratt, so that's available too on Audible and other places.

I'll do an in-depth financial analysis of my year on my blog but a quick peek at the numbers for 2024 shows some good progress:

• Total books distributed in 2024: 57,806
• Free ebooks: 56,062 (97% of copies distributed)
• Paid sales: 1744 (3% of copies distributed)
• Paperbacks: 151 (8.5% of total paid sales)
• Audiobooks: 131 (7.5% of total paid sales)
• Kindle Unlimited pages read: 862,389 (equal to about 1570 books)
• Total revenue: $7,189 (includes ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks, Kindle Unlimited, in-person convention sales, and a short story I sold to a magazine). That's up about $2200 over last year.

Here's the revenue breakdown by source.

In terms of year-over-year growth, I had a better 2024 than 2023, and that's great. As one example, here are my Kindle Unlimited page reads starting in 2019 to now.

Current Projects

I've hit about 63,000 words in my current project, a mystery about a librarian who discovers a body in her living room. I'm on the home stretch here, and I hope to have a first draft done sometime in January. With edits and rewrites, I'm probably looking at March for a release for that, but that will depend on how fast I go and how much work it needs.

I have 35,000 words of a sci fi novel written that's been on hold since August. This is one that I'm really excited to get back to after the mystery is done. It's set in the same fictional future as Daros and Kenai, and it's about a member of a long-range ship's engineering crew who gets caught up in sabotage, mutiny, and a plot that might threaten what's left of humanity. For that one, I'm looking at probably a mid-year release.

I'm in the middle of reviewing the audiobook version of What Grows From the Dead. That should be out in January. My narrator, Tim Alexander, is very good, and he has done a great job bringing Morris and the rest of the characters to life.

I'm also in the middle of judging the 4th annual SPSFC, the indie sci fi competition that Kenai did so well in last year. I didn't have a new book to enter, so I thought I'd try judging. I have read the beginnings of 16 books now as part of one of the six judging teams, and we're about ready to announce the quarterfinalists out of our group of 31 or so entrants.

Some stories to try

I'm part of several author collectives, and we share each other's work to try to help all of us reach more readers. In many cases, the books we share are are free or discounted. Sometimes, they ask that you sign up for a newsletter like this one. Here are some new books I have to share this month - there are a lot of them this time around:

First off, I have Mirrors by Rebekah Dodson. Winner of two indie fiction awards, and currently free, this book sends two college students back in time to the early middle ages on a wild adventure.

Next, I have Sapience by Alexis Lantgen, a set of sci fi short stories about how humanity might look should we grow out into our solar system. The paperback is having a flash sale for $2.99 in the US, and the ebook is reasonable as well.

Next, I have the Fantasy and Forensics series by Michael Angel, which sends a modern-day crime scene investigator into a magical world filled with magic, monsters, and fantastic beasts. There are ten books in total in the well-reviewed series.

Next, I have Spark by Mel Todd. This free story is the lead in to an upcoming series. It's about a woman destined for an unwanted arranged marriage who takes hold of the rising tide of magic seeping into the world to try to control her own fate.

Next, I have Tides of Blackness by Luna Fox and F. Lowberry, one of the many books in their several series about dracomancers and their struggles and triumphs. This one is the start of a series.

Next I have a great curated group promotion for mysteries, thrillers, and suspense with a whopping 156 books to explore. There are a lot of great authors here, and the organizer filters the participants, so these should be a step above.

Finally, I have a set of 56 thriller, mystery, and suspense books that are all available for free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Lots of subgenres and authors here! Check it out below.

Thank you!

I'm really grateful to you for being part of my little literary world. I am excited to share some new books with you in the coming year, and if you haven't made it through my other nine yet, I hope you'll give them a try.

I hope you and your friends and family have a terrific start to 2025!

May the Bloodmother watch over you - 

Dave