December/2025 Wrap Up & New Year Resolutions

December

December has been a mixed bag, at least where my writing has been concerned. I've been struggling to do more than my minimum goal each week, and I'm behind by about 3,300 words on Lost Mask. December also contains both my birthday and Christmas, so if I take those into account, I'm not as far behind, but it's nowhere near where I want to be, especially if I want to meet some goals I have for 2026.

That all said, December hasn't been too stressful, which was nice. For the first time in over a decade, we had snow on the ground for most of the month, which is a huge change from when I was a child and Wisconsin would have snow on the ground from November to March. As an adult who has to drive in it and work in an industry that gets hectic with the snow, this is a mixed bag, but it's been kinda nice, I enjoy seeing snow on the ground when I don't have to drive through it or shovel it.

As for sales, as expected, December has been my best month ever. Odd note about that, Moonrise has sold less copies than Elite Ascent, but thanks to KU, has made more money this month. Honestly I'm surprised just how well the book is doing. It didn't get many preorders, which wasn't surprising given it was a new series, and it did ok in October, which was the thematic month. Then in November it sold more than twice what it did in October, and while December isn't quite that good, it still made more than October. So as I said, December has been such a mixed bag, but a positive month overall.

2025

So 2025 has been a hell of a year. I'm going to ignore all the political turmoil going on in the world, this is about my writing. This is the first full year that I've been writing. I published three books, started my Patreon, and . The three books was a goal I knew I could do, but I already had one book partially written and started another as a side project early. This led to an odd cadence where I felt like the latter half of the year I spent most of my time editing and setting up my world anvil pages. It s what it is and I can't argue with the results. I held Moonrise longer than I felt comfortable with for a Thematic release that I don't feel like really did much. In the future I might do so again, but not for the length of time I held Moonrise.

Patreon was not something I intended to start this year. I wanted to wait for people to start asking about it before I put together as It felt greedy to just put it up and go hey, support me. But then Patreon announced they were increasing the percentage they take unless you were signed up before a certain date. I talked with other authors about when they put up their Patreon and realized I was being greedy, so I commissioned art and set it up.

I commissioned 8.5 official pieces of art. The one is not commercially licensed yet, but I might get that in the future. I've also switched from using Grammarly to ProWritingAid to help me edit. It has a lot more tools and I was able to buy a lifetime subscription for 50% off, which was slightly more expensive than a single year of Grammarly.

Overall, I'll have made about 3/5's to 3/4 the amount I make from my current job from my books. I would love to be able to go full time writing, but until my books make more money than my day job reliably, I just have to go as I am. I'm also concerned about eventual retirement and want to buy a house. As it is, My job allows me to write while I'm at work, so I get to double dip. It's going to be very hard to give that up, but I would like to go full time in the future, but it might be a few years before I find it to be feasible. I imagine my tax returns are going to be significantly impacted this year, for multiple... annoying reasons, the big one is I don't automatically pay in from my earnings on Amazon, but it is what it is.

So with all that said, from a writing perspective, 2025 has been great.

2026 Resolutions

Write Three Books: Since I'm only 42K into Lost Mask, and I feel like its going to be a longer book than any of my previous ones, this might be a struggle. I think I can do it, so I'm setting it as a goal, but we'll see how close I get. If I can get myself to regularly write 1500 words a day or more, I see this being a lot more acheivable. The plan is Lost Mask and then the sequel to Moonrise. For book three, I don't know. I want to do the second Arc to Ashes, and it is definately something I will 100% do. However, I am going to look at sales. A lot will depend on my muse and how well Lost Mask is doing compared to my other books. Either way, the first book of the year will be Lost Mask, the second book will be the sequel to Moonrise, it's only book three that is in question.

Audiobooks: I don't use audiobooks myself, I just... can't stand having a story read to me. There are other reasons I don't like them for myself, but I'll not get into that. While I might not enjoy them myself, I fully support them. I understand just how convenient they are for some people and they get books out to a wider audience. So I want to offer them. I've already tried reaching out a couple publishers but haven't heard anything back. Starting in January, I'm going to expand the list I'm reaching out to, and I'm going to contact them more. I may also consider producing them myself, but that's expensive. I'll have to see how sales go, and plan from there, but I really want to start offering audiobooks this year.

Redbubble: Merch Store!!!! lol. This is an optional one, but I might just set it up so you guys can get some stuff if you want. I really love the art I've gotten so far, so hey, if you guys want a poster or something. I've already used it to get some stuff for myself personally, like a desk mat. Honestly, I might even go back and get commercial rights for some of my personal art pieces. We'll see, this is a low priority.

Publish Wide: This is another optional one. Why haven't I done this already. To be in Kindle Unlimited, I have to be exclusive with Amazon. Right now, KU is about 60-70% of my income from my books. It offers a way for people to simply give my book a chance without having to buy them. Kobo Plus and a couple others do this without requiring exclusivity, but they simply don't have the same market share as Amazon. Why consider it then, well Amazon is Amazon. They are going big into AI, to the point that they are putting out a feature next year called Ask This Book that authors can't opt out of. There's been a lot of articles and it doesn't seem as bad as when first people found out about it, but without the ability to opt out and the way Amazon keeps going, I might consider moving away from them. If it weren't for the exclusivity clause, I would be publishing wide as it is. I know an author who already pulled their books from KU and went wide, so I want to see how things go for them and reevaluate as the year goes on.

Personal Goals: Along with all of this I want to work on my personal health. Eat better, exercise, and in general change my lifestyle. I put this here because it might interfere a bit with my writing, but I want to get in better health so I can keep writing for the next forty years or more. I also want to buy a house or condo. I don't know if that will be possible this year, but it's something I'm working towards. I want to get out of the apartment. As I'm writing this I can hear a dog in one of my neighboring apartments howling as I sit here with gaming surround sound headphones on. I'll not get into parking, or coin fed washers and dryers or the whole slew of other things living in an apartment entails. If I manage it, expect me to be on hiatus for a month or so. I'll try to keep up as much as I can during it, but house hunting, paperwork, and moving would just eat into my ability to write. We'll see how things go.

In Conclusion

So this is a long post, but I hope people have had a good 2025 and aren't too bogged down by all the crap going on in the world, and I hope 2026 is a better year for everyone.