Time flies when you're having fun, I can't believe I've been a published author for a whole year now. I remember all of the nerves I had on the run up to the big day last year, and how I hit refresh on my amazon ratings over and over again. Jack in the Box reached number 126 in the Scottish Crime charts and I was thrilled.
So, what's happened since then? Well I have published book 2 - Sally In The Woods and the prequel novella Discarded. I've revamped my covers and books are being stocked in a book shop for the first time ever.
Has it been all I dreamed it would be? Well that's a complicated question. In so many way yes and then some. For the last year I've been privileged enough to be able to do my dream job and that's amazing. 12 months ago I didn't know how much I didn't know and it's been a steep learning curve.
Would I have done anything differently? Absolutely - who wouldn't with the benefit of hindsight tweak something? I set pretty lofty goals for publication schedule and this turned out to be simply too ambitious. If I had known that I wouldn't have been so quick to announce my schedule publicly.
One of the things I've always endeavoured to do is be really honest about my experiences, so it goes without saying that I would have made sure Jack In The Box was more ready for publication than it was.
I'm also a real believer in the phrase 'you live and learn' - although some of these lessons have been painful, they've moved me forward and so I'm not going to dwell on them as negative experiences.
And while I'm not making any promises (because I've learnt my lesson) what I'm hoping will happen over the next twelve months is that I'll release another 2 books in the Rowan series. I've also got a standalone novel in my back pocket that I'd like to get out into the world but I'm not sure that's ready yet.
I'm also hoping to get out and about to some book festivals although that won't be until later this year or early 2023. I'm being interviewed for a couple of podcasts over the summer and that's very exciting.
I truly hope that I never have to get a day job again and I can make writing my permanent full time career, however I'm still not in the position with sales for that to be possible so in the meantime I'm in the lucky position that my redundancy payment picks up the slack .
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