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Oh, right, I have a blog
I am going to be more regular about posting here—dunno if anyone still reads this, but I have no problem yelling into the void.
So, 2024 was not a horrible year for me. Yes, there were bad points—I lost my cat Jessica in July to thyroid lymphoma, and then there was the whole michigas with the election that still makes me want to throw things at the screen. But my writing income continued to increase despite the fact that I only released one book, and I got thisclose to finishing Typhoon Warning. I know, I know, but that book has been fighting me like you would not believe, to the point where I had to start working on other WIPs just to keep my writing muscles loose.
I suspect that part of the block is due to Warning wrapping up the Olympic Cove series. It has a lot of threads that I have to tie together, and it’s kinda freaking me out. Yes, writers can get freaked out by their own work. I just don’t want to screw up the dismount, you know? Storm Season was my first novel and Olympic Cove was my first series, and I want to finish it in a way that pays tribute to both the characters and the readers.
So here we are in 2025, my sales for the month so far have been excellent, I’m running a 99¢ sale on To My Muse for the rest of January, I retitled/recovered Behind the Iron Cross and it’s now on sale as A Seduction in Berlin, and once Warning is done I’m finishing off the rest of the Paladins of Crystal series, then I’ll be focusing on the Hidden Empire and Two Thrones series.
Also, I’m looking for a day job to cover the bills in the meantime. So yeah, 2025 is gonna be a busy, busy year. But hopefully it won’t be as bad as I’ve been fearing. We’ll have to wait and see.
Boy, I’m doing a lot this month
Mrgh. In a rough chronological order, this is what I would like to achieve in January:
- Finish, edit, and publish Shifter Woods: Claw
- Compile and publish the Esposito County Shifters omnibus edition
- Write a short story set in one of my series for my Patreon (right now I’m leaning towards Louisa, Henry, Fyodora, and Callum getting into trouble in Egypt. Because that would be fun.)
- Launch my Patreon with said short story
- Finish, edit, and publish Crystal Blade (Paladins of Crystal 2)
- Start Crystal Reflection (Paladins of Crystal 3)
- Start High Tide (Olympic Cove 5)
- Put together the outline for To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire 3)
- Start recording video for the Sekrit Project (more on that in March or so)
- Start recording Shadow of the Swan as an audiobook
Yeah, I know, it’s a lot. But I need to ramp up from what I achieved in 2022, and that means more books published and more income streams established (I’m putting off the Shopify store until February when I can focus on it).
I also need to come up with some rewards for hitting these milestones, ideally ones that aren’t expensive. Must muse on that some more…
As for 2023…
Yup, it’s definitely a new year. As I didn’t go anywhere last night to celebrate New Year’s Eve (mainly because I am Olde™) I woke up bright and early this morning, fed the J Crew, updated all of my ads on Amazon, and entered my December income and ad numbers into my tracking spreadsheet.
(BTW, If you’re hung over and glaring at me right now for my unholy bounciness, I do apologize. Go take some Alka-Seltzer and nibble on a piece of dry toast when you feel ready for it..)
Anyhoo, the data is pretty clear—my bestselling titles are definitely paranormal romance (I consider Olympic Cove to be paranormal since it’s not classic fantasy romance and technically you could call Bythos, Aphros, and all the merfolk shifters) and the Hidden Empire series did ridiculously well in 2022 considering that it only has two books in it. This is good because it allows me to drill down into my particular paranormal romance niche (historical paranormal romance with vampires/witches/shifters) and make it work for me. It also looks like I will definitely be writing To Love a Wild Swan one way or another this year (starring Louisa’s Fae cousin Nessa, now the Swan Queen, and what happens when she’s f/o/r/c/e/d/ persuaded to enter a betrothal to an arrogant Fae prince. Yep, it’s an enemies-to-lovers story—think Anna Joy-Taylor in full Emma. mode teamed up with Sam Reid from Interview with the Vampire and you’ve got the right idea).
Because hey, who needs sleep?
Also, I really, really, REALLY need to get the last two books of the Olympic Cove series done and out there. *rubs face* I think I have to try dictating books while I walk because that might be the only way I can get everything I want to write finished in a reasonable amount of time.
The joys of December, she said darkly
For other people, normal people who don’t have other people in their heads forcing them to write down their stories, December can be fraught. There are holidays to prepare for, gifts to buy, houses to clean, families to deal with, and all the other joys that come with a massive communally celebrated event.
For writers, we get all that plus deadlines. For instance, as of tonight I have officially pulled the trigger on the pre-orders for The Crimson and the Black (Hidden Empire Book 2), with a release date of January 25, 2022, and Crystal Shard (Paladins of Crystal Book 1) with a release date of March 15, 2022). Are the books finished? Ho ho ho—you must be jesting.
But it is a truth universally acknowledged that Nicola works best with deadlines, otherwise she’ll faff about and waste time reading social media or watching Netflix. And it’s not like this is totally impossible or I’m starting from zero. Crimson is about 1/3rd finished—if I light a fire under my butt I should be able to get the rest of it knocked out by New Year’s Eve, and the editor stands ready to take acceptance of it on January 7th after I do a fast edit. I will also be working on Shard (which is about 2/15ths finished by comparison) in parallel, but that doesn’t have to be ready until mid-February so I can focus on Crimson as necessary.
As I’ll be rapid releasing the Paladins of Crystal books starting in March with Crystal Shard, I’ll be starting Crystal Blade as soon as Crimson is done. The plan is to work on two books at the same time with the focus on the next one to be released in order to meet the release schedule:
- March 2022: Crystal Shard
- April 2022: Crystal Blade
- May 2022: Crystal Reflection
- June 2022: Crystal Citadel
- July 2022: Crystal Empress
Barring death or something bad happening to my hands, I should just about be able to pull it off. And then I’m taking August off because phoo. My writing schedule for the rest of the year will depend on what’s selling best which at the moment are the Two Thrones, Hidden Empire, and Pacifica Rising series. If that’s still the case in August, I may do Mage of Fire, To Love a Wild Swan, and Uncertainty Principle to round out 2022. And yes, I can hear the shrieks of outrage from Olympic Cove fans who are waiting patiently for the last two books in the series. All I can say right now is that I have to work on what’s profitable—if sales of Cross Current pick up, I’ll do those books instead.
But—if Paladins of Crystal does as well as I think it can, I have two related series that I can start working on in September and start off with a January 2023 rapid release schedule. My goal right now is to make $50K in income by the time 20Booksto50k 2022 starts in Vegas, and this is how I’m going to do it.
*touches fingertips together* That being said, I need help from you. I’ve found some places that advertise reverse harem romances and I’m contacting them, but if you know of any reviewers, bloggers, sites, et al that specialize in RH, please please PLEASE point me towards them. I’m going to stack promos around the release of Crystal Shard, but I want the RH fandom to be aware well before then that the book is coming out and the other four in the series will follow quickly.
So, yeah, December is gonna be a busy month for me. But I feel good about this—I have solid outlines, I know my characters well, and I’m going to do my damnedest to write some amazing romances. Let’s get ‘er done.
Nicola Cameron Writes 