Reflecting on 2019 and Plans for 2020

Happy New Year Everyone!

It’s January 1, the best time to reflect on the previous year and to plan the next one. It’s a long read, so strap yourself in.

If you were here back when I started to write the series again in the summer of 2018, then you could probably tell that this year was not a good one for me. Just in my writing, I went from timely posting 2 updates per week in 2018 to not even 1 update per week in 2019. The main culprit for this is my job.

For the last six years, I’ve made a living by selling items on Amazon. This business had worked very well for me, allowing me to make about double what I could earn doing anything else. And despite a family tragedy in 2017, 2018 was my best year.

Unfortunately, 2019 didn’t follow the same trajectory. The sales started out weak and had gotten weaker every month. April’s sales were a mind-blowing 30% compared to April of 18. At that point, I was no longer able to fully pay my bills, which caused me quite a bit of anxiety and pushed me into a depression.

It was actually worse than you think. This business is very money intensive: more money = more inventory = more sales = more profit. No longer earning enough, I had no choice but to pull money out of the business. That meant I had less money to buy inventory, with fewer items bought my sales would be lower as well, which meant even less profit, and an even greater deficit the next month.

It’s quite a vicious death cycle that is nearly impossible to break. Seeing that not only was my current situation bad but that the future would be even worse, amplified my anxiety and pushed me further into depression.

It comes as no surprise, but an attitude of “Life sucks, then you die,” is not conducive to being a motivated self-starter. As a result, all other areas of my life have suffered, my weight ballooned far beyond healthy, and I’ve developed a number of bad habits. My writing suffered as well, as I just couldn’t bring myself to write anything, resulting in several periods of over a month of no updates.

I’ve persisted, doing the best I could, and the sales began to improve. September sales were the same as in 2018. Sadly, October’s sales were just as bad as April’s, and November wasn’t much better. December sales were up, thanks to all the Christmas shopping. But it’s hard to say what the new year will be like, and overall 2019 sales were 64% year over year.

You might be thinking “Just get a new job,” but, even with lower sales, I am still making as much or more than I could possibly make anywhere else. So, getting a new job isn’t a solution. I could get another job while keeping the Amazon business going, and perhaps I’ll be forced to do that. But that’s not really a healthy solution as I would be working most of the time, with little time for anything else.

Seeing how I’ve always gone the entrepreneurial road to make money, I thought of a better idea. Why not make money through my writing! If you are thinking that this is a dumb idea, you’d be right. My writing isn’t that good, and even if it was, making a living as an author is very tough. But, there are such people. And I am determined to give it a try (truthfully, this had always been my plan.) I figured since writing (and reading your comments!) makes me happy, it’s probably more beneficial even if I fail to make money with it than getting a job that makes me feel dead inside.

I’ve also begun to work on other areas of my life. I’ve lost some 20 pounds since October. And with a renewed focus on the basics of the Amazon business, I am optimistic that the new year will be better.

But, trying to make a living through writing will be my main focus for 2020.

What does that mean? For one, a change in attitude. Instead of writing when I feel like it, I’ll be writing every day. Which means consistent on-time updates! I will also begin writing an original web serial. After considering several storylines, I’ve settled on a lighthearted litRPG with a working title of Chaos Bunny.

I also plan to set up a Patreon page, so if you wanted to support my writing, you could. For the Patreon patrons, I plan to offer updates 1, maybe 2 weeks in advance. Make completed volumes available for download in epub, .mobi and pdf formats. And perhaps offer more frequent updates if certain goals are met. However, I am open to your suggestions, so let me know if you have any good ideas for what else I could offer.

It will probably take me a month to get all of the above done (as I’d need to have a bunch of parts done and ready in advance.) But that is my first goal for the year.

If I am able to write enough to keep both the Overlord fanfiction and Chaos Bunny updates coming with no issues, then I would like to write and publish some books. First, would be a comprehensive “How to sell on Amazon” book to learn how self-publishing works (it’s also easy for me to write such a book.) Then a litRPG trilogy (the plot for which I had since Fall of 2018). But, I am getting ahead of myself here.

So, those are my writing plans for 2020. I also want to thank you for sticking with me through 2019, and I hope you’ll continue to read my stories (and spread the word about them) in this new year 🙂