2020: my work year in review
Phew! We made it, 2020 is nearly over. First of all please let me wish you all a very merry Christmas and hope that you all have a very well-deserved restful break over the festive season. I am exhausted, as I’m sure you are too.
I’m hesitant to write something like ‘2021 is going to be great’ because I’ve had a few friends point out that I wrote the same about 2020 last year, when we were all bemoaning 2019. I now, of course, can barely remember anything bad about 2019, aside from the endless Brexit chat. 2019 was utopia in comparison to 2020.
I’m a firm believer though that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and I can’t help but feel a tiny bit of optimism for the future, and hope that this dreadful pandemic inspires a sea-change in the way we’re living.
We all need to consume less, travel less (the impact of all our flights on climate change cannot be ignored), take more care of ourselves and each other, and prioritise our health more… I think that’s my biggest takeaway. I’m not particularly unhealthy, but fitness has always been very far down my list of priorities, and this year I’ve worked really hard on that, trying to exercise at least three times a week.
As I’m turning 40 in January, I’m also well aware that the ability to get away with an unhealthy lifestyle because I’m ‘young’ no longer applies. It’s been a struggle to find the time to exercise what with all the chaos of 2020, but I’ve still done it, and I’m going to try even harder to improve on this next year.
But anyway. This was not meant to be an earnest and hectoring post about exercise! Instead, I thought it would be useful (for me) and perhaps interesting (for you) to write a little summary of all the things I’ve done work-wise this year.
It’s so easy to get stuck on the treadmill, always focusing on the next job in hand, rather than taking some time to reflect on all the jobs you’ve already done! And giving yourself a little pat on the back.
I have worked really hard this year, and I have loved every second of my web design business. I’ve seen it grow more than I could ever have imagined, and in fact, my income from web design overtook my income from writing! Which was quite a surprise.
I didn’t have a particularly robust plan when I started this business. It was more of a ‘jump in and see what happens’ kind of thing. But I did have a huge amount of passion for the subject, and I can honestly say that building websites brings me so much joy. And I do believe that if you feel like that about anything, it’s a bloody good starting point from which to launch a business.
But enough waffle. Here’s some facts and figures on what I did this year:
Built 24 author websites from scratch
As I said, I didn’t have a specific goal in mind for the number of websites I’d like to build when I launched officially at the beginning of the year, but I’m happy to say that I exceeded the vague number in my mind! I’m so proud of each and every one of the sites I’ve built, and can honestly say each project was a joy (authors are the best clients!).
However, I did get close to burn out. I think 24 websites in one year is probably a bit too many for one person to do (!), and that’s why next year I’m reducing the number of projects I’m taking on.
Helped 9 authors with their existing websites
In the spring, I decided to offer website support services after a few author friends asked me for help with their sites.
This help ranged from teaching them more about Squarespace, to taking over their sites for the day and making all the changes they couldn’t face/didn’t know how to do.
I loved doing these short and sweet projects so much, and I hope to do a lot more of them next year.
Blogged once a week for the entire year
Don’t laugh, but of all the things I’ve achieved this year, this feels like the biggest!
I have started so many, many blogs in my long and winding career, and always given up after a few months, or dropped down to posting only once a month or something. But I made a promise to myself that I would blog here once a week for the whole year, and somehow, I have managed to do it!
It’s really helped build awareness of my business – for such a new, niche website, I’ve had an insane amount of traffic to this blog, and I’m so grateful to each and every one of you for visiting.
Built a mailing list of 500
I set myself another goal early on this year – I wanted to get my mailing list to 1000 by the end of the year. And I think, if I’d tried really hard, I could have done it. But I didn’t.
And that’s OK. It takes a long time to build a mailing list, and I know that quality is more important than quantity. My unsubscribe rate is pretty low, so hopefully I’m providing content that people want, and that’s what matters most to me.
Created 3 ebooks and 2 training videos
I created 3 ebooks this year, the most exciting of which was The Debut Author’s Survival Guide, written with my friend Caroline Hulse. I loved doing these – they were the mini-creative projects that kept me going during lockdown when I stopped writing my novel (more on that later…). And they’ve proved really popular with website visitors too – I’ve had some lovely feedback.
I also filmed two training videos – and I’d like to do more of this next year as well. When it comes to techy things, it’s often so much easier to get your point across on video, so hopefully I can think of some more useful subjects to cover.
Created and launched my first online training course
During lockdown, I launched my first online course! It’s all about creating your author newsletter on Squarespace. The reason I launched it was because so many of my web design clients came back to ask me for help with their newsletter, and I thought it’d be great to just have a simple course they could buy and then work through in their own time.
Building this course took WAY more time than I anticipated – they are a lot of work to put together (and the fear of missing something critical out is real!), but online courses are a great source of passive income. I got very excited every time an email dropped into my inbox telling me someone had bought my course!
Next year I really want to launch a similar one for people who’d like to build their own author website on Squarespace. However, I am aware that this will be a massive project, so just need to squeeze it into my calendar somewhere…
Earnt enough to give up the day job
For the past four years I had been working for a software company twice a week, on their content marketing. I got a lot out of the job (I learnt tons of techy stuff, for a start) but to say it wasn’t quite my dream role would be an understatement. However, it was a safe sideline income and all writers will know how crucial that can be.
But in September, I finally got to quit! It was scary, but I now feel confident I can earn enough from my web design. It’s been seriously liberating not having a third job to think about and although I’ll miss being part of a team, it’s taken a huge mental load off and enabled me to really focus on the studio.
So, that’s about it for web design stuff. What about writing?
Published two novels
This year I had two novels published – Unfollow Me came out (finally) in paperback, and The Perfect Father came out in ebook. It’ll be published in paperback next year.
It was amazing to see Unfollow Me in the supermarket, even if I did have to do my cheesy author selfie with it wearing a mask!
Side note: it’s seriously embarrassing having your photo taken next to a book in a packed Tesco. Everyone in the aisle thought I was nuts.
Publishing in a pandemic isn’t ideal, but I’m grateful that books are one of the least-affected sectors of the arts, and so I’m not complaining at all.
Abandoned a novel 17k in
At the start of the year I began writing what I thought would be my fourth novel. I was about 17,000 words into the first draft when lockdown happened, and I realised I couldn’t write with my 5 year old daughter in the house. I decided to take the pressure off myself and shelve it for a while.
When my daughter finally went back to school, it was about six months later and for some reason I just didn’t want to continue writing the novel I had started. I had a newer idea, and I was more excited about that. So I decided to write that instead.
Perhaps I’ll go back to that initial book, perhaps I won’t. I love one of the characters so maybe she’ll get re-used in a different story. Who knows? Writing is still a mystery to me - but at least it’s never boring!
Finished writing my fourth novel
Two days ago I sent my fourth novel to my agent. I wrote two drafts of it in 15 weeks – by far the quickest I’ve ever written anything. Whether or not it’s any good remains to be seen (!), but I’m actually really proud that I pulled off writing something so quickly.
It was really tough and made me a bit ill (my backache this year has been shocking), but I was so aware that at any point we might be back to homeschooling, and was determined to make the most of every hour my 5 year old was at school.
The best bit though is that I really enjoyed writing this book (unlike The Perfect Father, which I found so hard!).
Interestingly, I’ve realised that just because I find a book easy to write, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the one readers like the most…
So who knows what lies in store for this latest novel, but I’ve proved to myself I can write another book, and that in itself always feels like a miracle.
Phew. This is turning into an epic post, as always.
I’ll shut up now. I just want to say a huge great big massive thank you to everyone who’s read my blog, signed up to my mailing list, worked with me, recommended me to their friends, or indeed, bought my books.
I’m so grateful to work in this industry – honestly, it’s been a lifelong dream to be part of the book world. It’s all I ever wanted as a tiny tot, and to think it’s actually my life now, and even more shockingly is paying my bills, is really quite something.
So thank you so much. This blog and I are having a little rest now until January - we look forward to seeing you then! xxx
