2021: my work year in review
I’m not entirely sure how to start this post! Last year, I said I hoped 2021 would be better than 2020, and we all know how that went. So I’ll skip past all that chat and move on to what I achieved this year work-wise!
I really like reading these kind of posts and I hope you do too – I’m always wary though that it sounds like I’m showing off about how productive I am or something. So please feel free to ignore if this isn’t your kind of thing!
But if it is… then step this way.
So. Wow. 2021 was a really interesting year for me.
Web design
In 2020, I built 24 author websites from scratch, which was absolutely too many. I felt very burnt out and exhausted creatively by the end of it, and so I decided to put my prices up and work with fewer clients in 2021.
Which is what I did!
This year I built 16 author websites from scratch – five of which were my new Author Website in a Day service. I absolutely love doing these projects as they are short and sweet and speedy and no-fuss (which is sort of like me, really. Although I’m 5ft 7).
I launched this service in the summer. I didn’t promote it as much as I could have done because I was already fully booked for custom design work in the autumn, and I didn’t have much availability as I was trying to write two books!, but it’s something I really hope to focus on in 2022, as it’s much more flexible for both me and my clients.
Of course, it was a pleasure as always to also build fully bespoke custom websites for amazing authors like Annie Garthwaite, Hannah Gold and Lizzy Barber, among many others.
I also got to work with many of my previous clients, including Emma Christie, Louise Fein and Lesley Kara, updating their websites for them as their new books were released. This is an absolute favourite thing to do as I get to catch up and hear all their news!
I felt like I had a really good balance of writing and web design this year and I hope I can continue at the same pace next year.
Best of all, because I put my prices up, even though I did fewer projects, I actually made the same amount of money from web design as I did in 2020.
Writing
As for books… what a rollercoaster!
My third novel The Perfect Father started to take off in February and eventually stayed in the top 100 on Amazon for two months, peaking at no 12 in the US and no 17 in the UK. It also charted in the USA Today bestseller list, making me an official bestseller! It’s also sold well in audiobook.
It was such a dream to have this happen with my third book (not least because I found it a nightmare to write!!) and I’m really so grateful to everyone who bought a copy.
While all that was going on, I was busy editing the book I finished at the end of 2020 – which has just been published in ebook (the paperback is out next year).
It’s called The Sanctuary and it’s a locked-room mystery about four pregnant women who go off to Devon for the weekend for a luxury yoga break and… well, let’s just say things don’t go as planned.
(If you fancy it - you can find it here!)
It was really fun to write The Sanctuary, and I really hope that people enjoy it as an escapist mystery. It’s a twisty, surprising read and was actually really tricky to write as it has lots of different character viewpoints. Not sure I’ll be doing that again in a hurry…
Once the edits for The Sanctuary were complete, I thought I might try and write something outside of my genre. I had an idea that had been niggling at me for a while.
I was just going to sit on it for a while (maybe years!) - as I didn’t think I was good enough to write it, to be honest. But I had six weeks left of my daughter’s school term in the summer and I thought I’d just start it and see…
Three months later I sent a draft to my agent, and she loved it. Her email actually made me cry.
I can’t say too much about that book yet but it means an awful lot to me – I really loved writing it, even though it was hard, and more than anything I hope it gets published so I can share the story with people. It has a little piece of my soul in it, I think!
Anyway, my main takeaway from that experience is that it’s worth stepping outside of your comfort zone once in a while.
Writing that book really stretched me creatively and emotionally and even though it was massively challenging, I’m really proud of the end result.
Last but not least on the novel front, if you follow me on Instagram you might know that I just finished the first draft of my next psych suspense – which will be published next December by my publisher Quercus.
Again, I can’t say much about it yet as it’s still in the very rough first-draft stages but it’s a claustrophobic, creepy story about two women and a colicky newborn, living together in a remote cottage in a tiny village.
You can already pre-order it here (somewhat terrifyingly).
Things I didn’t do in 2021
You might not have noticed, but in 2021 I pretty much stopped blogging (here!).
In 2020 I blogged once a week, every week. I stuck to it for the whole year. It really helped me build my SEO, and my mailing list – and I still believe that content marketing is insanely powerful, if done well.
However, it’s also really tiring and hard work. Coming up with subjects for blogs alone can be tricky. Even though I’m a writer, I find writing blogs really draining.
And I decided that as I was already fully booked for this year, I could pull back on the marketing slightly and try out some other things.
I really enjoy doing my newsletter, for example. And I also wanted to experiment with Instagram.
I spent this last autumn term (as I have a 6 year old, I think of the year in school terms!!) really focusing on my Instagram and trying to build up my following there. I spent AGES creating reels.
The result? Not great. I’ve enjoyed doing it, but I have also come to the conclusion that Instagram helps a little with brand awareness but really, it’s very small fry compared with content marketing.
(Or I’ve just done it all wrong – more than happy to be told that if so… 😆)
I saw other authors joining TikTok this autumn and started to weep. I’m just not sure that kind of social media is for me, to be honest (although I still love the OG Twitter).
Anyway, I think I’ll cut back a bit on Insta in 2022, and put less pressure on myself to create consistent content, as I really didn’t find it made a huge difference to my following.
Coming up in 2022
I’ve got some exciting plans coming up for 2022 - not least FINALLY launching my DIY Author Website Kit.
(I know I’ve been talking about launching it forever, but it was one of the things I had to de-prioritise sadly).
If you don’t have the budget for my one-to-one services, then I really hope this course will help you to build your own author website quickly and painlessly.
Other than that, I’d love to do more Author Websites in a Day, and I have some great custom design clients booked in already too.
I also want to create some more video content – perhaps for the blog – as this way I can still do content marketing without having to type (I do a lot of typing, my fingers are tired!)
You might also notice that I’ve had a little restructure, so that I’m now offering three distinct services:
DIY Author Website Kit – a new online course for authors on a tight budget, who want to build their own site
Author Website in a Day – my affordable option for authors who don’t want to build their own site
Custom Author Website Design – my premium service, for authors who want to hand the whole shebang over to me
Hopefully this simplifies things and means that there’s an option for me to help you with your author website no matter what stage of your career you’re at, or what budget you have available.
So. Yes.
2021 has been intense!
People often say to me ‘I don’t know how you do it’ but I’ll be honest with you - I don’t have a choice.
My other half is a singer and his income has been hit really hard by Covid over the past two years.
But also, I enjoy my work, and I am very grateful to love what I do. I also think that work keeps me sane, when it feels as though the world is crashing down around my ears.
So, I’d like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who has worked with me this year. ALL the authors I have worked with have been total joys (seriously, I’ve not had one bad client) and I feel very lucky to have this job alongside my own writing.
Wishing you and yours a very restful, healthy and happy festive break, filled with the very best Christmas cheese (Blacksticks Blue is my favourite).
See you in 2022!
