I did a few H1 reports for clients last week, assessing progress and sharing ideas for the second half of the year and I thought, why not do one for myself?
My personal January – June 2025 H1 Report
Books I read
Over the past few years I have been trying to increase my reading. After many years spent with an addled baby brain followed by a terrible phone addiction, not to mention the “Oh, I just read an article about that” disease that so many middle class people suffer from,1 learning to read books again has been an active process, involving (in part) tracking my progress, blocking social media via JOMO for much of the day, and leaving my phone in a different room in favour of carrying a book or eReader everywhere instead.2 Also, stickers.
I’m still not quite there with it, which is partly why I only read 17 books (and a play3). I’m planning on speeding up in H2 by actively setting aside time every day to sit and read.
Notes:
I have a few DNFs (did not finish) on the pile that I might finish in this next quarter, so that may boost my numbers soon. But these days, if I’m not enjoying a book (usually the one that everyone is raving about right now), I put it down.
I absolutely count audiobooks in my totals. For most books I do combined reading and listening (via Libby or Spotify). Don’t be telling me listening to someone read me the book isn’t the same as reading. Reading is a man-made construct; listening to stories has existed forever.4 I remember the ones I’ve listened to better than the ones I read.
Most books on the list were absolute crackers. Nearly all the reviews start with “Really enjoyed this” or “loved this” or variations thereof5. The only ones I didn’t enjoy so much were:
The Thursday Murder Club. I felt like Osman was portioning the plot out like Bumble feeding Oliver and the orphans. I have the next two and might read them to see if it was just professional jealousy over his massive success.
The Wrong Hands. This was funny and I loved it to start with, but towards the middle I felt my smile start to curdle after one too many quips at the expense of just telling the story (especially as there was no real mystery). But I’m aware that I can be a bit like that with funny books and I really hope my own comedy novel (coming soon!) doesn’t fall foul of this.
Lady Catherine’s Necklace by Joan Aiken is a sequel to Pride & Prejudice. Sometimes I wonder if people who write sequels to P&P really even like Jane Austen. Aiken clearly thinks Austen books need more plot and included coach crashes, people walking into fires, cat rescues, jewel thieves, kidnappers and a final ludicrous plot twist straight out of gothic fiction (and told as an kind of “Oh, by the way,” postscript in letter form. If this had been a Victorian-set children’s story, I’d have enjoyed it as a rather melodramatic adventure romp. As it was, all I could hear throughout was Jane Austen heckling from her grave as yet another character talked at length about their feelings.
That said, I’ve got her Emma sequel Jane Fairfax, and I might still read it.
Please subscribe to Ian Marchant’s excellent newsletter (and explore the archive). His emails are nice and short (unlike mine) and he writes with honesty (both sad and funny) about his terminal cancer and his race against time to publish his new novel. Unlike Raynor Winn, Ian isn’t pretending a long walk is going to sort him out.
My review for Ian’s non-fiction book One Fine Day started “God, I loved this book” and I really did. Looking forward to The Breaking Wave, Ian’s first novel in a long time.
Yes, I did skip some of the poems in Possession. I’m not doing an English degree.
Books I have published
I set myself a highly ambitious publishing schedule at the start of the year. Even as I was doing it, I knew I was being entirely too hopeful about my ability to write and publish at the speed you’re meant to write and publish if you want to make it as an indie crime author.
So H1 is a huge failure in that respect.
But I don’t care.
I am so proud of what I’ve achieved, and although I haven’t finished it yet, I am enjoying working on the third Aldhill Mystery novel (which I can’t think of a name for).
The Man In the Wall launched 3rd January
I probably messed up the algorithms a bit by telling everyone about it, but at the time I decided it would be silly to finally admit my Top Secret Project and then not actually mention the book was available.
People really liked it! Getting so many nice reviews from members of the UK Crime Novels FB group was the biggest relief. Those people read a LOT of crime novels and if they approved then I must be doing something right. Also, people found it funny, which made me happy.
Sometimes I think about cutting the prologue section out as I know it has put a few people off…
A Star Is Dead launched late after I quietly shifted the pre-launch
I haven’t really talked about the major drama I created for myself by NOT HAVING IT READY in time for the pre-launch cut off date (despite pushing the launch back).
I discussed it a little bit here if you’re interested:
Exciting unboxing video
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Very highly produced video of me opening my first two KJ Lyttleton crime novels!
People really liked it! I’m so proud of this one. It was the first novel I actually wrote (what became book one was meant to be a short freebie prequel novella to drive mailing list sign ups). I cut tonnes of stuff I really liked from this book and I got to the stage with it where I had no idea if it was any good or not.
At the last minute I changed a character name… twice… and some of my early very kind readers spotted where I had still got the two old names in. Thank god you can update digital editions easily, and thank god I didn’t make the print version available until I was happy it was ready.
This whole experience was a BIG LESSON.
But I can’t promise I won’t do it again. I know myself too well for that.
Maz Star: A Massive Inconvenience is nearly ready for Arc Readers!
In fact, finishing off the digital edition to send out is what I should be doing right now, instead of typing this.
I did briefly consider trying to get an agent to take this on as I think it needs to find a different market to standard sci-fi novels, but then I remembered how long all that takes and decided just to stick with the plan.
I love this book and I probably could actually write this genre as quickly as you need to write to make money as an indie author… But comedy sci-fi doesn’t really make money, so I think it will just continue to be the pudding I treat myself to after I finish the crime main course. I hope some of you will read it.
If you would like a free ARC copy to review (as always on a fast turnaround), please hit reply or leave a comment.
Sales
No mid-year review is complete without performance metrics. I hate doing this bit of any report since it can feel both stark and essentially meaningless. It’s also scary to reveal.
However, I think it would still be nice to share the warts and all progress with my subscribers. And given this email has reached its length limit, I will have to do it in a separate email. So if you want to get the sales figures (prepare to be underwhelmed), hit SUBSCRIBE or forever live without knowing…
This statement is usually followed by “I can’t quite remember exactly what it said now.”
Boox Note Air, Kobo Mini or Kobo Aura. Bringing the Kobo Mini back from the dead was probably one of the great undertakings of my life thus far.
Yes the play counts. I read An Inspector Calls because my eldest wanted to talk to me about it.
Even before language, I reckon. You can convey a lot with “Ugg” and hand gestures.
Seriously. I need to get better at writing reviews.
Yay look forward to Book 3 and the official Maz release. 🫶🏻😘