This is part two of my H1 review of Jan-June. You can read Part One here:
All the books I've read so far and other stuff
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?
But now it’s time for the scary bit: money…
I was so tempted to turn on paid subs for this post so I could hide it behind a veil of secrecy, but I don’t want to charge money and Substack makes it far too complicated to do a subscriber-only email.
So here I am, exposing myself on the internet for all to see.
If you wandered in here by accident without knowing who I am, you can find out about my grand scheme to become a fast-release indie crime author (and how it went wrong before it ever really began) here.
You can also read more about how you’re MEANT to do things here:
But here’s the short version:
I have two books out currently. Here they are.
And here are the sales figures for year to date. If you aren’t a subscriber I’d really appreciate it if you became one.
Although this is my H1 report, I can’t seem to filter Jan-Jun figures. So here are the year to date results:
Copies sold
Usually, fast-release crime fiction relies on Kindle Unlimited, so getting actual book sales is a nice bonus. I think this is mainly friends and you lovely people, along with some of the UK Crime Novel gang.
Aside from a brief experiment in June, I haven’t advertised the books yet. The received wisdom is wait until book 3 comes out to spend money on promotion.
I know some people have bucked the trend on that, but even if I’d wanted to be one of those lucky outliers, I wouldn’t have had the time to get my head around it because Meta’s ads suite is like the 10th circle of hell.
Money
Print makes barely any money compare to digital. It’s almost not worth the extra hassle, but it’s so nice to have real copies to wave around.
I keep meaning to take that free ebook down. It’s funny to see it get a few pennies from someone reading a page in KU. That eBook started this whole chain of events so I probably won’t ever get round to removing it.
As you can see, I’m not giving up the day job just yet, but it’s still be really lovely to say “I’ll pay for a takeaway with my royalties this week.”
Page reads
Kindle Unlimited works more like Spotify or Library lending in that the author gets paid from a big pot of money that is portioned out based on the number of pages read.
As you can see from this chart of Kindle Unlimited reads, I didn’t offer to buy any takeaways in May…
June uplight was presumably from the little ad experiment, but that means I spent any money I made that month on ads.
I think this equates to about 28 reads so I haven’t really cracked KU by any stretch.
It would have been nice to have come out and become a miracle overnight success, but really the best way to start actually earning money is for me to start writing faster and releasing more books.
And then I have to get my head around FB and Amazon advertising, which I’m slightly dreading. This is the moment you wish you’d tried to get a publisher instead.
But I didn’t, so buy my books here:
Mindset
Although I have all the know-how on how to increase my writing pace, I still struggle just to sit and get the words down.
My writing group has been amazing for that. I now sit with other writers in silence and just bash out words. Often when I read them back the next day, they’re less terrible than I imagined they would be.
Over the weekend I read what I had so far of book 3 and it was actually quite fun and making sense!
I also had a good chat recently with my friend Sue Smith and I think I’m getting better at telling the critical voice to do one. And this advice from Dean Wesley Smith hit home.
Other more fun things in review
My garden and allotment have been coming along nicely. Given my tendency to focus on the negatives, I am having to resist the urge to tell you that my crops have been pretty dismal so far. Instead I’m going to tell you that I have made great strides in clearing my allotment plot and getting the site ready for a better 2026.
I remember when all this was field I still haven’t finished editing the big video I was doing about the allotment transformation. One day…
I have sung in public multiple times and no one told me to stop.
You can read about one occasion here
I still can’t spell occasion without getting it wrong the first time. Being told necessary is “two sleeves and a collar” makes spelling occasion harder, it turns out.
I have attempted to record some audiobook stuff. I’m going to give away the first two chapters of The Man in The Wall soon and the audio versions will accompany them.
Two of our German lodgers will be leaving tomorrow and it’s going to be a bit sad not to have a three-year-old in the house anymore.
I have torn a ligament in my ankle (again). This happens every few years and is a right pain in the ankle. It has stopped me doing the allotment (which is where I did it) and given me an easy excuse to stop exercising.
But before that, I was finally back in the swing of exercising, after a very flaky 2024. Turns out, I just want to do the same Les Mills Shapes class over and over and that is fine.
I set up a Facebook, a Website a Twitter, an Instagram and Bluesky for KJ Lyttleton and then proceeded to barely update any of them. Follow me though!
Right, that will do. If you enjoyed me baring my soul, you can reward me by subscribing. (Or buy me a coffee if you really like!)
Thanks Katie/KJ - honest, informative, amusing
Thank you for sharing this!