Yearly Review – Expectations Achievements and Looking Ahead.

It has been two years since Camelot 2050: Black Knight released so today I’m going to look back at what I’ve achieved and then look ahead at what’s to come. I’m going to start scheduling these yearly reviews to match the timeline of Black Knights release so they should appear around Feb/March time in future.

So, 2019 was a mad year. Worldcon was a massive highlight and having it in Dublin was the catalyst for my decision to go. In future I will definitely be considering travelling further and, as of now, I’m considering going to Worldcon 2021 in Washington (but that’s for the future plans section). I’ve attended a number of literary and film/comic conventions as planned and Camelot 2050 continues to draw new readers to its banner.

I got serious about my new projects following Worldcon. One of them at least was already in planning and another was conceptualised during the event itself so I tend to say that work properly commenced on both around August. We’ll see how they are received by the publishers once they are finished and polished and then I can add some entries to the blog about querying.

I have two Camelot short stories and I’m mulling over what to do with those. They’ve been submitted to magazines and anthologies already but haven’t gained the traction I’d hoped for and so I’m considering creating a few more, either to share here or to put into a Camelot Anthology to appear alongside the Trilogy itself. I might compromise and share a couple then release the anthology a little while later.

Freelance work is in a lull right now but I’m keeping my ear to the ground for upcoming projects. The exciting news there is that Dark Eras 2 (by Onyx Path) has been fully proofed and is headed for release, Contagion Chronicles (at last update) was in layout so, hopefully it won’t be too long before that hits the shelves. As a related note, at DragonMeet this year I brought some copies of Isolation Games Age of Steel and Tormented. Both projects I contributed to and they were very well received so I’ll be doing more of that at the gaming conventions in future.

So, where am I? Two books in the works and looking ahead to the Convention year. This weekend I was back at London Film and Comic Con Spring by ShowMasters and it was a rousing start to my events calendar. I toyed with the idea of MCM Birmingham but think I’ll leave that another year. Still to come though, my years schedule looks like this;

• Eastercon (by Ytterbium, Birmingham NEC)
• Satellite7 (Glasgow)
• Edge-Lit (Derby Quad)
• Young Adult Literature Convention YALC (by ShowMasters, London)
• Redemption (Sheffield)
• Fantasycon (London)
• Bristolcon (Bristol)
• Reading Comic-Con (by Creed Conventions, Reading)

I’ll be looking around for some other events to fill out the list but, as it stands, looking forward to another busy year. It’s really encouraging to go to these events and return to some of them and catch up with people, it’s even more encouraging when they share a few kind words about my work too.

I don’t usually talk about sales but, since I wanted to put in something about managing expectations, I’m going to share the current numbers with you. As of LFCC Spring, and Black Knights two-year anniversary, I’ve sold, in person and online, physical and electronic, a little over five-hundred books. Which isn’t bad for a new, unknown, self-published author but it does represent a lot of work. I dare say I could work harder and, no doubt, I will. Current reader-retention from books one to three is a little under a third of the total but I don’t expect people to read them immediately and I hope Dragon Fire and Dark Magic will catch-up in time.

As I’ve said, looking ahead I have two WiP’s to finish and start querying on and more events to go to to build on Camelot’s readership. I joke occasionally about a Netflix show but it is something I’d like to see one day but I’m fully aware that it might not happen or that it might be a wait. The first Witcher short was printed in a Polish fantasy magazine in the mid-80’s and the property had to wait until 2007 for the English speaking world to latch on to it with the release of the translated anthology and the video-game.

So I’ll keep going, if I’m lucky someone with influence in the right circles will read the book and it will spark with them. But, in the meantime, I’m more than happy for my works to reach out to one person at a time and bring them a little joy.

Remember, making a living out of art might make you successful, but bringing joy to one person makes you a success.