Celebrating a year of small successes

I have spent most of 2012 working on my first novel 'Red Kite' and getting it ready to publish as an ebook on Kindle but during the year I have also tried to explore other markets and branch out into different things.

I was thrilled to finally get my article published in Dogs Monthly, discovered the exciting world of letter writing and fillers for magazines which I had never previously enjoyed any success for. I also had a small article published in my own parish magazine which although I was not paid for, I felt that people appreciated what I had written and that is sometimes reward enough.

I had a letter from Hodder and Stoughton in late November and was asked if I wanted  my book 'One Hundred Ways For A Chicken To Train Its Human' to be re-released as an ebook.  That was a lovely surprise and one that I didn't even plan for. So far that little book about chickens has sold 36,293 copies which is amazing to me.  I love the fact that many people love chickens ( or of course it may be that the chickens are buying it!)

My successes are small compared to some writers but I feel very pleased that I have done something related to writing every month including the crazy Nanowrimo which I entered for the first time this November and managed to get the first draft of a possible sequel to Red Kite.

I hope that in 2013 I can at least double my successes.  I plan to market the paper back version of Red Kite, work on a non-fiction children's book and write more articles.

I also have a very odd self imposed challenge which I will blog about on New Years Day 2013.

Thanks to all of you that have read and commented on this blog during 2012.  It gives me such motivation and confidence to carry on and believing that I can call myself a writer.

Happy New Year to you all and hope you have a great 2013. 
x