Welcome to this extremely belated annual report. I have no other excuse than: IT’S BEEN 2020! I’ll keep it short and (bitter) sweet.

First thing first: I actually published a book in 2020! Black Lily, the fourth book in The 9 Lives of the Outlaw Known as Crazy Cat series was published on January 15th. I did a Kindle giveaway for it on Goodreads with 100 winners (340 people requested it). And that just about sums up all things book related I managed to squeeze into the year of the dark lord 2020.

I got a new job in 2020. After about six months of getting schooled, I became a bona fide train conductor. I love my new job, even the crazy hours I work. The crazy hours grant me more time off work but every day is different, and I find it hard to work on projects with the same kind of consistency I was able to with my 08.00-16.00 job. Don’t get me wrong, I would never ever trade my new job for anything else! But I’ve come to realize that I no longer have the time, energy or interest to pursue all of my hobbies with the same gusto that I used to… Something’s gotta give but it won’t be writing, I can assure you of that. Also, I’ve started to learn Spanish.

My plans for this year is to maybe finish editing the next Crazy Cat book and probably publish a project with Ingvild Eiring. I’m trying to be realistic here and make room/time to actually enjoy myself with my sundry hobbies with the whole damn world in lockdown because of a global pandemic. Until next time: Tippin’ my hat to y’all! And be sure to wear your bandanas like you’re robbing a bank.

Tintype of Ingvild Eiring as a plague doctor.

The Numbers

As you’ve probably deduced from the title, I’ve made six similar blog posts to this one. Scroll down or hit the “Annual Report” category to find them. I started doing these annual reports and sharing the actual numbers of my success and failures as a self-published author because I missed this kind of information myself when I published my first novel in late 2013.

I’ve made a few minor changes this year: I’ve omitted my photo books from the stats (this was never really about them anyway) and I’ve decided to no longer mention “merchandise sold.”

Copies Sold 

As always, when I say “sold,” I mean all copies in distribution, including free books, giveaways and gifts. This blog post is about being honest, so I must honestly admit that I’m not making any money off this and I’m still very much in a place where it’s all about building an audience. I guess the PDFs will pretty much speak for themselves, here’s the first one: Books Sold 2013-2020

Goodreads Numbers

Here are three charts, featuring the numbers of “To Read”s, “Ratings” and “Reviews” of my books on Goodreads.

The numbers are the accumulated total, including all years, for each year. Goodreads Numbers 2013-2020

I might add Amazon numbers next year, I have a few reviews there but so far I’ve gotten more feedback on Goodreads after hosting giveaways there.

Social Media

You can find me on Instagram as @julieloen – a mess of misc. and personal stuff, and @studiostandstill – an account dedicated to my wetplate work.

You can also find me on Facebook as JC Loen (where I post mainly about Crazy Cat related stuff) and Studio Staa Stille, which is dedicated to my wetplate work (in Norwegian).

Here’s my Social Media Numbers 2014-2020