Tag: review

Posted on by

Timeline Until 30 April 2025

photo of pen on top of notebook

It’s That Time Again: My Year in Review (April 2024–April 2025)

Last year’s update (until 30 April 2024) is HERE, and the running page of past and present updates is HERE.

It’s old news by now, but I still can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I wrote one of these posts. A whole year since I made it official! Honestly, I thought it would feel different. I thought I’d get more done, too.

Overthinking is a beast of a habit, but I’ve wrangled it pretty well—if I may say so myself. Sure, it still drags me down some days, but I’m a lot quicker to notice it now. And then I do the opposite: I just get on with it.

The inspiration for posts like this comes from The Creative Penn with Joanna Penn, Sacha Black, and the SPA Girls. More on that over on my TIMELINE page.

📆 What Happened in 2025

Published Kobo Frances & Gilbert 1 August 2024

Joined Patreon 26 August 2024

Joined Ream 26 August 2024

Published Eternal Vows (Bonus for F&G) 26 August 2024

Published Enduring Vows (Bonus for J&J) 20 September 2024

Published Apple Books Frances & Gilbert 1 November 2024

Published Author Shop Frances & Gilbert 1 November 2024

Republished Amazon Jack & Jool 1 November 2024 

Republished Amazon Zara & William 1 October 2024

Published WIDE Frances & Gilbert 1 November 2024

Published Kindle Unlimited Leap of Her Own 12 November 2024

Serialised Silver Murder 3 December 2024

Published Eventual Vows (Bonus for Z&W) 3 December 2024

Serialised Lowveld Shadows 4 December 2024

Serialised Undercurrents of Deception 5 December 2024

Publish Kobo Jack & Jool 1 February 2025

Published Apple Books Jack & Jool 1 February 2025

Published WIDE Jack & Jool 1 February 2025

Published Author Shop Jack & Jool 1 February 2025

Published Everlasting Vows (Bonus for M&A) 22 February 2025

Published Kindle Unlimited When Hearts Leap 8 March 2025

Started blogging daily 22 March 2025

💸 Earnings (May 2024 – April 2025)

Amazon earnings from May 2024 to April 2025 R238.31
Kobo earnings R0
Draft2Digital earning R0
Direct sales earnings $1.98

That’s it for this year’s numbers.

📚 Reflecting on the Year

All the old stuff finally got cleaned up, published, and more importantly, left alone! Progress.

I also wrote loads of new content. If you’ve read The Unknown Series, you’ve probably seen the bonus material that came out of that.

Tried new things, too. Serialising on platforms like Ream, Substack, and Patreon was a real highlight—until I realised South Africa isn’t supported. No Stripe. Only PayPal, and readers really don’t love using it. We’ve got Paystack (Stripe owns it, but they keep it boxed in for Africa). Bureaucracy galore!

Luckily, WordPress to the rescue! I’ll be offering stories directly on my website soon, just as soon as I’ve sorted out the Paystack integration. It’s more paperwork than expected, but hey, nothing I can’t handle.

💪 The Real Wins

Beyond the writing and publishing, I’ve had some huge personal wins. Midlife hasn’t been the easiest, but I’m getting there—and that makes the writing side lighter too. So, so grateful for that.

💭 The Disappointments

Honestly? I’m disappointed in the earnings. I’d hoped to be making a steady $100/month by now. Clearly, I’ve not hit the right audience or strategy yet. But I’m still trying, and I’ll keep experimenting for the next year.

That’s it for this year’s review.

Cheers
Anne

PS. Past and future timeline posts will go to the timelines page

**Please send me an email with your feedback at anne@annecwest.co.za. Comments vanish and get missed, hence emails.**

Get Your Free Short Story Here!
Posted on by

Timeline Before 30 April 2024

photo of pen on top of notebook

My dearest readers and visitors

I’m happy you’re here.

It’s been quite quiet on this blog, not because life is quiet, I’ve been doing what I do best: OVERTHINKING.
Anyody else suffering from this?

DON’T! It’s a terribly limiting habit with only harmful consequences.
Preaching to the choir…

Anyways, I’ve been putting off picking up the blogging habit because I wondered what to write about. What would you want to read? Will anybody read it? What is the use? You catch my drift.

Then after a looooonnnngggg winded affair, I realised, I want to blog because I like blogging. If somebody reads this, bravo! If nobody reads this, bravo!

I like it.

Enough waffling on about this, let me get to the blog post for today.

I listened to an interview on The Creative Penn with Jo Penn. She interviewed Sacha Black about her author business. They talked about the timeline, the progress, etc. Jo mentioned the page on her website where she’s been recording the progress of her own writing career.

I thought that’s amazing! I wanted one of those pages. I started digging through my archives. I compiled this list of when I did what in my author career.

I will record this on my own TIMELINE page after reviewing the year that was.
This is the first year I am taking my author career seriously. I decided to take May 2024 as the start of my official fiction author career. Therefore this is the collection of events unfolding prior to May 2024.

I shared a little bit of info on the TIMELINE page about when I actually started writing. I mentioned how I have a history of being on and off with my writing career. So, I’m not going to add that here.

I think, let’s get into it:

2016

Published Amazon Appointment to Die 1 December 2016
Published Amazon Pebble in my Brick 2 December 2016
Published Amazon Walking the Pages 3 December 2016
Published WIDE Appointment to Die 3 December 2016
Published WIDE Pebble in my Brick 3 December 2016
Published WIDE Walking the Pages 4 December 2016

2017

Joined Wattpad 22 April 2017

2018

Joined StoryOrigin April 2018

2019

Published Amazon Beauty and the Vampire 19 January 2019
Published Amazon A Genocide 19 January 2019
Published WIDE A Genocide 19 January 2019
Published WIDE Beauty and the Vampire 19 January 2019
Republished Amazon Beauty and the Vampire 20 February 2019
Republished Amazon A Genocide 20 March 2019
Published Amazon A Day of Celebration 17 December 2019
Published WIDE A Day of Celebration 18 December 2019

2020

Joined Prolific Works March 2020
Published Amazon Frances & Gilbert 17 July 2020
Published Amazon Jack & Jool 3 October 2020
Published Kobo Jack & Jool 6 October 2020
Joined Bookfunnel 29 October 2020

2021

Published Amazon Zara & William 31 January 2021
Published Kobo Zara & William 31 January 2021

2022

Joined X (Twitter) for the 2nd time July 2022
Created Facebook Author Page 6 September 2022
Created Instagram at some stage…

2023


Published Author Shop A Day of Celebration 25 February 2023
Published Author Shop A Genocide 26 February 2023
Published Author Shop Beauty and the Vampire 26 February 2023
Published Author Shop Pebble in my Brick 26 February 2023
Published Author Shop Appointment to Die 26 February 2023
Published Kobo A Day of Celebration 10 March 2023
Published Kobo A Genocide 10 March 2023
Published Kobo Beauty and the Vampire 10 March 2023
Published Kobo Pebble in my Brick 20 March 2023
Published Kobo Appointment to Die 10 April 2023
Published Kobo Walking the Pages 8 April 2023
Published Amazon Notebooks 9 May 2023
Published WIDE Notebooks 10 May 2023
Joined TikTok 14 May 2023
Published Amazon The Harmony Bridge 28 May 2023
Joined Threads July 2023
Published Kobo The Harmony Bridge 15 August 2023
Published WIDE The Harmony Bridge 15 August 2023
Published Kobo Notebooks 1 September 2023

2024

Joined Goodreads for the 2nd time April 2024
Republished Amazon Frances & Gilbert 1 April 2024

EARNINGS

Amazon earnings from February 2019 to February 2024 R42.59
Kobo earnings R0
Draft2Digital earning R0
Direct sales earnings $45

That’s it until April 2024.

All I can say is, WOW! Indecisiveness, double-mindedness, doubt, insecurities, impatience, those are all things that only do harm. Can you imagine if I just stuck it out? All the stories that’s been simmering for years could have been out there in the world for all to enjoy.

I would also have been able to say that I’ve found my voice as an author. Or, I’ve found my genre.
Life is such an interesting journey.

But it’s what it is. We have now and we have our attitude. The rest of the things are outside our control. As an indie author, I can also say that I have technology that makes this possible, so use it, right?
That’s it for today, I’ll chat to you soon.

Cheers
Anne

PS. Future timeline posts will go to the timelines page

Posted on by

Book I Read: Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

Are you a person who always seems to give others all your energy, time, ideas, and your being? Do you look at your dreams with yearning and just can’t figure out why it always lags? Then this is the book for you. [DON’T BE FOOLED: it’s not just women who love too much]

Description

The #1 New York Times bestseller that asks: are you a woman who loves too much? -Do you find yourself attracted again and again to troubled, distant, moody men—while “nice guys” seem boring? -Do you obsess over men who are emotionally unavailable, addicted to work, hobbies, alcohol, or other women? -Do you neglect your friends and your own interests to be immediately available to him? -Do you feel empty without him, even though being with him is torment? Robin Norwood’s groundbreaking work will enable you to recognize the roots of your destructive patterns of relating and provide you with a step-by-step guide to a more rewarding way of living and loving. If being in love means being in pain, you need to read Women Who Love Too Much.

What says I?

This book came at a good time for me. I learned a lot about myself. And best of all, it explained WHY regarding my habits

Patterns identified

We all live lives of patterns. Through an immense amount of examples from real-life people, the author guided me to identify patterns that have been part of my life, my whole life. And to be clear, drinking until you drop dead or bulimic habits are not the only harmful patterns in one’s life. Something as simple as helpfulness to the point of self-neglect or justifying neglect, are sneaky patterns.

Analysis of harmful patterns

The author did a great job to analyse and demonstrate the harm of the different patterns. They also illustrated the different faces of the same harmful patterns. At some point in the book, I felt irritated that she included one example after another example after another example of what seemed to me the same scenario. Only, it wasn’t. The same harmful pattern can come about from different trauma as well as the same trauma can cause different patterns.

Look and feel of healing

Many times in the healing process it feels as if nothing happens. In this day and age, we want to add water, shake and voila! Results! Healing and change take much, MUCH longer in reality. The author helped me see that some patterns in my life are in the process of healing. I can see the pattern is still there, but it’s leading to a different outcome. Not necessarily good for me, but not as damaging as the original outcome. It’s encouraging and so SO good for me to have learned that

Help is at hand

Healing is always your own journey. Nobody and I mean NOBODY can help you with it. Therapists, support groups, counsellors etc. are only facilitators and support. Nothing more. And for the love of all things wonderful, FAMILY and FRIENDS cannot and should not be your help! It’s harmful to them and harmful to you. The author gives a list of 10 steps for the healing process at the end of the book. That I appreciated immensely. 

What says others?

Erica Jong referred to this book as ‘life-changing’. I concur wholeheartedly.

MentalHelp.net has a review with a lot more detail about this book.

Kaila talks about the book in her video.

HighIncomeSource gives a good summary as well.

Where to connect with the author?

I don’t think one can connect with the author directly. I only found her bio on a few websites such as KI-Agency and Simon and Schuster. It makes sense, my dad shared her birth year and he passed this year.

Where can you buy the book?

Everywhere!

Takealot and Exclusive Books in South Africa.

Amazon elsewhere. Look on Apple Books and Google Books as well.

I also found it on PdFDrive. The audiobook is available on Audible and Audiobooks.com

Will I read it again?

Absolutely! I do want to invest in the audiobook though. And this is a book I am using now as workbook. 

That’s it from me for now. 

Until next time!