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2025: Year in Review

Introduction

What a year it has been. I thought I would do a breakdown of what I’ve written and published in this time, my highlights, and anything I’m carrying over into 2026.

First up – my goals for the year. I genuinely can’t recall what goals I set myself at the start of the year, but I always go off piste with those anyway. Much better to set none at the start, look back at the year, and retrospectively tick off all the things I’ve actually done and call it a day. I did have a lot of intentions that I developed over the course of the whole year, or at some point thought “ooh, it would be cool if…”, so I’m going to use those as my ‘2025 goals’ for the purpose of this post.

I wanted to publish my Gothicka Fantasia novel, and I also wanted to increase my earnings, and get more website traffic. I really wanted to join the Horror Writers’ Association (HWA), finally, as I’ve been putting that off for ages and I finally qualify as an Affiliate Writer.

I also wanted to sell a short story to a magazine or anthology, build a presence on Mastodon and Pillowfort, buy a bundle of ISBNs at last, and attend an in-person con.

I haven’t bought the ISBNs, I haven’t properly started engaging on Mastodon/Pillowfort, (I also have a Lemon8 account but I don’t have a consistent brand to build there), and I didn’t attend a con, but I have ticked off everything else.

I did achieve a bonus one, though: I also joined Diviniation Hollow as a monthly contributor, so expect more TV/Film/Book/Podcast content from me in the future. I can’t wait to share my faves with you all. So that’s a bonus that I didn’t expect to come out of this year!

Published Work

I’ve put out a lot this year, I would say! My 12 months of rewards for my Ko-Fi members can be downloaded in one handy eBook, so all the story arcs and individual extracts, standalones, etc, can be read in order and kept forever.

2025 Ko-Fi Letters – free to Seekers and Family members, £1.50 to Tip Jar members. ~29K words. That’s a lot! You can download this as either an ePub or a PDF, both files are included in the download.

You can keep updated with all my bonus content and Ko-Fi posts here.

As for other work, here it is in chronological order:

Feb 2025: I published my Dark Gothic Fantasy, Yelen & Yelena. This is a ~98K novel that was voted a 5* read for the Romancing the Gothic book club, and reached 1000 downloads on Bookfunnel.

She’s up for the Indie Ink Awards this year! Voting open until 31st Dec for:
Aromantic rep, LGBTQ rep, Best setting, Best friendship, Best audio narration.

Mar 2025: I edited and collated the Ricky Porter stories written for Ko-Fi members, and released a collection of them with The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre as an eBook. This new collection is called The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre & Other Stories.

Sep 2025: I entered a 200 word flash fic (Katy Porter themed) into a prompt competiton by Black Hare Press, and it was accepted. It is now in the flash fic anthology, Alone, entitled, “The Lonely Girl Dreams of the Dead”.

Oct 2025: my short story, “Along the Xylophone Road”, was accepted into the Black Hare Press body horror anthology, Occupying Bodies.

My story is a standalone short in 1st person POV, about a revenant dragging its rotting body along train tracks in the desert, seeking a long-distance lover whom they only knew online before they died, and never got to meet in person.

Nov 2025: I edited the 4-part dark fantasy short written for October’s #AScareADay, and turned it into a coherent dark fantasy short story, called Bone Puppets.

It is currently only available to buy as an eBook on my 3 personal shop platforms:
Ko-Fi, cmrosens.com/shop and Itch.io.

Writing Progress

Abysmal. Well – to me, anyway. But that’s not really true. I wrote aout 29K words for my Ko-Fi members, which is the length of a decent novella. Some of this was extracts from WIPs and so on, but that’s all fine, it counts.

Let’s look at my WIPs… you will notice that most were paused in June 2025, which correlates with the work issues escalating. I’ve spent the rest of the year in a state of burn out.

Pagham-on-Sea

Feed is still in progress, but I’ve cracked the midpoint now. I want to ensure that this one can be read as an entry point to the series, so I’m spending a lot of time going over the opening chapters. It’s currently at 57.9K words. These novels tend to be ~99K words. I don’t really want this one to be longer, so we’ll see what happens in edits and revisions. This is the only WIP I’ve picked back up after the long hiatus, and the one that is currently an active draft.

Gothick Fantasia

As Below, So Above is my Phantom of the Opera (but alchemists) X m/m Rapunzel, in an alchemist tower, structured along alchemical process lines. I’m a bit worried it’s nudging into the realms of Eggers’ The Lighthouse as well. I seem to have abandoned a draft at 9.3K words in June 2025, but I have worked out how to make this work better. It now has a lot of random experimental writing, and different ideas, and I think feels stronger to me as a piece. The worldbuilding is working very well. I’m tempted to remove the framed narrative and just write the initial idea.

Cold as Snow, White as Bone is the Wild Hunt X Snow White X Fall of the House of Usher, and another one I abandoned, this time in April 2025. I have a few different documents of experimental writing and potential outlines, and 2.2K words of a dedicated draft that I want to return to.

Contemporary Cosy Suspense

Best Friends Bury Bodies took up most of my year. I now have a complete draft of this novel, and it went through an alpha/early beta reader stage, which has convinced me to make some more major changes. I abandoned this project in 2023, and picked it back up in February 2025. It’s now on version 7.0, and the latest complete version (6.0) is 80K words. I last opened version 7.0 (the post-beta rewrite) in June 2025. I want the rewrite to be more in the region of 70K words, and to lean into the recovery journey of my MMC more, and also to strike a better balance with the Midsomer Murders influences.

Three for a Girl is the sequel to Birds of a Feather that will introduce the ‘Katy’ character to the AU, and I worked on this a little bit in March 2025. It’s still percolating. It’s also a bit of a murder thriller, with AU Carrie & Ricky taking a holiday in Scotland only to discover a murder on their campsite, and a missing teen girl. Katy in the AU will not be related to Ricky or Wes, and spells her name Katie, and will get very annoyed when people get the spelling wrong. There is no active draft for this, but there are mutiple documents of experimental writing.

Historical Fiction – Supernatural

Untitled WIP – 2.1K words of an occult adventure in Victorian London. Inspired by Arthur Machen’s The Three Imposters and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence stories. The idea is a trio of misfits, each with their own backstory and lowkey psychic ability, are hired by shadowy clients to steal/retrieve/acquire various items of interest. They have just completed one such heist, and are having supper together in private. They each regale the others with their own tales, as each one has done a different thing, and spun their victim(s) various ghostly yarns to get them to hand over the item, or to gain their trust long enough to access what they’re after. So it’s a series of nested stories, with the supper as a framing narrative. I don’t know if I’ll finish this.

I haven’t worked on anything else this year, but see above for what I published!

Indie Author Earnings

I haven’t done a round-up of earnings before, but I’m seeing so many people in my timelines right now saying they want to take the self-publishing plunge, so I thought this might be of interest. If not, I’ve got some website stats further on, so just scroll on down!

This year is the first year I have earned, in total over 12 months, just under one month’s salary at my day job.

This is my first year of publishing for comparison, where the only book I had was THE CROWS (first edition). That Ko-Fi income in October probably came from a workshop or talk I did, not from selling the book. I hadn’t set up a Ko-Fi shop at that point.

That whole year, minus the ad costs, and including the workshop/talk I did, my profit was £203.94.

Note that in that first year I spent £82.80 on ads (Facebook and Instagram), which came out of my total profit, and some months I made a loss rather than a profit.

Was it worth it? I think so. People started to recognise the cover and the book, and in 2021 when Thirteenth was released, I made over £150 in that one month (April). With 2 books out in 2021, and with plugging them consistently and building my social media platforms, sending out review copies, and pitching them to book clubs, I jumped from making £203 in one year to making just over £760 in one year.

Amazon was my primary market, where I earned the most money each month, despite being wide distribution. Draft2Digital covers all other eBook platforms, except Amazon and Smashwords. Nov 2020 I made absolutely no sales at all, not anywhere.

I have steadily increased this annual total each year, and this now includes royalties from Canelo, which I receive twice yearly.

Amazon has now been completely outstripped by my own Ko-Fi shop, with the new king of income being my monthly subscriptions, followed by my own shops – Ko-Fi, Itch, and my website here. Until the whole Itch debacle, I was earning a decent amount from bundles there.

This year, I’ve noticed an interesting trend across the other eBook platforms. Amazon was only biggest income in February (Yelen & Yelena‘s release month). This was the only month I earned over £50 there. May was the second biggest Amazon month, earning £21.71 (with currency conversion). All other months I have earned £12 or less, and usually a lot less. Still, I haven’t had a month on there where I’ve sold nothing.

Draft2Digital, on the other hand, encompasses all the library subs like Hoopla, OneDrive, and so on, and all the alternative eBook sites, like Kobo, Thalia, Smashwords (since they merged with D2D), etc. I’ve also gone wide with their print option, so there’s an alternative to Amazon for print as well, but this is more expensive and D2D take more of a fee. I also can’t edit my printed book very often, and they charge for changes once your free tokens are used up.

While you can see I didn’t even crack £30 all year in 2020 with D2D, Smashwords, and being hosted on a friend’s shop combined, this year I made £82.46 there, vs Amazon’s £156.69. So it’s catching up, but Amazon remains consistently more.

In the chart below, there has never been a month that has hit $25USD. In October, I earned nothing.

Amazon earned me £156.69 in total this year, which I think is also due to Amazon boycotts. I sold 74 books with them this year. You can see the dips, and that from July, where I sold 4 books and hit a peak of £12.29 in royalties, my royalties then declined with the sales, so that I never earned over £10 after September, and had a few months of earning £2-3, and December it’s now £1.72 for the month, for the sale of 1 book.

In terms of selling units, Draft2Digital is benefitting from the Smashwords End of Year Sale right now, where my books are 50% off, and one is free. I’ve sold 21 books there this month, but as you see from the royalties chart above, I’ve earned about £5.33 after currency conversion.

Sales figures aren’t useful for judging income if what’s selling is free, or you are only getting a few pennies for each unit from a library subscription. What you’re hoping for here is that people will actually read it, like it, and come back for more later. Perhaps mention you to someone else, who will try your stuff out, and tell another friend. It’s all about word of mouth as much as it’s about your own marketing! But there are no guarantees.

What’s fascinating is that as Amazon and D2D combined are not making me a lot of money, my own shops are.

People prefer to support me directly, where I get all of the royalties minus the PayPal/Stripe fee only, rather than 10-70% of the royalties depending on if it’s print or eBook, and then minus the fee of sending that money on to me.

In fact, I earned over £620 more in my shops and Ko-Fi membership income combined, than I did with Amazon and D2D combined. If I had just stuck with those major platforms, I would still be earning about £200 a year.

Takeaways for Indies

So, if there’s a takeaway from these figures and stats, or anything to be gleaned, I’d say it’s this:

Future Goals

My twice annual Canelo royalties have come in very handy as well. These are pretty modest, low 3-figures, and fluctuate, but they’re a nice little bonus. I’ve been giving these to charity for the past 2 royalty periods, but what I will do with the next one is put it towards buying a batch of ISBNs so that I can release print books via IngramSpark.

In the UK, you can only buy ISBNs from Nielsen’s, and it’s £387 for a bundle of 100 ISBNs. Once I have my own, rather than the free ones from D2D/Amazon, and release via Ingram, my books will no longer be “firm sale” (no returns) and bookshops will be able to buy stock more easily.

I will then keep back my next royalty payment to cover the cost of any stock returns, as the author covers the cost of this if books are returned by the vendor.

It’s looking possible that I’ll make a full month’s salary across a whole year next year, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t, as I have a day-job that pays enough to cover my bills and some of my author expenses, and I’m not doing this for the income stream.

Website Stats: 2025 in Review

I imagine, if I had been thinking strategically, that gaining more website traffic and boosting my profile would have been a goal. I think we can tick this off.

Including all the author spotlight interviews and podcast transcripts I’ve edited and posted for 2025, I posted a total of 144 posts, not including this one, and 233.5K words – two chunky epic fantasy novels worth of writing.

My most popular months were January, September, October and November. October was the best month for views this year, most likely because I posted #AScareADay posts every day!

This year, my website had 29.9K visitors, and 39.2K views.

My most-read article was Rapunzel in Cinema 1897-2024, with 6.6K views, followed by Red Riding Hood in Films 1901-2024, with 3.1K views, and Werewolf Films 1910-1949, with 1.9K views.

Last year, my site had 17.6K visitors, and 23.4K views, so you can see that’s a massive jump this year! I’ve been making more effort with SEO metrics, but I think my some of my articles have been linked as sources in Reddit threads, Wikipedia articles, and elsewhere, and that has really helped to drive traffic back to me.

My top-read podcast interview transcripts were:
Caitlin Starling – The Death of Jane Lawrence, Starving Saints
S.T. Gibson – Dowry of Blood
Jackson P. Brown – The Reaper

My top-read author spotlights were:
Nat Weaver – Mercedes Masterson series (modern noir)
Arden Powell – Flesh & Bone (m/m Canadian Western novella)
Lem McMillan – multi-genre Wattpad author of free-to-read SFF

This year, my author spotlight series was a very popular one – I need to work on the SEO scores of these posts to try and drive more traffic to each one, but it would also help for readers to reblog, like, share, comment, and boost these authors any way you can. If you’ve been a contributor to the series, I would encourage you to boost your own interview, but also to boost your colleagues as well!

Let me know if there is any content you would like to see more of, and I’ll give that a go for 2026!

CONTENT TO COME:

2026 Author Spotlights – posted on Wednesdays each month, giving authors of all genres a boost by spotlighting their work in a short interview. A spotlight is not a recommendation, endorsement, or a review.

General Updates – posted as and when I have any updates, but always on Mondays/Fridays. These will also go in my Monthly Newsletter.

Reviews of TV/Film/Books – posted Mondays/Fridays, which may be cross-posted from Divination Hollow Reviews, where I’m now a monthly contributor.

Monthly Media Round-Up – does what it says on the tin; every month, I’ll post a round-up of the media I’ve consumed, with some brief thoughts. I may end up just posting my personal highlights of the month, as I get through A LOT of films sometimes. I don’t want these posts to get too long!

See you all next year!

Lessons in Letting Go: Control Isn’t Clarity

There’s this thing I’ve carried with me my whole life—control.
It’s not always obvious. Sometimes it hides under words like discipline or structure. Sometimes it sounds noble: “I just like things done right.”

But if I’m being honest, most of my control has always come from fear.

The Comfort of Control

The military taught me that structure saves lives.
That being prepared, anticipating what could go wrong, and having a backup plan isn’t just smart—it’s survival.

And that mindset served me well for years.
In uniform, it’s discipline. Out of uniform, it’s the same instinct—just repurposed.

I ran my life, my writing, my projects, even my emotions, like a mission.
If I could keep every piece in line, maybe nothing would fall apart.

But creativity? Creativity doesn’t care about your checklists.

The Weekend That Broke Me (and My Printer)

Not too long ago, I spent a weekend knee-deep in The Ordinary Bruja preorder prep.
I had it all planned: bookmarks, character cards, manifestation inserts—the whole thing.
Everything labeled, color-coded, scheduled.

Then my website glitched.
The WooCommerce buttons disappeared, checkout froze, and no matter what I did, the plug-ins refused to cooperate.

I thought, Fine, I’ll focus on the design stuff instead.
So I opened Canva. Then Canva froze.

And when I finally switched to printing?
My printer decided it didn’t feel like aligning that day. My files were sliding half an inch to the left every time, and I swear I could hear it mocking me.

Hours later, surrounded by test prints, crumpled paper, and cold coffee, I heard myself mutter:
“I just need everything to go right for once.”

And that’s when it hit me—how many times I’ve said that exact same sentence in my life.

The truth? I was exhausted not because things went wrong, but because I kept trying to force them to go right.

When Control Pretends to Be Discipline

Here’s what I’ve learned:
Control and discipline look almost identical on the outside—but inside, they’re completely different.

• Discipline is about preparation.
• Control is about fear.

Discipline says, “I’m ready for whatever happens.”
Control says, “I can’t handle it if this doesn’t go my way.”

For a long time, I didn’t see the difference. I thought my tight grip was ambition. I thought my need to fix everything was leadership.

But the more I clung to outcomes, the more I drained the joy out of creating.

Letting Go to Let Life Work

That weekend, I finally stopped fighting it.
I took a step back, wrote down every problem, circled the ones I could control, and crossed out the ones I couldn’t.

Guess what?
Most of them fell into the second category.

So I closed the laptop, went for a walk, and trusted the process.
And slowly, everything started to work itself out—the site fixed, the files exported clean, and my designs came together better than before.

That’s when I realized that control isn’t clarity.
Sometimes the clearest moment is the one where you stop trying to force the outcome and simply allow it to unfold.

Salvador’s Lesson (and Mine)

This idea runs deep in The Ordinary Bruja.
Salvador—Marisol’s ancestor and villain—is the perfect embodiment of control gone wrong.
He wants to possess what should flow, to own what should breathe. And that’s what destroys him.

Marisol, on the other hand, learns that her power doesn’t respond to control—it responds to trust.
And that’s the truth I keep learning too.

When I let go, I create from joy again.
When I stop gripping every detail, magic finds me.

Because sometimes, you don’t need to make things happen—you just need to stop standing in their way.

The Takeaway

Letting go of control doesn’t mean giving up. It means choosing trust over tension.
It’s saying, “I’ll do my best, and then I’ll let life do the rest.”

So the next time your plans fall apart, your printer rebels, or your timeline doesn’t match someone else’s, take a deep breath and remember:
You don’t need control to create something beautiful. You just need faith in what you’ve already built.

The Ordinary Bruja is officially out now!
Order your copy and step into a story about identity, magic, and the art of surrender.

The Ordinary Bruja: Book One of Las Cerradoras Series – Johanny Ortega

Marisol Espinal has spent her life trying to disappear from her family’s whispers of magic, from the shame of not belonging, from the truth she refuses to face. She’s always wanted to be someone else: confident, capable, extraordinary.

But when strange visions, flickering shadows, and warnings written in her mother’s hand begin to stalk her, Marisol is forced to confront her deepest fear: what if she isn’t extraordinary at all? What if she’s painfully ordinary?

Yet Hallowthorn Hill doesn’t call to just anyone. And the more Marisol resists, the stronger its pull becomes. The past she’s buried claws its way back, and something in the mist is watching—waiting for her to remember.

If Marisol cannot face the truth about who she is and where she comes from, the same darkness that destroyed her ancestors will claim her, too.

Somewhere in the shadows, something knows her name.

And it’s time for Marisol to learn why.

Lessons in Letting Go: Perfectionism Isn’t Protection

Perfectionism loves to lie to us—it says, “If it’s flawless, you’ll finally be safe from criticism.” But the truth is, perfectionism doesn’t protect you—it prevents you.

In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share what letting go of perfectionism has taught me as a writer, soldier, and creative woman. From the late-night rewrites that nearly drained the joy out of The Ordinary Bruja to learning that my worth isn’t measured by polish, this conversation is for anyone who’s ever felt trapped by their own standards.

You’ll also hear about my favorite chipped mug—a reminder that imperfection is where the beauty really lives. Inspired by The Parable of the Chipped Mug, this story helped me see that what’s cracked can still carry warmth, purpose, and love.

✨ The Ordinary Bruja is officially out now! It’s a story about identity, belief, and self-trust—a reminder that you don’t need to be perfect to be powerful.
Order your copy today and step into Marisol’s world of Dominican magic and self-discovery:

The Ordinary Bruja: Book One of Las Cerradoras Series – Johanny Ortega

Marisol Espinal has spent her life trying to disappear from her family’s whispers of magic, from the shame of not belonging, from the truth she refuses to face. She’s always wanted to be someone else: confident, capable, extraordinary.

But when strange visions, flickering shadows, and warnings written in her mother’s hand begin to stalk her, Marisol is forced to confront her deepest fear: what if she isn’t extraordinary at all? What if she’s painfully ordinary?

Yet Hallowthorn Hill doesn’t call to just anyone. And the more Marisol resists, the stronger its pull becomes. The past she’s buried claws its way back, and something in the mist is watching—waiting for her to remember.

If Marisol cannot face the truth about who she is and where she comes from, the same darkness that destroyed her ancestors will claim her, too.

Somewhere in the shadows, something knows her name.

And it’s time for Marisol to learn why.

Imperfectly Magical: Why I’m Selling My “Oops” Paperbacks

There’s something oddly charming about imperfections—especially when they tell a story.

When I got my latest shipment of The Ordinary Bruja paperbacks, I noticed something right away: a few copies had a little extra edge around the cover. Not a rip, not a misprint on the text—just an extra border, like the artwork decided to take up a bit more space than it should have.

At first, my inner perfectionist gasped. How could this happen? But then the bruja in me—the one who believes everything happens for a reason—smiled.

Because let’s be real: there’s magic in imperfection.

A Happy Accident

These copies are what I now call my Imperfectly Magical Editions—the same haunting, heart-tugging story inside, just wearing a slightly “off” outfit. The words, the emotions, Marisol’s journey through identity, ancestral memory, and the pull of Hallowthorn Hill—all untouched.

If anything, these books remind me of what The Ordinary Bruja is really about: embracing your flaws, your rough edges, your too-much-ness. Every single thing that once made you feel “off” is actually part of what makes you extraordinary.

So why throw them away when I could share them with readers who understand that exact message?

For Readers Who Love a Little Character & Bargain

These imperfect editions are for the readers who dog-ear their pages, highlight their favorite quotes, and spill coffee on their books because they couldn’t stop reading. They’re for the book lovers who know a story doesn’t have to be pristine to be powerful.

Think of it like adopting a stray cat or buying a plant with one funky leaf. Still beautiful. Still alive with story. Just… real.

The Details

Each Imperfectly Magical Edition is discounted—because, yes, the cover has an extra edge. But the magic inside? Still flawless.

✨ Price: $10.99 (original $15.99)
✨ Quantity: Limited—once they’re gone, they’re truly gone.
✨ Where to get it:

The Ordinary Bruja: Book One of Las Cerradoras Series – Johanny Ortega – Bargain

16 available for pre-ordering

Pre-order now

Why It Matters

As an indie author, every book is personal. I oversee everything—from writing to cover design to the moment those boxes land on my doorstep. And while perfection is great, authenticity is better.

Selling these copies isn’t about “clearing out stock.” It’s about giving readers a piece of my process, the behind-the-scenes proof that indie publishing is handmade, heart-led, and beautifully human.

Because The Ordinary Bruja was never meant to be perfect. It was meant to be real.

So if you’re someone who loves a good story and a good deal, grab your Imperfectly Magical Edition before they vanish into the ether.

After all, even the most powerful magic starts with a little imperfection.

Lessons in Self-Doubt: Escaping the Comparison Trap

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Tiny Wins That Keep Authors Going

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