The financial cost of pivoting // Income report 2024

January 8, 2025

Being an indie author is a lot of fun. It's the fourth time I'm doing an income report for this side of my life — the first one on a blog. While preparing this post, I was impressed by how much I actually did for my side hustle in 2024. I wasn't expecting it, because I kinda pushed the "pause" button on everything.

You see, I got laid off from my marketing job in 2023. It was a difficult period because of all the questions around the situation. Would I be the role model I wanted to be for my not-even-one-year-old son? Or would I choose the easy way and get a new job in marketing? No, I had to pivot. For myself.

So I took a six-month training course in 2023, followed by an internship at a web design studio. The first half of 2024 was used to apply and get my first real role as a web designer – thank you ever so much Fidelo Agency! As for my side hustle... well, see for yourself.

Overall

As a reminder, this report is from January to December 2024. During those 12 months, there was a decrease of 11.29% compared to the previous year which had already seen a big dip in my general finances due to the pivoting.

But overall, my author business only represented 2.44% of my income. When I tell you not to quit your job on a whim if you want to pursue a career as an indie author, it's no joke. Because even though I had half the year to work on my side hustle, I was in no state mentally to take the opportunity to do so.

And to be very transparent with you, I almost made the biggest mistake of my author career by trying to switch my YouTube content. In doing so, I had removed all my author videos from my YouTube channel for two or three months, which resulted in a big dip in sales on Amazon – I had zero sales!

So yeah, I almost killed my side hustle for the sake of trying to make it out as a web designer. Not the brightest idea.

So, what did this pivoting year look like?

Side hustle income

Book sales

Let's recap. I've got three books out:

• The Londoners (2021);
• The Londoners in French (yes, it does exist – 2022);
• SEO for Authors (2023).

In 2024, I haven't released any book. I had thought I'd be able to self-publish my current work-in-progress but I've been in no shape to actually do it. I won't make any excuses but I had to choose my battles, this year more than the previous ones.

With a bit of a surprise, The Londoners (my firstborn, haha) has seen more copies sold than SEO for Authors (my latest). It comes as no surprise to me though that the French translation of The Londoners has not even sold one copy. I don't have a French audience, and my mum stopped selling it as well.

I've sold 26 copies of The Londoners and 13 copies of SEO for Authors, for a total of 39 books.

I know, woaw (eyes rolling).

To put things into perspective, I had sold a total of 74 books in 2023... When I say I've hit "pause" on things, this was me dropping the ball on book marketing. To this day, I haven't posted a video on YouTube for six months. It hurts – a lot.

Interestingly, I haven't made most of my sales from Amazon KDP – which only represents 37.7% in 2024. I got The Londoners in a real brick-and-mortar bookshop (more on that later)! Thus it represents 57.1% of my book sales. And last: one-to-one sales with 5.2%.

Speaking opportunities

A word on speaking opportunities: I did no paid talks this year compared to 2023 where I did three of them. It's also one of the reasons why my side hustle income has dropped, as it contributed to a large part of it.

Am I thinking about resuming this side of my activities this year? I'm honestly not too sure. I'm open to it if anyone wants to listen to me speak about SEO for Authors though. But I think this year will be more focused on writing and releasing a new book.

Publishing and marketing recap of 2024

Got a book in a brick-and-mortar bookshop

I pushed the doors of my local bookshop in April or May. They had freshly opened in March (so they were very new). I'd heard they only sold English books, which is quite a big thing in my part of Belgium. After a few times going there, I finally gathered the courage to tell them I had published two titles... and they took a few copies of The Londoners!

I'm so proud that The Londoners is there! It got a new life, thanks to the bookshop. Certainly the biggest highlight of 2024.

They also organised an awesome event with local authors – which I was a part of – and I got to meet a few readers. I was completely stressed out because it was my first in-person event. But past the presentation of my book and my work, I could answer questions pretty easily. I'm so very grateful for this experience. Hopefully, I'll make more of them in the future.

The event itself sold 10 books (4 on the day, 6 more in the following two weeks). I'm more than thrilled.

Conference & Podcast

I was at the Writing Romance Mastery Summit in February. I had prerecorded the session with the host five months beforehand, in 2023. So all I did was to advertise it a little bit. I honestly don't know if the 4 sales I had that month were because of the conference. But that's definitely a name I can put on my speaker portfolio.

I was also invited on the Rebel Author Podcast in July, which was totally unexpected. Of course, I had pitched a topic a year before. But because of the time between the topic submission and the recording of the episode, I was sure it had been dismissed.

Sacha Black is a famous indie author in my world. Being in her presence was an experience, even if that was on video. She's as lovely as she sounds on her podcast. But I'll be honest: I wasn't at my best when we recorded together. It had been a long time since I had talked about SEO, let alone worked in SEO. I did my best to prepare for the interview, but still not my best performance.

Anyway, not too sure the podcast did anything for my sales, as I had only 2 sales that month. But still a big name on my speaker portfolio list.

Free promo week

I had intended to promote SEO for Authors for a week, using free book promotion websites – just like I did with The Londoners a year before. The promotion took place between the 10th and the 14th of March but... I was actually very sick at that time and hadn't booked as many promo websites as the first time.

When I promoted The Londoners in 2023, two promo websites had worked quite well regarding the number of downloads. This time, I had only the energy to book a spot on Best Book Monkey for a total of 92 downloads throughout the promotion week. Not that bad, considering the book's super niche audience.

I'll probably do another round of promo on Best Book Monkey, as they're quite effective. Second time I'm using it and second time I'm very pleased with the results.

Removing my author videos from YouTube

I mentioned it before: biggest mistake of the year. My sales tanked. It only got back up when I republished them all on the channel and YouTube ranked them again so they could get traffic.

Leaving Facebook or removing all my pictures from Instagram did not have any impact on my sales in comparison. YouTube is a big tool in an author's marketing toolbox and is not to be underestimated. Especially if you're an indie author like me who doesn't like posting on social media. If I've to choose one platform, I'll pick YouTube any time.

Removing the author videos from my channel was a result of me wanting to switch my content around and focus on design. My thoughts were that I would get noticed a bit faster, and thus get a job in design faster (it did not). But you know what? I enjoy making author videos a bit too much, haha.

And then, as I did find my first junior role in web design, I had to pause the video making for six months (so far). Had no energy to keep doing it at the pace I was doing it. And I was not writing anyway, so why bother? But now, I find myself wanting to come back. We'll see what I'll really end up doing.

Query trenches: an update

I had promised my husband to try to find an agent for my middle-grade novel – Once Upon A Sky. However, in May, I reached 50 rejections and decided to stop querying that book.

I don't think I'll self-publish it either, as it's fiction and it would need me to take a pen name. But who knows what can happen in the future, maybe I'll change my mind at some point.

Plans for 2025?

Honestly, I didn't think I had done so much in 2024 before writing this blog entry. I didn't write much, and I had stopped releasing videos on YouTube as well, so I figured I hadn't achieved much. I'm pleased to see I actually did a few things here and there.

In 2025, I'd love to get back to my author side hustle a bit more. That doesn't mean I'll go back to YouTube, as it's very time-consuming and I have to choose my battles. But I'm slowly getting back to writing and planning to release a new book by the end of the year.

So, here's what I think I'll do:

• Finish writing my next book and release it in ebook, paperback and audiobook;
• Have a launch party for the next book in a brick-and-mortar bookshop;
• Release the audiobook version of The Londoners;
• Get The Londoners into more brick-and-mortar bookshops around Belgium;
• Organise a reading for The Londoners, and its French version;
• Pitch a few conferences, to get back into speaking about SEO for Authors and maybe other topics.

I don't particularly think everything is gonna be doable, but one can dream. I'm particularly struggling with finding time to sit down and do the work, as I have a family with a preschooler and a job (my main hustle). But we're in January and everything is possible.

Wish me luck! :)