Hi everyone!

I’ve been active on Medium now since 2023 and active on Substack for over a year. My trusty and much loved blog here on WordPress has been going since I started my writing and publishing journey back in 2012 or therearebouts! Since I published my debut novel The Mess Of Me in 2013 I have gone on to publish a total of 23 books, if you count The Dark Finds You which is out next month.

It was all a learning curve in the beginning and it’s true to say I actively hated a lot of it. I just wanted to be writing. Fast forward through the years and I started to get used to it and eventually, even enjoy it. And then of course the landscape shifted – again and again and again – and like all independent authors on a low budget, I’ve had to shift and adapt with it each time.

What I do now is try new things, give them some time and then assess what is working and what is not. After all, no one wants to spend their entire lives on social media and these books have got to be written somehow! With all that in mind I thought I’d do a little recap on what has been working for me, as well as what I am thinking of trying in the future!

The first thing to mention is that my sales are up. Reviews are still very hard to come by, but I get sales from Amazon and from Draft 2 Digital (who distribute both ebooks and paperbacks to everywhere else) every month and in the last year or so, those sales have improved. Now, I am nowhere near being able to pay the rent! Nowhere close! But I do get a nice surprise most months, a little ‘oh!’ moment when my royalties show up. Funnily enough, most of my royalties are coming from Draft 2 Digital distributors, not Amazon!

Let’s start with social media.

Facebook and Instagram: I am still not as active as I probably should be, but whatever I am doing there for free does seem to be fetching me sales. I have 424 followers on Instagram which is linked to my Facebook author page where I have around 1,500 followers. I post daily life pictures and videos such as dog walks in my favourite places, gardening and baking pictures and writing updates. I post review graphics of all my books as much as I can, and quote graphics too, all with buy links and blurbs attached with the relevant hashtags. What I’ve done differently this year is use music! I caught on late and who knows what difference it makes, but it is fun picking songs to go with your pictures and reels. I try to repost and share my Substack and Medium posts to Instagram and Facebook too but not as much as I should.

What I want to try in 2026: I want to try posting more videos of me talking. Scary, I know, but a lot of the time it would actually be quicker to record myself saying or doing something and post that to several places. I particularly want to try this with my Chasing Driftwood Writing Group social media platforms and blog. I work with young writers running clubs on Zoom and in schools, but I often worry about the young writers I can’t reach. There is only one me and I can’t run any more clubs than I already do. I already post a weekly round-up of what the kids have been up to on my Chasing Driftwood Writing Group blog and Facebook page, but I was thinking of changing that to a video where I could go into a bit more detail. It might be useful for writers who can’t access clubs and workshops, and I could cross post it to lots of places. I’m unsure at the moment, but it could potentially be more effective as well as a time-saver!

Medium: It’s been up and down over on Medium but I do try and publish pieces there at least once a week. Essays, poems and short stories mostly. I am still running my tiny little publication The Wild Writers Club but constantly wondering if it is worth it! I have been boosted a few times lately and while two of them didn’t earn as much as I would have liked, one did hit the sweet spot and earned me over £200 just in time for Christmas! I was thrilled. Funnily enough, although I was only responding to a writing prompt about revolution, it was the most political piece I have ever shared there, so maybe I should do that more often? Anyway, it continues to be worth it, so I will stick around for the forseeable future. One new thing I have been doing is sharing links to my Medium pieces to my Substack weekly round-up post. I share the Medium member link and the free friends link to cover everyone.

What I want to try in 2026: I need to remember to share my Medium pieces in more places, such as Instagram and Facebook as well as Substack. Chances are the same people are not following me in all these places, so it makes sense to cross post as much as possible. I also intend to keep up my once a week posting if I can and maybe even up it, but we will see. Maybe I will be brave and share more of my political and social opinions!

Substack: I am not earning anything on Substack, that is the most important thing to point out. I have zero paid subs and I don’t think I am likely to ever get any. I have thought about offering high value content to paid subscribers but it just feels a bit cheap. I’m not sure I have anything to offer that’s worth £5 a month. I just want people to read my books and that’s what I focus on there. Sales have been better this year, so perhaps it is working? I have 139 subscribers there. I post weekly round-ups on a Friday where I share the main news of the week, whether it is writing, work or just life related and I also share what I am reading, watching and listening to. I just enjoy it! It’s fun sharing books and music and TV I love! There is always writing related news too and as I already said, I also post links to my Medium pieces. I also post an end of the month author newsletter, which really just replaces the old useless MailChimp one I used to have. This is always 100% writing related. And up until recently I was serialising Black Hare Valley Book 1 on Substack as well as here.

What I want to try in 2026: I was thinking about adding writing tips and prompts to my weekly round-up but if I go ahead with my weekly video thing for Chasing Driftwood Writing Group, I wouldn’t need to do this. I would link to it. One thing I am definitely doing is adding character POV things to my author newsletter. There is endless content for this! I am going to be handing over a part of the newsletters to one of my characters each month. For example, Danny from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side will share his favourite sad songs, or Bill Robinson from The Holds End Trilogy will share his best ‘fuck you’ songs to sing at a gig. Chess and Reuben from The Day The Earth Turned series will share survival skills, and so on! There will be all sorts from playlists, reading recommendations to life hacks, recipes and philosophical thoughts! I am looking forward to this!

Well, I think that’s everything. As always there are probably a million more things I could be doing to sell books and improve visibility as an independent author, but at the moment I think it’s wise to stick to the things I know and keep building on them. Tweaking things and trying something new every now and then within these platforms also seems to be worth it!

How about you? If you are an author what is working and not working for you at the moment and d you plan to try anything different in 2026? If you are a reader, where are you finding your books at the moment?

See you next time!