Well, everyone seems to be doing it, so now I am. Here are the highlights of my writerly year, including a general idea of sales for those who may want to read about that sort of thing from a eBook author's POV.

After deciding to become a 'serious' writer in 2005, my debut novel, Call of the Hunted, was published on January the first of this year by eXtasy books. Before that I was basically honing my skills, sending stuff to FTL markets and discovering more and more that I loved writing m/m stories (all my previous stories, including my YA stuff, always ended up having naked boys in it! LOL)

Call of the Hunted is a horror/erotic m/m story centered around an innocent farm boy and the most ancient of evil, a vampire with no other name that Widdershins. Being a debut novel and a complete novice at promoting and getting my name out there, sales for this book were slow. I think it may have sold near enough to 100 copies or so now, but that has been spread over the year. Didn't exactly set the world on fire and reviews were mixed, but positive.

My second published work was a short story I did for eXtasy's Fantasy Garden series, titled Mama's Heart. These stories must feature a rose in some way. I decided to do a vignette style piece showing how a guy who falls in love with the wrong sort eventually finds love, even though it may not be what he expected. His Mama helps guide him by cutting different coloured roses from the garden to let him know how she feels about his latest partner. Sales have been good for this story, more than my debut novel, and reviews have been positive. Mama's Heart was something completely different for me, as I don't normally write vignettes with little speculative content. Some have said Mama is psychic, but overall it's just a story about growing up and discovering love.

The third story was The Pauper's Prize, a homoerotic fable story I did a while back, but finally got published mid way through the year. This one has been the best received novel review wise, with Fallen Angels and many other sites giving it a 4 star rating or above. It also placed second in the fantasy category for this year's Rainbow Awards. Sales have been very good, and The Pauper's Prize got into the top ten sales for the month it was released. Sales continue to be stong and the story continues to be a favourite among readers who buy my work. 

The final release for 2009 was another fantasy garden story, titled The Cadet's Officer. It's about a young man named Adam and his crush on his officer and 2nd in charge Evan. Set on an exploration science space ship, Adam eventually gets to see how the officer feels about him. Sales for this have been phenominal, taking even me by surprise. It reached number 1 in the sci-fi category at All Romance eBooks and in the top 5 at eXtasy overall. Reviews have also been positive with most people loving the characters but wanting me to expand the story. That's the bane of writing short stories, as one doesn't have the room to add the layers most expect when reading a novel. I am planning on making The Cadet's Officer a full novel...one day...

So all in all an excellent year writing wise. I have met and become friends with many people, including my readers, and for that I am truly thankful. I hope everyone had a great year, too.

Onwards and upwards to 2010 with the first release in February. It will be book one of The Pemboke Eve Chronicles, titled: Shadows of the Mind. I look forward to that!