Slowly getting back to business // Income report 2025

December 26, 2025

Another year, another income report on my writing and self-publishing endeavours. You can read the previous one here: 2024.

2025 started with me wanting to release a book. The owner of a bookshop even told me that, if I had a book published, I’d be welcome alongside him at a big literary event in October (which he couldn’t attend in the end, but neither did I release the book in the first place, haha).

The book I’m talking about… I had a very hard time writing it.

I know we’re in the age of AI, but I’m making it a point of honour not to use it for writing, ever, even if writing is hard. Everything you read from me, whether on this website, in a newsletter or as a book, has been written by me and only me. I feel like there’s a need of having a human certified stamp on things nowadays. I love em dashes, but will I be able to freely use them in my writing without being accused of using AI? Who knows!

In August, I decided to switch projects and read Once Upon A Sky’s latest draft, a middle-grade novel I’ve been working on for nearly ten years, on and off. And I can safely say that this book will finally see the light of day in 2026. Just watch me, haha.

As a reminder, this report covers the period from January to December 2025. Overall, this author business represents 1.85% of my total 2025 income. So here’s your gentle reminder not to quit your job because you’re gonna get rich fast with book publishing.

So, what did my year look like…

Side hustle income: book sales

Let’s recap. I still have only three books out:

• The Londoners (2021);
• The Londoners in French (2022);
• SEO for Authors (2023).

I haven’t released any books this year but, as I mentioned, I’m currently preparing the release of two books. The first one, Once Upon A Sky, is expected this coming Fall (2026). No date has been set for the second one, but maybe somewhere in 2027.

The Londoners (my firstborn) crushed it all. It sold almost consistently throughout the year. As for SEO for Author (my latest), it was a bit sad to see it sell so little. In December 2025, I sold one copy of The Londoners in French, which was a big big surprise. Let me tell you that this book has never been great on Amazon. But I’ve recently changed the keywords on the KDP dashboard and poof: a sale appeared. Let’s just hope it wasn’t just pure luck.

I’ve sold 24 copies of The Londoners, 5 copies of SEO for Authors and 1 copy of The Londoners in French, for a total of 30 books.

That’s a decrease of 9 book sales compared to 2024. However, 10 copies are currently with brick-and-mortar bookshops, ready to find new families. They just haven’t sold yet, so I can’t add them for 2025. It’s a head-start on 2026’s numbers, haha.

In 2025, most of the sales came from Amazon KDP (with 46.6%). I haven’t done as many in-person events at the bookshops, so it only made up for 31.9% of the sales. In third place, there’s the Direct sales, with 15.34%, and last but not least there’s Draft2Digital with 5.5%.

Interestingly, I sold more paperbacks than ebooks in 2025. I noticed SEO for Authors is mostly sold as an ebook, but readers love having a physical copy of The Londoners. I wonder if readers would be interested in signed copies as well… That’s something to dig into.

Publishing and marketing recap of 2025

My books are sold widely

I won’t get political or anything, but it’s always best to have different ways of selling books.

Actually, The Londoners was wide when it came out in 2021. Then, I don’t remember why, I made it Amazon exclusive, and the next books too. Maybe that was because I wanted to try the Kindle Unlimited program and see if it was doing anything for my book sales. It did for a while… Then, the world saw Big Tech bros at the US President’s investiture…

So, as of March 2025, the books are now on all platforms where ebooks are sold. I’ll do my best to also offer wide paperbacks as soon as possible.

I opened a direct store

As I was listening to more and more conferences and podcasts on selling direct as an author, and already being wide with the ebooks, I thought opening my own eshop could be another way for readers to get my books. They’re available through my PayHip store since last November. Also had my first sale through PayHip that month, which I was very happy with.

This year, only the ebooks are available through that store. But I’m digging into shipping prices as soon as we’re in January, so I can calmly ask my questions to the post office. I’m thinking big for 2026!

The books are in libraries and more brick-and-mortar bookshops

Something I wanted to do for a while was to push the door of more bookshops. And to be honest, I had almost given up on that because I cannot, for the life of me, ask bookshop owners to sell my books. But, in the end, I did dare to ask one of my local bookshops to take a few copies of The Londoners in French, yay. And they accepted, re-yay! They’re the second bookshop that has copies of my books now. Probably one of the highlights of the year.

I was also brave enough to donate The Londoners in French in two libraries. I know! It’s a donation, I’m not asking them to sell it. But, believe it or not, it was already difficult enough for me, haha.

I guess the next step will be to organise events with those people. That would be nice.

I started being online again

Last September, I released the first video on YouTube after more than a year of absence. I took the opportunity to also revive my newsletter and do a couple of livestreams.

I still struggle with putting videos up on schedule, because I don’t necessarily have the time to produce interesting content. But I’m doing my best, and that’s all that matters. My focus is on writing the next books, as it should be.

Plans for 2026?

I definitely thought more about my self-publishing activities in 2025 than I did back in 2024. I diversified a lot on the distribution side (selling direct, being wide, a second bookshop). I got back on the promotion wagon (a little).

But I haven’t done anything I thought of doing in my previous report. No new release, no audiobook, no reading event, no conferences. But I think I only added those items for the sake of doing something. There was no actual objective.

In 2026, there’s one objective: expand my readership.

For that, I’ve got three strategies and a few tactics to put in place:

• Release a new book. That’s the obvious one. Without a new book, it’s nearly impossible to get new readers in. The work has already started to have a book out in Fall 2026.
• Refine my website’s SEO. Honestly, with a book on SEO, how come I’m not top-notch regarding my website? Haha. That’s something I worked on in December of 2025 and will continue working on in January. I expect to see better results in 2026 on that front.
• Boost distribution. The Londoners (both English and French) are in brick-and-mortar bookshops, I’m wide with all books and I started selling direct last November. But I can do better. So I’m gonna contact bookshops in Brussels, organise events around the books and start selling signed copies on my eshop. Just watch me, haha.
• Increase my newsletter subscribers. Wherever I look for author marketing advice, they all talk about the importance of building a newsletter list. It does make a lot of sense, especially for someone like me with no intention of using social media. I’m currently in the process of creating free bonus content for each of my books, so… we’ll see if it moves the needle in the right direction.

I think my plans are a bit more thought out than the previous year. Let’s hope I’ll be able to win on all fronts. But if I have to choose one of the strategies, it’s the new book release. I believe in the power of a backlist: the more books are out, the better for discoverability.

I’ll see you next year!