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2021 Wrap up
2021 Wrap up
Last year I wrote that my plans were “Clean up, cataloging, consolidation, and celebration.” I said, “This might look like combining my selinafenech.com and fairiesandfantasy.com websites together, or bringing my novels published under a pen name into my main range.”
And yep, I did those things! I got this new website up and running, combined my pen names, and I celebrated ten years in publishing!
It has been a long year. Everything that happened before July feels like it was ten years ago! But all things considered, I got quite a bit done. Here’s the round up.
Publishing
The Magically Ever After anthology was out in February, but didn’t hit the bestseller lists we aimed for, even with many thousands of sales. We just weren’t lucky. But my Rumpelstiltskin retelling novel I created for it (A Cage of Gold and Lies) will be out in January 2022, and I may even write some more fairy tale retellings. Would you like to see more for this series?
Beshadowed 2: Blood Bound, and Beshadowed 3: Shadows Awoken were both completed and released! It feels like a dream to be completing this series, that I have been planning for so long.
The vampire romance that I had under a pen name got a rebranding and released as Heartsblood: Unlife, Remortality, and Deathless, plus the Omnibus.
The other book by my pen name is spicier so I’ve decided not to republish it alongside my YA novels for now, but it is available for free to those who sign up to my newsletter in the Subscriber Library.
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Books
A Cage of Gold and Lies – A Rumpelstiltskin Retelling
$4.39 – $16.50 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Books
Heartsblood Complete Series
$10.99 – $49.50 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Books
Heartsblood 3 – Deathless
$2.20 – $16.50 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Books
Heartsblood 2 – Remortality
$2.20 – $16.50 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Books
Heartsblood 1 – Unlife
$3.29 – $16.50 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Beshadowed - Urban Fantasy
Beshadowed 2 – Blood Bound
$5.00 – $30.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Beshadowed - Urban Fantasy
Beshadowed 3 – Shadows Awoken
$5.00 – $30.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
It was a bit of a slow down on colouring books this year, but I still got two brand new books out, plus a minis and a bundle. I’m really proud of Wild Magic and the new Mermaids and Animal Companions books, as both contain a lot of animal and creature companions in them that were a lot of fun!
I also started working with the amazing Delphine Lévesque Demers who will be creating some of my designs as grayscale versions, so fans of grayscale colouring, keep an eye out next year for more!
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Books
Mermaids and Animal Companions Coloring Book
$8.75 – $14.25 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Books
Wild Magic – Witches and Wizards Coloring Book
$8.75 – $14.25 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Painting
This year was another quite productive one for painting, with many new artworks created, and I’m quite proud of how some of them turned out.
Also completed but not yet released: Solar Energy, Lunar Energy, Transformation, Make a Choice, Overwhelm, Friendship, Lilac Enchantment
General Business
For the last few years, most of my business plan has revolved around creating content (write all the novels, design all the colouring books!), and cleaning up old loose threads of smaller parts of my business to manage my time better. But that’s just about all done now! Obviously creating new books will continue to be one of my main pursuits, but I also need to spend some time going forward actually promoting them a bit too, lol.
I also need to work out how to be a better employer/manager of others and bring more people into my business to help out, because I feel like that would really help out.
Personal
This year we had over three months of lockdown and homeschooling, yikes. It was a tough time, but we got through it as a family and I’m proud of us for that! Proud of all of Australia for that! In other random news, I became the secretary of my local scouts group, made my first will, joined Tiktok, and got my COVID jabs.
What’s next?
Straight up for next year my main priority is wrapping up the Beshadowed series with the fourth and final book in that story.
Then I would like to do one more mermaid colouring book, because that will give me four needed to create a super bundle mermaid book, which would be so cool!
Once those projects are done, I’m actually unsure what to start next. I have lots of options…
I’ve written a story for a picture book that I could illustrate.
I have an epic fantasy about a half dragon/half unicorn I’d like to write… or maybe turn into a graphic novel? That’s a huge job, but a bit of a bucket list item for me.
My husband and his team from Shapeshifter have been developing some animation technology that I could work with to turn some of my stories into shows. Lots of possibilities!
I have outlines for more fairy tale retellings I could write, and outlines for a series of epic fantasy shifter romances, and plans for some kid’s book series, or … well, you get the idea. I have a lot of other story ideas and plans I could be writing!
But I haven’t decided which to work on yet.
What do you think I should do next year?
4 thoughts on “2021 Wrap up”
You have accomplished so very much in 2021. And your art work and books are so fabulous! I hope you give yourself a huge pat on the back! If it were me, I’d take a step back from work for the remainder of the year, enjoy my family and the holiday season, and just let what needs to be worked on next just come to you. I look forward to seeing/or hearing about what your subconscious comes up with.
God bless and have a wonderful holiday season!
I always do try to take much of December off, although my deadline for book 3 of Beshadowed (out today!) changed things a bit this year. But apart from a little promoting for it, I’m all done for the year! I totally agree that rest is very important, and sometimes helps inspire the best ideas!
The graphic novel idea sounds cool, and I always enjoy fairy tale retellings. The picture book might be fun. I don’t have any kids in my life right now, but sometimes I buy picture books anyhow.
So many options! I used to be obsessed with comics as a teenager, so creating something now would fulfill some childhood dreams…