As 2024 comes to a close, many indie authors are already turning their focus to the opportunities and challenges of 2025. From creative shifts to business strategies, they’re making plans to elevate their careers in the coming year. Members of the Alliance of Independent Authors shared their goals for the year ahead, offering a glimpse into the exciting changes they’re preparing to make.
Authors like Annette Hamilton, Kay M. Weston, Sarah Banham, Rick Waugh, Eden Gruger, and Alicia Bay Laurel are setting bold intentions for 2025. Whether refining their schedules, exploring new creative outlets, or rethinking how they connect with readers, these authors are embracing innovation and growth.
This blog post highlights their stories and strategies, offering inspiration and practical ideas for other indie authors planning their own paths for 2025.
Jennifer Layman: Finding Focus in Book Marketing
Jennifer Layman
Jennifer Layman is an author and a seasoned speaker on strategic small business marketing. She has taken a deliberate approach to refining her book promotion strategy for 2025. As the author of a nonfiction marketing book for small business owners, Layman has encountered an overwhelming amount of advice since publishing. However, much of it wasn’t tailored to her unique audience or goals.
“I spent time exploring many of them that turned out not to be a fit with my audience,” Layman explained. “The advice was geared more to a fiction author or the nonfiction advice was more for a biography versus a business angle.”
Now, she’s ready to move forward with clarity. Layman is focusing on crafting a personal outreach strategy that aligns with her expertise and goals, particularly in leveraging her book as a foundation for speaking engagements and generating additional revenue streams. “I have a better idea of what my best strategy is for selling my book, expanding on the book to generate further revenue, and ways to use the book to my best advantages,” she said.
For Layman, the trial-and-error process has been invaluable, even if it’s been frustrating at times. Her advice to other authors is to see those missteps as part of the learning process rather than a reason to give up. “Instead of being frustrated, you can use that experience as what not to look for in the future, which can help you be more focused on the things that can help you,” she noted.
Annette Hamilton: A Year of Ambitious Goals
Annette Hamilton
For Annette Hamilton, 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal year. “It’s definitely ‘do or die’ time—well, not literally, I hope,” Hamilton quipped. She has several long-standing book projects nearing completion and plans to publish them all in the first half of the year. Clearing these from her plate will allow her to focus on an exciting new project: a book series set in the year 2050 that explores an unpredictable journey into the future.
Hamilton knows that achieving these goals will take hard work and focus. “A lot depends on working hard over the end-of-year break and summer holidays (summer here in Australia) with lots of discipline and optimism required,” she said.
Despite the challenges, Hamilton is determined to press forward. Her plans for 2025 reflect a commitment to closing old chapters while embracing fresh creative opportunities.
Alicia Bay Laurel: Combining Art and Storytelling
Alicia Bay Laurel
Alicia Bay Laurel is bringing her signature artistic style to her latest project, a graphic novella that’s one-third complete. Her books are uniquely crafted, featuring cursive script paired with intricate line drawings created with ink pens on art paper. These are then scanned and refined digitally in Photoshop, blending traditional artistry with modern techniques.
In 2025, Laurel plans to expand her offerings beyond the novella itself. “I am planning to offer print-on-demand poster-sized versions of the hand-lettered, illustrated pages in addition to the book,” she shared. This innovative approach allows readers to enjoy her art both as part of the story and as standalone pieces.
SJ Banham: Shifting Focus from the Past to the Future
SJ Banham
For SJ Banham, 2025 marks a turning point as she transitions from a deep dive into family history to exploring her own future as a writer. Over the past two years, Banham has been intensely focused on creating a memoir for her parents, based on old photos and audio recordings of their stories from the 1940s through the 1970s. “I’ve spent a lot of time working my way through old photos, their audio… and their photos of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s,” she explained. The memoir, intended for family eyes only, has been a labor of love spanning over 15 years.
With the memoir set to be completed by the end of this year, Banham is looking ahead. “What I meant by ‘focusing less on the past and more on the future’ was about looking forwards to seeing what the future holds for me as a writer,” she shared. In 2025, she plans to work on curating her parents’ photo collection while catching up on her many works in progress, including another nonfiction project and several novels.
Kay M. Weston: Making Writing a Priority
Kay M. Weston
Kay M. Weston released her first book this year and is already working on her second, which she hopes to publish in December or January. “Next year, I’m aiming to make writing a more core part of my day instead of fitting it in after I’ve done everything else,” she said.
Until now, Weston’s focus has been split between her work as a VA and home-educating her 10-year-old. “I haven’t been very good at making time to write, simply fitting it in when I can, which doesn’t always work. Hence why it’s taken me so long to do anything, I suppose,” she said.
Her 2025 plan includes setting aside 30 to 60 minutes for writing each day, aiming for consistency to build a rhythm. “I’m using Asana to set goals of what I’d like to achieve each week, focusing less on word count and more on time spent writing or working on my books,” she explained. Weston also plans to join Orna Ross’s accountability group to help stay on track.
In addition to her novel, Weston is working on short stories for anthologies and magazines as part of her strategy to build visibility. “I’m hoping to get my name out there a bit,” she added.
Rick Waugh: A Strategic Shift in Distribution and Marketing
Rick Waugh
Rick Waugh is making significant changes to his publishing strategy in 2025, starting with pulling his books out of Kindle Unlimited and exploring wider distribution. “I needed to make a change — I can’t keep losing money, as this all becomes a very expensive hobby,” he said. After selling 1,000 books and accumulating over 300,000 page reads on Amazon, Waugh realized his efforts weren’t profitable, largely due to advertising costs and other expenses like cover design.
To shift gears, Waugh plans to set the first books in his series to free or 99 cents and use newsletter promotions to drive sales. “One recommendation I received was to go wide, set my first in series to free or .99, and really work my newsletter, joining joint promos on Bookfunnel and elsewhere by giving away those book 1s,” he said. With two complete series and ten books, he’s building a foundation to hopefully start breaking even.
Waugh is also repackaging a 160,000-word serial novel into seven shorter pieces, including novellas and short stories, to test if lower-priced offerings can drive read-through to his larger series. “I did my own covers for those, and I’m pretty happy with the results. We’ll see if readers agree,” he said.
When it comes to platform selection, Waugh is staying on Amazon but distributing directly to Kobo for access to their promotions. For other platforms, he’s using Draft2Digital to minimize management time. “I want to keep the management time to a minimum,” he explained, noting that Draft2Digital’s no-fee, percentage-based model is ideal for keeping costs low as he tests these changes.
Tricia Gardella: Turning Learning into Sales
Tricia Gardella
“How can you not be thinking about next year? As far as I’m concerned, 2024 is over,” said Tricia Gardella. This year, her focus was on learning the ropes of marketing. “Next year, I hope to use what I learn and sell, sell, sell! Shouldn’t be long before I see if I learned enough.”
Jan Boies: Finding a Writing Rhythm
Jan Boies is switching to writing romance novellas on a schedule of three per year. “Selling wide,” she said, adding that longer books without a schedule weren’t working for her. “Each month I have 1-2 things to do that will keep me on schedule. By November, I should know if the schedule works.”
Eden Gruger: Balancing Energy and Patience
Eden Gruger
Eden Gruger is rethinking how to balance her writing, editing, and mentoring. “As a disabled writer, my energy can be patchy, and at the moment my schedule isn’t very balanced,” she said. “I may come to terms with setting aside my work for a month at a time, or that even if I am only doing half an hour here and there it’s still moving forward.” Gruger added, “I will also need to learn to be patient—hadn’t happened in fifty years so…”
Holly Curtis: Aiming for Two Books
“I’m hoping to get another book (or 2!) out next year,” said Holly Curtis. Her other big goal? “Generally trying not to muck things up.”
Carran Waterfield: From Theatre to Publishing
Carran Waterfield
Carran Waterfield will be onto her third publication by 2025 and aims to bring out a fourth within the year. “This may convince whoever that I am serious about this,” she said. After more than 30 years as an independent theatre artist, she finds parallels with her two years in independent publishing “extraordinarily tangible.”
Sue Morris: Second Novel Coming in Spring
“Exciting news,” said Sue Morris. “My second novel will be released next Spring!”
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
If you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.
Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.
