Behind the scenes: a mid-year update 2025
Hello! We are already more than half way through the year, so I thought I’d do a little behind-the-scenes update this week (also, it’s the summer holidays, and nobody really wants to read another post about SEO - right?!)
I find writing and then re-reading these posts months or years later SO helpful, and I actually encourage you to consider doing the same - especially if you have a blog on your author website!
Life moves at such a pace, and it’s so important to take stock and reflect from time to time.
I also find that these kinds of posts are REALLY popular with my newsletter audience which is fascinating to me as I used to worry they were too navel-gazing to be of interest to anyone else 😆
But I think the truth is most people are interested in other people’s work lives - especially if they are writers trying to juggle another job alongside their writing (which is most writers, right?!).
Author web design
First of all I’d like to say that I am honestly just SO much happier this year than last year and it’s been such a relief!
I had a mini mental breakdown at the end of last year when I realised that I had no guaranteed book money coming in in 2025.
I have a book coming out next year (more on that later…) but I’d already received most of the advance for that, with only the publication advance left, which I’ll get next year when it’s finally released.
I knew that in order to pay my bills this year I was going to have to do something drastic.
I ended up signing up for some coaching from a specialist who works only with women web designers, and she encouraged me to raise my prices.
So I did. I was terrified. But it’s been a life-changing decision.
I have more than doubled my income from last year, and the huge amount of stress I was carrying around has really lifted.
I’m aware that, from an author’s perspective, my bespoke design packages might seem expensive (they are actually still very cheap for a website designer in general though, I promise!).
However, I have nearly six years experience now and over that time I’ve truly perfected the service I offer.
I have a 100% client-satisfaction rate. Every single one of the clients I’ve worked with this year has told me how delighted they’ve been with their completed websites, and most importantly of all, how much less stressful the process has been than they anticipated.
(Writing that paragraph gives me a bit of ick as I’m a self-deprecating Brit, but it’s true and I’ve just had the loveliest working experience this year so far.)
If you are an author on a budget, I still want to help you as much as possible - through this blog, my free resources and of course my online courses, so please do check these out if you haven’t already.
One thing that I’ve found super interesting is that I’ve had more US clients this year.
My SEO is pretty strong after blogging weekly for 5 years and more than half of my visitors are in the US, which is so cool!
I build my author websites in a day and keep the time my clients need to set aside for the project to an absolute minimum, which means there’s no issue at all with me being in a different timezone.
It actually works out really well because I work on a website during the day UK-time and then my client in the US logs on at some point in the morning their-time to find that it’s already finished!
And on that note… if you’d like me to build you a website this year, then please do get in touch soon - I only have a handful of slots left in 2025.
Here’s a little carousel of just some of the websites I’ve built this year…
As I said, I’ve enjoyed working on all of them.
My writing
Onto my own writing… it’s actually been so nice NOT to have had a book out this year.
It’s the first year since 2018 I haven’t had a book release, and I don’t think I had fully appreciated the emotional toll of publication until I had a year without one.
I’ve been thinking a lot about momentum recently, and how obsessed I was with it when I got my first book deal.
I was determined to publish one book per year - so sure that this was the recipe for ‘success’, and terrified of taking a step back and having a longer break.
Some honest thoughts on success as an author →
However, the publishing world has changed so much over those past seven years, and continues to shift even further. Who knows what the advent of AI has in store for writers?
I reached a point earlier this year, when I’d finished writing my experimental, out-of-contract, batshit-crazy novel (more on that later, too) and I was starting to plan my next suspense novel.
I had an idea and decided to start writing it this September and get the first draft done by Christmas, when a little voice in my head asked me ‘why?’
Why was I so fixated on writing a draft before Christmas? What was the rush?
I didn’t feel completely obsessed with the idea, in the same way I did with the book I finished earlier this year.
Instead, it felt like something I HAD to do, like homework, or a university project.
Before this year, the reasoning for my non-stop output was obvious - I needed the money.
But now my web design is meeting my baseline income, I started to question exactly what I was trying to prove.
When I was a kid, I always wanted to publish a novel. I’ve done that now.
In January, my eighth novel will come out!
My eight published novels… roughly 700,000 words in total! 😅
‘Connie’ is a proof copy hence being slightly different in size.
There is no need to try to ‘prove’ I can get a novel published - I’ve already done it, multiple times.
I started digging a bit deeper into this mindset and realised that actually, what I want to do going forward is to focus on writing books I really, really, want to write.
Like the one I just finished.
To create art that means something to me, that feels important for me to put out into the world.
Rather than trying to write for the market, or to second-guess what publishing might want from me.
Writing is such a difficult endeavour, involving so much sacrifice and mental anguish. I’ve come to the conclusion that you really have to want to tell that particular story.
Otherwise what’s the point? There are certainly easier ways to make money.
Anyway, in the middle of all this pondering, something nice happened.
My upcoming book, Connie, was announced in the Bookseller!
I signed the contract for this book way back in 2023, so it’s not really ‘news’ but even so, it’s always nice to see it in print.
I also got to release the cover on Instagram, and you can see my reel below, and also take a look at my own author website to see how I made a fuss of it on my homepage.
Click the image above to visit my own author website!
It’s the first time I’ve used a video background on my own website - what do you think?
(The video was created in Canva then uploaded as a background to the first section on the homepage, if you’re interested in the tech.)
As for the book I’ve just finished writing…
I am more proud of it than anything else I’ve ever written.
So much so that I feel reluctant to let ‘publishing’ near it… 😂
It feels like this perfect thing I’ve created and a huge part of me really doesn’t want to send it out into the world to be judged and pulled apart by people on Goodreads.
I have a pretty thick skin, but when my first Charlotte Rixon novel, The One That Got Away, received bad reviews (not to mention a bad publishing experience in general 😭), I found it much more difficult to accept than with my other books, because the book was so personal.
My agent has read my new book, and she loved it. I trust her! But even so, there’s something holding me back from telling her to go ahead and submit it to publishers.
And so, I have made a slightly scary but also exciting decision about it and as soon as I’m allowed to share more, I will! (sorry 😬)
Harrogate
I had a really really lovely time in Harrogate this year.
It was about a million times more enjoyable than last year.
I think perhaps that’s partly because I am just more relaxed generally about life, but also because, after the response I had from my blog post last year, I was reassured that lots of other people feel the same way that I do!
I have had SO MANY people come and thank me for that blog post - through social media, email and even in person.
Honestly it’s been quite humbling, and made me realise just how similar we all are.
An amusing highlight was when I was standing with my new publicist just outside the tent on the Friday evening and someone came up to me and said:
‘Are you Charlotte Duckworth?’
And I said yes, and she replied with:
‘I just wanted to say how much I love your… blog posts.’
And then I made some socially awkward joke about me thinking she was going to say she loved my books. 🤦♀️
Sorry to that lovely lady. I am better in writing than I am in person, and I really appreciated you coming up to me!! Especially as my new publicist now thinks I’m famous (joking).
Anyway, roll on Harrogate 2026 and more awkward encounters.
But in the meantime… I would love to hear if there is anything in particular you would like me to blog about!
I blog on three main topics: author websites, newsletters and life as a writer…
But is there anything you’d like more of? Or less of?
I’m absolutely willing to share anything and everything (that I’m allowed to) about my own writing journey, but also about websites and my beloved Squarespace.
So please let me know what kind of posts you find most helpful / are most interested in and I will do my best to oblige!
