I'm working on a presentation about career progression and goal setting, and as part of it, I've been building a retrospective analysis of annual metrics. Newsletter subscribers, books released, total books in catalogue, number of free titles available.

Growth can be quiet.

And then today, Facebook Memories served this up. My most commented on photo of 2013.

In 2013, I had two FB accounts, and none of my friends and families were on my Zoe profile. This was just readers. Feel free to guess how many comments I had on my popular post of the year!

3.

Three comments on a photo of me writing. That was my post popular photo in 2013, a year in which I released 3 books, made $5000*, and thought at least 1453 times that I would never figure out this writing thing.

* Most of that $5000 was from my cut of a box set that originated here on Twitter! I only made a few hundred dollars on my individual titles.

If I ever seem obnoxiously confident about publishing, it's because I never forget just how far I've come--and then I see a reminder like this and realize, it's even further than I thought.

Which isn't to say I've hit all my goals or maxed out my potential -- not at all! I'm always a peer in this journey, stumbling just as much as anyone else. My last Vikings in Space book had 11 pre-orders, if anyone wants to feel better about their own pre-order efforts.

Because publishing success doesn't just happen, it's not (mostly) luck, it's built. Luck can be a factor, privilege is definitely a factor, but it is BUILT, brick by brick, through quiet metrics you can check in on, year over year.