Pikko’s House Year in Review 2019

Last year was an insane year, my busiest and most productive yet. For those curious, click here for my Year in Review from 2018. This is only the second year I’m posting this, but I hope to keep this up so that I have something to look at as the years and books go by. The photo above is me with books my clients published in 2019, yet another thing I’d like to make a yearly tradition.

Last year, I marveled at editing over 5 million words for the year, and I blew that word count out of the water in 2019.

I learned a lot of new things about business in 2019, and I also expanded my team yet again with my beta reader crew. I parted ways with my big nonfiction client, but if I’m being honest, that was really starting to burn me out, and it was really affecting my fiction and personal schedule. Still, I’m forever grateful for how much experience and business they gave me.

I also got back into proofreading last year, taking on books that I wanted to work on in some capacity.

The biggest difference has been in honing my productivity. Almost two years ago, I subscribed to Freckle (which is now Noko Time), and after weeks and months of being able to study when I work best and how much I need to get done each day, I’ve been able to focus better at specific times. I’m also into my second year of using a Passion Planner, and a daily task list that I can use to physically cross out things has been a huge help.

Alrighty, so moving on to the stats, which I started to slack on around midyear, which meant a whole lot of logging this past month to catch up on things.

Crystal

Novels edited: 50
Novellas edited: 1
Short stories edited: 15
Novels proofread: 10
Novels beta read: 17
Nonfiction books edited: 3

Proofreading Team

Novels proofread: 29 (includes 4 passes after me)
Novellas proofread: 1
Short stories proofread: 4

Beta Reading Team

Novels beta read: 17
Novellas beta read: 1

Nonfiction Team

Books edited: 10
Books proofread: 7
Books beta read: 1

These stats translate into:

5,880,475 words edited by me
1,274,505 words proofread by me
1,405,946 words beta read by me
4,653,450 words proofread by my team
459,721 words edited by my team
1,554,555 words beta read by my team

My personal overall stats (not including my team) have risen to:

20,265,610 words edited by me (including 166 individual novels)
7,716,197 words beta read by me (including 76 individual novels)
2,123,707 words proofread by me (not sure how many novels)

This is my second full year editing without kids at home, and with my youngest no longer in preschool as of August, it’s really helped, since that was basically one grand a month.

I had 97 inquiries in 2019, which was really close to what I saw in 2018 (99). Of those, I booked 52 people, which puts me at about a 54% booking rate.

On Fiverr Pro, which sees more activity but much less success due to their marketplace having so many providers, I received 115 inquiries. Of these, I booked 20 people. If I take out the 37 inquiries I declined, this gives me a booking rate of only 26%. However, a couple of these were for multiple books, and after running my earnings report, it’s still very much worth being a provider there. I only split this into its own category this past year.

2019 Goal: How I Did

Last year, I said I wanted to work on honing my focus, and as I mentioned above, I was definitely able to do this. I did not, however, end up with time to relax, so this is an ongoing goal and something I hope to achieve with the help of my virtual assistant, who I brought on last year to help with the Book Lovers Box.

I thought I had more goals in mind, but apparently not. Haha! Productivity is a big deal, though, so go me.

2020 Goals

Last fall, I launched my eschool, Pikko’s School of Editing and Wordcraft, and one of my big goals is to build my study body. I currently offer a free mini course to get people to sign up, and I hope to add at least three courses by the end of the year.

I would also like to finally publish a SimpleMarkup book. I realize my market is very niche, but I really want to have a book. As much as I’ve worked with indies, I’ve never self-published anything myself, and it’s something I want to do.

I’d also like to build the Editors Lair as a social networking destination for editors. So many of our current members want to get away from Facebook but don’t know how, and the Lair is, in my opinion, a good alternative. We passed 500 members this month, and I’d like to double that by next year.

On a personal note, I want to get fit and go on a vacation, because holy cow am I pooped, and I’m pooped because I’m unhealthy, and I’m pooped because I just never take a break, and boy do I need one.

That said, I’d rather be overworked than underworked. I’m happier now than I have ever been, and it’s still crazy to me that my “real” career didn’t begin until I was 34.

I’m excited to see what I can achieve in the next year and the next ten.