In the Rearview Mirror - Looking back at 2025
Anytime we face the arrival of a new year, I like to look back twelve months and see how I did. It’s a way to feel a boost of motivation (look what I accomplished!) while eating a bit of humble pie (look what I screwed up!).
Without further delay, let’s get rolling.
What I Did Well
On the bright side, four new books entered the world last year.
Cozy Up to Mayhem (the Cozy Up Series #9)
The Wasted Pawn (the 509 Crime Stories #16)
The Graffiti Conspiracy (the 509 Crime Stories #17)
Strait Through the Heart (the Flip-Flop Detective #4)
Also, I continued to diligently pursue getting all my books into audio. I’m only a few books away from having every novel in that format. I’m so stoked for that!
New Writing…
I continued to wake up early (between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m.) with a goal of 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I hit that number before I have to dash away to the office. Others, I fall a bit short. Overall, though, I’m hitting my goal on average.
I wrote three novels this year and am almost done with the fourth.
The Morning Tuesday Vanished and The Dry Snitch are books 20 and 21 respectively in the 509 Crime Stories. Both introduce new characters and bring back a couple from previous shorts stories.
The Last Summer is a standalone young-adult story set in 1987. It’s not crime fiction so it was a departure from what I normally write. I had so much fun working on this one that I might write another. I can’t wait for you to read this one! Stay tuned.
My latest work, Too Dead to Cry, is a post-apocalyptic thriller (so another departure from crime fiction). I’m in the middle of the climax right now, so I’m hoping I’ll be finished in the next week or so. This morning I passed 93,000 words which means it’s the longest story I’ve written (outside of co-authored work). This book has been challenging to write in a fun way. Everything is wildly different from police procedurals and detective novels. The guardrails are down on this one so expect lots of action and weird situations.
As for short stories, I only wrote one this past year, but I’m extremely proud of it. “Keeping Johnny Bench” was an idea I had for years and finally set it to paper. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but you’ll be the first to hear when I do.
Releases on the horizon…
Here’s the upcoming release schedule. We’re on a 90-day plan right now so every book has an opportunity to breathe before the next one comes out. The first four are available for preorder now.
Unrelated Incidents (standalone short story collection) - 02/25/2026
The Lesser Murder (the 509 Crime Stories #18) - 05/27/2006
The Tipping Floor (the 509 Crime Stories #19) - 08/26/2026
The Morning Tuesday Vanished (the 509 Crime Stories #20) - 11/24/2026
The Dry Snitch (the 509 Crime Stories #21) - 02/22/2027
I like having that much runaway ahead. It feels like I’m ahead of the curve and not racing against a deadline.
I haven’t announced the release dates for The Last Summer or Too Dead to Cry yet. Hoping to do that shortly.
What I Wished I Did Better
Okay, here’s where I start eating some humble pie.
The Colin Conway Store
After a successful two-year run, I pulled the plug on my direct sales store. It took a lot of work to run but it felt extremely fulfilling. Unfortunately, the store became the target of hackers looking to process stolen credit card numbers. What the hackers do is run hundreds of transactions a day through your store in hopes of finding still viable credit card numbers. When that happens, a purchase occurs which the actual owner of the credit card will later report as fraudulent (which it is, of course).
The various banks involved dinged my store $15 for every fraudulent transaction along with returning the falsely purchased book. As you can imagine, this added up quickly to be a problem.
It is/was a widespread (and costly) problem. I hated to shut down the store, but with limited time, I had to focus on what I could control. Fighting hackers (the bastards) took too much brain space.
What I Did Badly
My serving of humble pie is about to get bigger…
I went back into the office in November 2024, so most of 2025 felt harder than it had since the Covid outbreak when I moved to working remotely full-time. I’m not complaining about the job because I enjoy the opportunity to work with a team again.
However, I don’t want to use my return to the office as an excuse. I was writing and running an author business just fine before 2020 rolled around. I simply needed to be more disciplined and work through those uncomfortable days until I rebuilt my stamina.
As such, I let down my reader community by not staying in touch regularly. That means my newsletter, social media accounts, and emails. Many readers are super kind and let me know that they enjoyed a certain book. Getting those notes thrills me so much. I need to be better and return emails and direct messages faster.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad year. I’m still proud of what I accomplished.
Here’s to 2026!