December is here, which means it’s time for my favorite (and occasionally humbling) year-end ritual: digging through a year’s worth of stats to see what actually happened in my little corner of the publishing world.

This month, I’ll be taking a closer look at:

• Website stats – Who visited? What were they looking for? And how many of them stuck around long enough to click something besides “back”?
• Sales data – The highs, the lows, the “…really? That’s all?” moments.
• Social media growth – Which platforms showed promise, which flatlined, and which ones are still giving me the “why are you like this?” energy.
• Best-performing books – Along with the true cost behind each one: money, time, effort, and the occasional existential crisis.

Basically, I’m pulling everything apart to see what worked, what didn’t, and what I can learn from it all. It’s part archaeology, part analytics, part “oh, that’s why nothing happened in May.”

I’ll be back in January with an update on what I discover and, more importantly, how I plan to move forward in the new year. New strategy? New goals? New chaos? We’ll see.

Here’s to ending the year with clarity and starting the next one with purpose.