Every year I tell myself I’m not going to make “rules” around reading… and every year I do it anyway. The truth is, I’ve really enjoyed my past reading challenges, not because I finished every category (I didn’t), but because they nudged me toward books I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. The 2026 Reading Challenge is just that: a personal little nudge. No pressure, no leaderboard, just a loose plan to keep reading fun, curious, and slightly adventurous.
Here’s my list of books for the 2026 reading challenge.
📚 2026 Reading Challenge (12 Categories)
About Black History(carry over from 2025) Fiction or nonfiction centered on Black history, culture, or lived experience.
Set in Your Favorite Season(carry over from 2025) Choose a book where the season matters—weather, mood, or symbolism.
An Animal Protagonist(carry over from 2025) The animal must have a POV or be central to the story, not just a sidekick.
Book on My Shelf(carry over from 2024) Something you already own and have been meaning to read (no buying allowed).
Hardcover Book(carry over from 2024) Any genre, as long as it’s a physical hardcover.
Set Outside the U.S. Bonus points if it’s a country you’ve lived in or want to visit.
Retelling or Reimagining Myth/Folklore Myths, legends, fairy tales, or folklore—classic or obscure.
Published Before 2000 A reminder that older books still have teeth.
A Short Read Novella, essays, poetry, or under ~200 pages.
A Book That Centers on Food or Cooking Fiction or nonfiction—meals, kitchens, or culinary history count.
A Comfort Read A reread or something cozy that soothes rather than challenges.
A Wild Card Pick A book chosen by a friend, a prompt, or pure impulse.
Looking back, my favorite part of past challenges wasn’t checking things off. Rather, it was realizing how much joy I got from the process. I also noticed a few categories that didn’t quite happen, and instead of calling that a failure, I’m carrying them forward into 2026. Some books just need more time. This challenge isn’t about finishing everything “right”; it’s about continuing a habit I already love and giving myself permission to wander through books at my own pace. If I finish every category, great. If I don’t, I’ll still end the year with more stories than I started with, and that feels like a win too.
Every year, I approach my reading challenge with equal parts ambition and realism. Some books are carefully planned; others show up unexpectedly and end up checking off multiple prompts at once. This year was no exception. As I look back at my 2025 reading challenge so far, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much ground I covered—and how flexible this challenge allowed me to be.
Here’s a breakdown of where I landed.
🏛️ Ancient Worlds, Retellings, and Folklore
One book managed to do a lot of heavy lifting here:
A reflective, metaphor-rich read that leaned into emotional landscapes as much as physical ones.
Still Open Prompts
These are the categories I still have room to explore:
An animal protagonist
Set in a favorite season
About Black history
Book on my shelf (carry over from 2024)
Hardcover book (carry over from 2024)
And that’s okay. A reading challenge isn’t about perfection—it’s about direction.
Final Thoughts
So, how did I do?
Honestly? Pretty well. I stretched across genres, formats, and emotional registers. I revisited classics, took risks on new voices, and allowed some books to pull double (or triple) duty. There’s still room to grow, but that’s part of the fun.
📚 Want to take a look at my previous reading challenge roundups?
In 2025, my goal wasn’t to shout louder. It was to be seen more clearly.
That meant focusing my energy where it mattered most. SurvivingMexico.com became the main stage, while ceflores.com quietly stepped into a supporting role. After reviewing performance and profitability, I’ve decided to keep ceflores.com on WordPress’s free plan in 2026 and concentrate my efforts where growth has been steadier and more sustainable.
To see how that decision played out, I compared January 2025 starting figures with December 2025 totals across the website, social platforms, traffic, and sales. What emerged wasn’t a viral story, but something better: consistency with moments of surprise.
Website Subscribers: Holding the Line
SurvivingMexico.com‘s email list remained a quiet constant throughout the year.
January 2025: 909 subscribers
December 2025: 909 subscribers
Stretch goal: 1,000 subscribers
While the number itself didn’t change, the list continued to represent a highly engaged core of readers who open emails, click links, and stick around. Hitting 1,000 subscribers remains close enough to feel inevitable rather than aspirational.
Social Media: Slow Burns and One Pleasant Plot Twist
Pinterest: Evergreen and Unbothered
Pinterest continued doing what Pinterest does best—sending traffic quietly, without much concern for follower counts.
January 2025:
613 followers
317 following
December 2025:
611 followers
318 following
3.5K monthly views
Follower numbers barely budged, but monthly views tell the real story. Content continued circulating, being discovered, and doing its job long after it was published. Slow? Yes. Reliable? Absolutely.
Not explosive growth, but organic and encouraging—proof that showing up consistently still counts, even on quieter platforms.
Bluesky: The Unexpected Overachiever
Bluesky was the surprise guest who stayed late and helped clean up.
January 2025:
64 followers
69 following
68 posts
December 2025:
268 followers
358 following
537 posts
Originally, I hoped to reach 100 followers by year’s end. Instead, Bluesky turned into an active, conversational space that far exceeded expectations and became a genuine point of connection.
Website Traffic & Search Visibility
Beyond subscribers and socials, traffic and search data offered a wider view of how SurvivingMexico.com moved through the year.
Visitors & Views (WordPress Analytics)
From February through November, traffic followed a familiar rhythm: a mid-year lull followed by a strong autumn comeback.
Visitors dipped to around 1,510 in early summer and climbed to 3,389 in November.
Page views mirrored that pattern, reaching 4,391 views by November.
Late summer and fall brought renewed discovery, stronger seasonal interest, and deeper browsing, indicating more pages, more time, more curiosity.
Search Performance (Bing Webmaster Tools)
Search visibility steadily expanded.
Impressions peaked in the final quarter, topping out at 30,000 in November.
Clicks stayed relatively steady throughout the year, generally between 122–160 per month.
This widening gap between more impressions and stable clicks suggests growing visibility and clear opportunities to refine titles, descriptions, and search intent alignment.
What the Numbers Are Really Saying
Taken together, the data points to a site that is:
appearing more often in search results,
attracting more visitors toward the end of the year, and
maintaining engagement even during slower seasons.
There was no single breakout moment. Instead, growth came from accumulation where content quietly was stacking, compounding, and finding its people in its own time.
Sales Goals
To keep things grounded, I set a simple benchmark: 20 books sold per month across all titles.
That breaks down to:
3 months: 60 books
6 months: 120 books
12 months: 240 books
The goal wasn’t virality but reliability.
2025 Sales Results
(Exploring Traditional Herbal Remedies in México series and The Mexican Apothecary: Traditional Cold and Flu Herbal Remedies — English & Spanish)
243 herbal books sold in 2025
This closely matched the 12-month target, confirming that the 20-per-month goal is realistic and repeatable.
More seasonal by nature, these sales still demonstrated steady interest and strong cultural resonance during key moments of the year.
Reviews & Reader Response
I also received reviews across Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub, and Muted Muse. There was no numeric target here, just the hope that readers would respond. They did, and that goal was comfortably met.
Quiet Progress Is Still Progress
2025 didn’t arrive with fireworks or viral moments, and that’s exactly why it worked. This year was about tending what already existed, showing up consistently, and letting the long game unfold at its own pace.
As I move into 2026, the work continues, writing, publishing, refining, and sharing, but with clearer priorities and steadier footing. Growth doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it simply shows up, month after month, and that’s more than enough to build on.
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.
Well, let’s just say it was an adventure—and not entirely by choice. Remember how I had to discontinue my Amazon ads because of that delightful bank card fiasco? Yeah. So November was a full-on freeballing-it month. No ads. No fancy targeting. Just me, my social media posts, a couple of emails, and some strategic free book promos thrown into the universe like confetti.
So the strategy was simple: let readers try them for free digitally, fall in love, and (fingers crossed) come back for the print versions either for themselves or as gifts. Will that work? It’s too early in December to know, but we’ll see.
As for downloads… I didn’t get as many as I would’ve liked. But I’m hopeful that the ones I did get were from the right people like the families, teachers, herbalists, and curious readers who actually want and need these books.
Marketing without ads is definitely a challenge, but it’s also oddly empowering to see what happens when you rely on creativity instead of algorithms. On to December and whatever magic (or mischief) it brings!
Well… here we are at the end of the 2025 WIP Challenge, and yes, I know that I haven’t posted an update since August. Oops. But in my defense, time is a weird soup, and somehow the last four months evaporated when I wasn’t looking.
Did I write? A little! Here and there! Enough to feel smug for a moment and then promptly forget what I was working on.
Did I finish any new WIPs this year? Absolutely not. Not a single one. Zip. Zero. A very symmetrical number, if nothing else.
But did I learn something? Oh, definitely. I learned that if I ever expect to actually complete any of these WIPs, I need to carve out more consistent writing time instead of assuming Future Me will magically take care of it. (Future Me did not.)
Was it a wasted year? If we’re talking strictly in terms of word count, maybe. But in terms of life experience, growth, chaos, plot material, emotional arc-building, and general character development? A gold mine. I’ve been living the chapters I’ll write later. Transformation, baby. Sometimes that counts just as much as finishing a draft.
To anyone who made an honest attempt to write this year, whether you wrote a sentence, a page, or just opened the document and stared at it meaningfully, congratulations! You showed up. That’s the hardest part.
As for whether I’ll undertake another challenge next year, that remains to be seen. I might switch things up and track actual hours or word counts per month. I haven’t decided yet; I’m still in the “thinking about thinking about it” phase.
Here’s to the stories still simmering, the WIPs patiently waiting, and the small but mighty wins that carried us through 2025. Onward!
If your idea of a perfect evening involves a steaming mug, a cozy blanket, and a good book (or notebook), this list is for you. Here are a few gifts that celebrate storytelling, creativity, and quiet inspiration — perfect for the readers and writers in your life.
📘 1. Books That Spark Curiosity
Start with books that feed both the mind and imagination:
🌿Exploring Traditional Herbal Remedies in Mexico — A deep dive into the folklore, culture, and healing traditions of Mexico. It’s as much about storytelling as it is about plants — an inspiring companion for writers seeking fresh ideas or readers who love to learn.
🌼The Mexican Apothecary: Traditional Cold and Flu Remedies — This beautifully researched collection reveals the narrative side of herbal healing — perfect for readers who enjoy the intersection of science, culture, and tradition.
✍️ 2. Tools to Inspire Creativity
For authors (and aspiring ones), a little inspiration goes a long way. Here are a few creative companions worth exploring:
🔮Oracle Cards for Writers: Unlock Your Story Magic — A self-paced course from Shortcuts for Writers that helps you tap into your subconscious, overcome creative blocks, and bring your stories to life in fresh, intuitive ways.
🎁 3. Add a Personal Touch (for Writers Who Dream in Ink)
Looking for a gift that goes beyond the bookshelf? Pair one of these inspiring books or courses with a few thoughtful touches that feed the writer’s soul — a dash of comfort, a spark of creativity, and a reminder that their words matter. ✍️
☕ Creative Fuel: Every writer needs their cozy corner and a few tools of inspiration. Try pairing their new read with:
The Defectors drops readers into a near-future America reshaped by a devastating virus and the authoritarian systems created in its wake. Vaccinated citizens are kept under constant surveillance through implanted microchips, while undocumented people disappear into the ominous prisons of Sector X. It’s a chilling setup, made even more unsettling by its echoes of current real-world debates around immigration, government overreach, and public health crises.
Haven Allis, the 20-year-old protagonist, is an immediately likable character. She’s earnest, unprepared, and suddenly thrust into circumstances far beyond anything she has been trained for. When her best friend Greyson is arrested for his undocumented status, Haven is forced off the grid and into a dangerous world filled with virus carriers, private military checkpoints, and a growing underground resistance.
The novel is a fast, accessible read, and Benner builds a world that feels surprisingly close to home. At times, the large cast can be a little tricky to track, but the core emotional thread, Haven’s loyalty and courage, keeps the narrative grounded. The dystopian elements are familiar in a satisfying way, and readers who enjoy pandemic-era fiction with a touch of rebellion and tension will find plenty to sink into.
Overall, The Defectors is a solid entry in dystopian fiction: timely, action-driven, and thought-provoking.
There’s nothing better than getting lost in a good story — except maybe when that story is free! 💫
This season, I’m sharing a few of my favorite reads that invite you to slow down, sip something warm, and fill your creative well. Whether you’re a writer looking for inspiration or simply a lover of beautiful books, these titles are a perfect place to start.
🌿 Exploring Traditional Herbal Remedies in México (Volumes 1–5)
What ancient secrets do the plants of Mexico hold? In this five-volume special edition, discover over 140 medicinal plants used for centuries in traditional healing practices. Each entry is paired with stunning photography and rich cultural context that brings Mexico’s natural heritage to life.
Even if you’re not an herbalist, you’ll appreciate the storytelling woven through every page — a tapestry of history, folklore, and science. It’s a fascinating reminder of how knowledge and narrative go hand in hand.
👧 Abuelita ¿Qué Vamos A Hacer Hoy? Let’s Make Rosca de Reyes!
Meet five-year-old Lupita and her Abuelita as they prepare for Los Reyes Magos. This bilingual picture book is brimming with warmth, color, and celebration — a lovely addition to any family’s holiday reading list.
Perfect for bilingual families, teachers, or anyone who loves learning about cultural traditions through story.
So whether you’re stocking your Kindle, gathering creative inspiration, or sharing meaningful stories with your family — these free books are a heartfelt way to celebrate reading and connection. 💛
C.E. Flores 