Every author wants their book to be number 1. It’s like a reward for all your hard work, and it’s probably an ego thing too.

So, anyway, back in August I was updating my goals for this year. I rarely share my writing goals with anyone. I know some authors blog about theirs, but if a goal is really important to me I won’t tell a soul about it. I added a couple of goals to my list, and one of them was:

To make it to number one in the Christian Fiction category on Amazon (either UK or US) by December 2015
At first I wrote 2014, but then I thought that wasn’t realistic, so I changed the 4 to a 5. Well, obviously my words went straight from my lips to God’s ears because Surrender (Crystal 2) is number one in two of it’s categories on Amazon UK!!!

And it has a cool little tag when it’s listed in search results that says ‘the no.1 bestseller.’

It’s probably because I chose a different category for this book. I’ve put it under Christian YA. Maybe that’s not as competitive? The only big Christian YA author I know is Melody Carlson, and she’s so good at what she does. Anyway, I’ll be wearing a huge maniacal smile for the rest of today 🙂

I’ve been publishing independently since July 2011 and none of my books have ever been number 1 in their category. There is just too much competition, especially in Christian fiction where the big names are very well established and people don’t want to deviate from them because they represent the finest in Christian fiction.

Last year I had a bit of a wobble and thought I needed to be more like Karen Kingsbury and Francine Rivers, so I started my Pure Passion Series. I had a ball writing Lust, but by the time I was moving on to book 2 in the series, Bondage, my edginess (some may call it weirdness) was back and that book had violence, rituals and a cult. I had another series lined up, called the Restoration series, which is all about married couples. I started to write it and I just thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Again I was trying to be a hybrid of Kingsbury and Rivers, so I decided to leave that series for a while.

I’m still finding my feet as a writer, and not having a publisher means that I can write whatever I want. So, I will probably still try to imitate the big names in Christian fiction in future (after all, they are amazing and talented), but I will also do my own thing, too. Crystal’s series is my own thing. I’m just being me and writing what I want, and thankfully my readers are supporting it. You guys got Surrender to no.1 in its category, and I am so thrilled.

Christmas has definitely come early for me. I can now call myself a no.1 bestselling author 🙂

Dayo.