Fourteen Years of Self-Publishing – A Timeline

As I mentioned earlier, April 2025 marks my fourteenth year of self-publishing. I didn’t have anything profound to say, other than gratitude for everyone who has read one of my books.

But! I thought it might be interesting to look back at the last fourteen years and pick out a few of the highlights for each year.

2011: Started self-publishing. Published DEMONSOULED and CHILD OF THE GHOSTS. Wrote SOUL OF SERPENTS, the first book I ever intended specifically to self-publishing and not to try and place with a traditional publisher. Made DEMONSOULED permafree, which worked really well.

2012: Wrote SOUL OF SORCERY, which was the first book of mine to get on an Amazon bestseller list. Wrote THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE, which still sells to this day. Wrote GHOST IN THE STORM, which was the first Caina book I ever intended specifically for self-publishing and not in hopes of finding a traditional publisher.

2013: Finished the first DEMONSOULED series with SOUL OF SWORDS, and started writing FROSTBORN.

2014: Finished THE GHOSTS with GHOST IN THE SURGE, and started GHOST EXILE with GHOST IN THE COWL.

2015: Started the CLOAK GAMES series with the very first Nadia book, CLOAK GAMES: THIEF TRAP. The contrast between what I originally envisioned for the series and what it became is amusing – I joked that I wanted an urban fantasy series about a bad person very slowly and reluctantly becoming a good one, but what I actually ended up with was an urban fantasy/science fiction series about Catwoman evolving into Gandalf. Also, I didn’t plan for nearly as many science fiction elements as ended up in the series.

2016: FROSTBORN OMNIBUS ONE hit the USA Today bestseller list, back when that still existed. Finished the GHOST EXILE series with GHOST IN THE WINDS.

2017: The first five FROSTBORN audiobooks come out from Tantor, with FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT being my first-ever audiobook. 2017 was also my highest sales year so far. I finish the FROSTBORN series, and start writing SEVENFOLD SWORD. Started the GHOST NIGHT series with GHOST IN THE RING. Like CLOAK GAMES, GHOST NIGHT evolved significantly while I was writing it. I originally thought the series would be set entirely in Ulkaar, but by the third book I was bored with the idea, and so we started going all over the Empire instead. I also published the first five books of the SILENT ORDER science fiction series.

2018: The SEVENFOLD SWORD audiobooks start coming out from Podium. I start doing my own audiobooks with FROSTBORN: THE DARK WARDEN and CHILD OF THE GHOSTS. I finish the CLOAK GAMES series with CLOAK GAMES: MAGE FALL, and decide to continue Nadia’s story with the CLOAK MAGE series.

2019: I finished the SEVENFOLD SWORD series, and started on DRAGONTIARNA. DRAGONTIARNA: KNIGHTS was my 100th novel. I start the CLOAK MAGE series with CLOAK OF DRAGONS and CLOAK OF WOLVES.

2020: Covid! Ugh. I wrote the entire WRAITHSHARD series in 2020 and also took Photoshop classes, which was helpful for both cover design and ad images.

2021: Finished the DRAGONTIARNA series with DRAGONTIARNA: WARDEN. Started on the DRAGONSKULL series with DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE. Finished the GHOST NIGHT series with GHOST IN THE SUN.

2022: Continued DRAGONSKULL, SILENT ORDER, and CLOAK MAGE.

2023: Finished DRAGONSKULL and the SILENT ORDER series. Started GHOST ARMOR and THE SHIELD WAR. Attempted to write a LitRPG, which became STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE. Started the HALF-ELVEN THIEF series.

2024: Continued GHOST ARMOR, THE SHIELD WAR, STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE, CLOAK MAGE, and HALF-ELVEN THIEF. Wrote GHOST IN THE VEILS, which was my 150th novel.

2025: Decided I had too many unfinished series, so I wanted to focus on finishing THE SHIELD WAR, GHOST ARMOR, and STEALTH & SPELLS.

Dang, but it’s been a busy fourteen years!

As always, thanks for reading! Hopefully it shouldn’t be too much longer before SHIELD OF BATTLE.

-JM