I’m gearing up for a big night out to celebrate new year’s, and also trying to finish up ALL the goals and projects I had planned to get done this year (spoiler… it didn’t work). I’ve been failing at things for a long time so I’m not super bothered about hitting all my arbitrary deadlines. But I’m also aware that I should use some of this year-end momentum to plan out some big goals for 2025.
I’ll talk more about that down below, along with some rough publishing predictions and writing goals… but in the meantime I made a bunch of random New Year’s images, (with cats and aliens and stuff) you can find one you like and share if you’re so inclined!
I’ve set goals before, and I believe in them. You need to have a purpose, or a plan, so that you can feel good about existing and doing things; something you want and are working towards. HOPE. Without it, life is pretty bland.
So I did quickly pick a few big scary goals that are challenging enough to be difficult… but are also on the cusp of possibility. They are mostly writing related. I’ve had some business discussions about my future, with a handful of offers from businesses looking to scale, and I’m really good at that stuff, but it’s not as fulfilling as just selling a million books and retiring.
2025 writing goals
To keep myself accountable, I like to post goals publicly and then immediately forget them or get distracted by other things only to stumble upon them years later, so here goes:
- Twelve books, one a month, some fiction and some nonfiction. A lot of these are finished but need heavy revising and editing to get them to the level I’d like them to be.
- Two hundred videos, which will bring my channel to 1,000. And IF my new strategies work I’d like to get to 100K subscribers (about triple where I am now).
- 100Ktraffic/month, this is a throwaway, because I don’t really care, but I’m not using this main blog as well as I could be, so I could you know, post useful articles and stuff (or just keep getting backlinks to my main content and rank for a few high value things.) That’s not important at all, but I do have a lot of pretty good content, and I notice that nobody mentions my resources – which is on me of course: I’m not creating quality enough content for people to rave about. That might be a personal limitation, something about my style of delivery… and I’m not necessarily planning to change that.
- I usually set money goals but I’m not really going to do that this time. I have *hopes* though – I’m making some money on youtube: if I finished 12 new books I’d have about 5 complete series and I’d probably be able to double what I’m earning now. I’m making some money with courses or services, but I’m not excited about making more money that way because I honestly don’t love the work – but people need a lot of help and I want to continue to support them.
- Writing community – I focus mostly on book marketing because there is a lot of demand, but it’s getting weird right now, because a lot of things are changing in a big way. I can definitely help people avoid mistakes and I’m finishing up a new book marketing book soon, so I’ll do a little 21 day boot camp around author platforms; I may give out a free wordpress theme – maybe do a final round of my main course before shutting it down. But I also have a new book on writing planned out and love the idea of a monthly membership to focus on the actual craft of writing, a critique group where members are educated and supportive. That’s an enticing prospect, but it could be a distraction from goal #1: the 12 books, which is my only real and true goal this year (the problem is… I need to boost my income enough to basically be able to write full time and hit that goal, which is why I’m in flurry mode right now, building up my platforms).
- IF I finish these goals, my income should be boosted enough that I can just keep writing books, which would be nice – even though I’m aware, the real money right now is in flooding the internet with AI content; which is silly and inconsequential, but only works because REAL HUMANS are loving it and sharing it – it is better content than we’ve seen for years, because it is more polished, pretty and organized than whatever SEO writing farms have been pumping out to drive traffic… (more on that later!)
I’m not currently scheduling any writing conferences, though they’re really fun and I love connecting with people – they are also great for motivation – but I feel like I’d rather level up my actual platform and finish some books before I show my face in public again.
Best writing journals and planners for 2025
There should be more of these, but here’s a short list from some of the people I know – you can use these organizers and planners to tackle your writing goals, fuel your motivation or just organize your great ideas.
Productivity Planner for Writers
PS… I’m in a rush now so I’ll find more of these later!
Creativity, AI & the Death of Book Marketing
I’ve spent most of the last 5 years doing very little, writing a few books a year, and not seeing any boost in income. Meanwhile, since I haven’t really focused on the nonfiction books, courses or services, I’ve allowed traffic to decline because I haven’t posted anything new in like, ever.
Passive income is pretty amazing, but needing to put food on the table is a good motivator. I hate making choices (oops… small earthquake here… ok it’s over now!) especially when I’m supposed to be adult and responsible. Who needs food when we have ART!
But it is also kind of fun to endeavor to build things back up. So I’m shopping around for backlinks and SEO gigs and other things – but it’s super silly. I’m building new blogs with AI content (and it’s very good, very polished, well written, informative content) that nobody will ever see. And that’s OK because I’m not trying to get real people to read those. I’m just trying to make them strong enough that they appear authoritative to Google, so I can link back to my own resources… which people have consistently liked and used for many years, so they don’t get buried under all the new content.
If you’re a writer, you’re probably facing a similar problem.
The good news is, all the AI “slop” people are making aren’t a threat. 95% of websites get zero traffic, and it’s the same for books. If readers aren’t reading and enjoying those books, they’ll never sell: you’re only competing against successful books – the 5%. And for most authors, “competing” is too strong a word – because the truth is most human writers spend years writing bad books. It’s not their fault, writing is a skill and a discipline that most authors do not intend to master; they just want to tell their story, and they make common, amateur mistakes.
People say AI can only ever write a cliched, recycled story – and I would argue that most humans can not even achieve that. It’s probably always going to be true that Great Literature will be human, but I think we’re also nearing a point where AI written books are as good as, if not better, than the majority of pulp fiction that readers do actually enjoy.
As an example… over on youtube, I’m seeing AI art and AI music get millions of views. I saw an AI voice generated “near death experience” that sounded like a personal story but was all AI rack up 350,000 views. On Pinterest, the most popular home decor or architecture pictures are not real!
On the one hand, that’s OK. AI allows us to visualize or create things that weren’t possible before. Humans were limited in skill and ability, and that restriction has been lifted, so we can create anything. People keep saying that human voices will always be required – for example AI video generators can already make very realistic influencers walking down the street talking about stuff, and comments imply that there is no heart and soul; but how many “am I the asshole” Reddit posts over the past few years have been fake stories to farm karma?
This site is my personal blog, where I continue to simply voice my thoughts with little intention or editing. It’s relaxing and harmless, because I know nobody will read these posts either (and even if they do, so what – it’s not like I have an upsell or offer in mind for posting this). The handful of articles I’ve generated with AI on this site get all the traffic – because they are long and detailed and useful, and match what people are actually searching for.
I think people overestimate the humanity of content as a value proposition: for years people have complained about useless personal stories on cooking or recipe blogs because they just want information – they don’t want to be forced to get to know the content creator (and content creators are taught to slow down and tell stories, because we need to get people to know like and trust us… otherwise they’ll just take all our resources without even knowing where it came from).
Newer tools like chatgpt – now built into copilot or siri with all standard apple or windows devices – are ready to give personal, supportive and instant feedback in a way that feels fluid and easy. There’s a good chance we won’t use google the same way anymore, or browse random blogs or sites for simple answers.
Since the traffic-generating strategies I’ve depended on are in flux, I need to shore up my foundation before it erodes. So right now I’m building new sites to make backlinks to my core content to get traffic, it’s too much work and it’s exhausting, but it’s also a fun kind of puzzle and a preventative measure against the disappearance of SEO traffic, which could kill my business.
I still get a lot of traffic from YouTube, even though I’ve only posted less than 10 times this year. I asked chatGPT for a big list of clickbait topics and unsurprisingly, they are pretty amazing. I dislike them immensely… but that dislike is not stronger than my willingness to grow my platform. People have told me for years that they ignored my channel because I haven’t had flashy thumbnails or titles that capture attention.
If you don’t have people’s attention, it doesn’t matter what you say because they aren’t listening. I’ve never bothered to do more, to do better, to compete in the arena, because I haven’t really cared enough to spend the time and energy it would require. I haven’t changed at all… but it’s now possible to do more and create more of this nonsense, fluff content to please algorithms and attract new people into my community than it ever was before.
Because it no longer requires the investment, there’s less resistance. Most of you, might already be warming up to the idea of using AI, at least for the stupid boring stuff people say we should be doing; and you might even be OK with the idea that AI can lower the mental bandwidth, by making it easier to check off all the crap you hate so you have more time and energy for the things you love.
I’ve instructed authors for years about cover design, because your book is a product and you need to do the things that will attract readers: this isn’t much different, except it feels like packaging myself in away that’s crowd-pleasing, which of course I have an aversion to.
But I got struck recently with some heavy memes like this one.
That hits hard for me… because I’m waiting for messages without taking action. I used to be very into practical magic and manifestation – and it’s not that I no longer believe in it, I’ve just been complacent. I trust I can create abundance; but I have to actually do the work.
2025 Publishing Predictions
Here’s a bunch of stuff that have already happened, but you may not be aware of…
- people are generating AI covers, and they’re awesome, so they don’t need to pay for book cover design
- people are using AI for book editing and proofreading. I’m a pretty skilled developmental editor, but I think proofreading should be free and the robots can fix typos and pedantic, easy formatting bullshit.
- Amazon, Apple and Google have for some time already had AI audiobook narration, as a free option; elevenlabs audio is pretty good, and Spotify is focusing on audiobooks in a big way. AI narrated content on youtube is doing stellar because there is much less competition.
- you can translate your books now into other languages for lower than it has ever cost – it’s not perfect but it will be, allowing you to reach new audiences.
- it’s *possible* to upload a book to chatGPT and have it pull out a hundred teasers, make a hundred social media posts and schedule them out; it’s *possible* to create a list of 100 blog article topics that will attract your audience and schedule them out. I’m lazy so I just dump and run, but if you were smart you’d post a couple each week.
All this is to say, you can get much more done, and get better results, so you aren’t publishing crap, for less time and money than ever before, and this is not a terrible thing, even though it does displace a ton of creatives who have been providing expensive services for these essential and skill-dependent tasks when there were no alternatives in the last decade or so (incidentally, that includes me!).
As for actually writing the books, that’s a tricky thing. Why should creative writers not get replaced when everyone else is? Why are YOU special? The obvious and easy answer is, do what you enjoy, and if you don’t want robots to do the fun part, then don’t let them.
The murkier, seductive answer though is this, at least for me: my books aren’t immensely popular, but they are good enough – I’m just too slow at finishing series. However, I can train AI on my style using projects, upload all my current books in a series, and have it map out and write a sequel which I can edit and finalize. Whether it’s better than I could write? Who knows.
In many cases, I think it’s a stronger writer than me: I’m understated and evocative – it’s more obvious and dramatic (though that can be trained of course). But from the youtube example, I don’t have any confidence that the way I like to tell my stories is actually the way readers want to receive them, and I’m marginally open to the idea of working with a co-writer (human or not) who can help me polish and finish my ideas… because I’m pretty tired of working so hard and readers keep asking for new books – especially on youtube where they expect the next book immediately.
People say you’re only cheating yourself: and that’s true if using AI means you don’t have to learn how to write well or what makes a good story. In my personal situation… I don’t write to get better at writing. I’ve done it before, I’m getting pretty good at it, I’m not trying to improve my writing or learn something about myself, I just want to finish more content for my readers to enjoy. I have some books out under a penname or with co-writers and it’s liberating to remove myself from the equation entirely.
People will say, “you can’t call yourself a writer” if you use AI to write books; I’m not concerned with what I call myself and I don’t feel I have anything to prove, after writing 20+ pretty decent books the long, hard and slow way. Calling myself a writer or being seen as one, isn’t the dream that fuels my imagination or productivity. I just want happy readers.
In my recent talk on authentic creativity, I pointed out that some authors are pantsers who hire editors, and some are editors who hire drafters or outliners. There are different valuable pieces inherent in writing a book and few authors actually do everything themselves; they pay for help and focus on the thing they are best equipped to handle.
Who or what we pay, is the controversial issue: but I’ve always been on the side of budget-conscious authors who need to DIY, and in many ways AI is a better DIY option than we’ve ever had before.
2025 predictions (robot apocalypse)
I think in 2025 we’ll have agents who can access all our shit and do stuff for us, which most people will love because they can do all their boring stupid work without any effort and still get paid; but then CEO’s will figure out they can pay robots much less and let go of their people. AI in the creative arts is a controversial topic, but AI replacing the actual workforce is an economically destructive one.
We have smart LLM’s with vision, and I think by the end of 2025 we’ll have real-world robots who can move around and do things. The conspiracy-nut in me things all this drones and orbs mayhem is just Bezos (who went to Mar-a-Lago recently) getting people used to the idea of Amazon deliveries by drones: if we start delivering food and orders by drone, the gig economy will collapse and Amazon will rule everything. (It’s either that or aliens… snooping around data centers to stop us from creating an AI that will destroy the world).
Students will use AI to write essays and professors will use AI to grade them; social media and emailing will be AI written as well reports, summaries, spreadsheets, marketing and advertising designs (some MAJOR companies have already used AI in advertising campaigns because of course they did – they always want whatever is NEW and interesting!).
We’re at a precipice for sure, but I’m not convinced it’s leading to a dystopia, because let’s be honest we haven’t been on a good trajectory for a few centuries anyway and it’s *possible* a total societal shakeup is necessary – why SHOULD people be working all their available hours away just to afford food and lodging, why should we all be so stressed and anxious?
The problem I see is, the people in charge aren’t incentivized to take care of people’s rights or comfort or conditions, so that’s not likely to get better in the short term; it wouldn’t be the worst thing, maybe, for aliens or AI to be like, “hold up, this path leads to extinction…”
People complain when AI “hallucinates” but also say it can never be creative. This is already not true. AI is good at making things up, and often this untrue content can feel deceptive, like the robots are lying… but in some cases, AI has already come up with new solutions and discoveries that have real, practical merit and value.
AI is very creative, according to all modern definitions of creativity. That doesn’t make it less dangerous or threatening for creatives; but asserting AI will never replace human ingenuity is a risky opinion to have if you aren’t actively making sure you have a way to provide value beyond what the machines can replicate. These are big issues though, and I’m just some guy.
I can’t solve the world’s problems and I won’t shoulder the responsibility for them, though I will do everything in my power to help everyone I can in any way they need.
On a futuristic note, we’re pretty close to a constant personal companion or assistant who can help us with everything and actively seek to improve our welfare – a defender and champion of our own motivations – which may offer real relief to many people; it’s possible we get sudden scientific breakthroughs and more precise medical attention; it’s possible AI removes societal barriers, giving agency to marginalized voices.This also means, for example, that I can create new tools that solve problems for our community – that makes it easier to get things done with better results at a lower cost – and it will cost me nothing and provide value to many… a possibility I’m entertaining in earnest.
At the same time though… Facebook is already a shitshow, and they’ve just declared they are going to fill it with bots. I see 1 or 2 posts from people I don’t know or groups I don’t follow, for each random ad. Why am I even scrolling through, what am I looking for? Does it spark joy? I unfollowed a few hundred strangers whose names I don’t recognize. Where is the value?
I don’t know what the internet is going to look like a year from now, but currently… it sucks.
HAPPY NEW YEAR IMAGES!
I was just going to end the article here, it’s lame but who cares – I’m teaching google I’m not a robot by making awfully cringe human content… but that’s not good enough for my brain so here’s a case study: what do we mean by Dead Internet Theory and why does it matter?
Here’s an example – right now everybody in the world is searching for “happy new year!” images so they can post them on Facebook and social media. Where do these things come from? Who knows, somebody makes them. There’s a ton of demand, but options are limited. After all, it’s in nobody’s self-interest to make a bunch of these cute 2025 images, they won’t get paid or recognized, why spend the time and effort?
BUT with Ideogram, I just generated a whole bunch, and some of these are way too good, like scarily accurate and precise, not just with text but with specific names and faces, I could create ANYTHING and it’s so freaking easy.
Why would I do this? Because if I publish them on December 31st and name all the files right and upload them to this site with decent authority there’s a good chance my images will rank first for those millions of searches. That might mean a big traffic boost. Does it matter – no! That’s not my audience.
But it’s an easy, free thing I can make and give away to drive traffic. If I was being clever, I could easily do the very same thing for a very select audience, like famous quotes from famous books in a particular genre, or references to movies or characters etc. People use social media to share things they like and be seen a certain way; I’m giving them that opportunity by creating the content they need.
What do I get for it? Nothing… but since it only took 20 minutes or so, it’s a pretty huge value-add that will send a lot of good trust signals up the chain to Google or whatever SEO overlords will control the interwebz next year. I can do the same thing for other events or holidays; I could do the same thing for other LANGUAGES. Since nobody else is doing it, it’s a quick and easy way to get all the traffic, at least for a very specific select thing.
I could share these images on Reddit (via Imgur) or other photosharing sites. I could make specific content for specific communities. None of it matters – because it doesn’t lead back to sales… though if I had ads on my websites (I don’t) then traffic itself could earn some profit. But it’s not exactly “AI slop” or “dead internet” either, because this is something people want and need, and that they will actively use.
I’m providing real value to real people. How I did it, ie which tools I used, whether or not I slaved for weeks in Photoshop… that’s not the right question, for me at least. The only question is, can I provide value, or can I not. Previously I could not (time and effort required makes it not worth doing). But now I can.
Of course it’s much more complicated than that, and also much more nuanced. I try to be clear that I think AI is absolutely going to trigger a fundamental breakdown in the way humans have been humaning for almost all the time we’ve been existing; it questions our purpose and unique function in a specifically threatening way, which makes existential crises absolutely the correct response.
On the other hand… look at all the cute 2025 images! Are they really that harmful? Am I destroying the world by not designing them by hand or hiring someone to do them for me? A business (someone who would pay for this service) would put their logo or brand or messaging on them, which would completely ruin them for most people.
Should we ONLY support the businesses who can afford to hire artists to make content to sell things… and is that what we as a creative community are really saying?
PS. What are your 2025 goals and predictions? What are you excited about or nervous about? Let me know in the comments!
A small solstice request…
I didn’t mark my birthday, which falls on the winter solstice, but I’ve been playing with the idea of creating a network of writing blogs, where I could feature and link to you and you could link back to me… I may never pull myself together enough to try and organize that, but if any of my content or templates or resources have been useful to you over the years, it would be really helpful if you can link back to creativindie.com from your website somewhere.
I sometimes collect all the nice comments and feedback I get, but those warm feelings and email messages don’t boost my visibility in search results the way a simple link would. I also plan to use this site to support authors and essential publishing resources better than I have been, so you can help lift all boats with a simple link.
If you’ve used my plotting template or book cover templates, I’d appreciate a shoutout.
Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie. When he’s not critiquing manuscripts or building writing tools, he’s probably in a castle somewhere with cats.
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