Also with the second, most of us would recognise that book sales are not necessarily the most reliable indicator of a book's quality (am not going to name titles here, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't think of some titles where you wonder how that got published at all! Again, we all do). I think most of us would recognise then that you need to put your work out there, do what you can with regard to marketing (this will vary from writer to writer), and that sales build up over time (usually).
What I've sought to do since seriously trying to write for publication is to make steady progress year on year. Some years that has been just to have more work online. Now I do have a book out, From Light to Dark and Back Again, my aim has been to promote it as much as I can and carry on writing the follow up to it. I've recognised that book marketing is an ongoing thing. Even when I have book 2, book 26 or what have you out there, I will always be referring to my back list etc. So to a certain extent marketing for any one book doesn't really stop. Therefore it makes no sense to put myself under unnecessary time pressure.
On my Fairytales with Bite site tonight, I've written about Developments (both mine and in how I write characters now, as opposed to when I first started writing) and I share that link here. I am now on the Goodreads Author Programme and talk about that in this post and welcome writing related questions on the Q&A spot it has so please do go and have a look and come back to me! I've shared on there the Goodreads widget leading to my book reviews, below I share the widget showing my books. What is nice here is you see both my first published book and the anthology, Alternative Renditions, where my first published story appeared, A Helping Hand.
As for progress for 2018, I don't really make New Year's Resolutions but I do over the Christmas break, think about what I'd like to see what happen - and then do what I can to achieve it. At the end of the year, if I've achieved it all, brilliant. If I've achieved some (and especially if opportunities have opened up where I didn't expect and I've rightly followed those), equally brilliant. If I've achieved "just" some, then that's fine too. Onwards and upwards!
Image Credit: The photos in the slideshow are a mixture of those taken by me and my lovely editor at Chandler's Ford Today, Janet Williams.