Welcome, Readers! During the next few weeks, you can expect to find a blog post popping up every Monday to Friday. This is because September is full of brilliant bookish adventures, be that as a reader or as a writer, and we are so excited to be sharing them with you. We're dedicating September to new stories, old classics, timeless adventures, and promising tales. Here are the things you can look forward to: 16th September - the launch of All the Time in the World by Elizabeth McKay. This is the story of Jake and Abi, a brother and sister who stumble into a realm where time is not measured in the usual way, but where there are those who seek to control it for their own ends. 30th September - our tenth Crowvus Ghost Story Competition . Have you got a spooky story to share? Can you write a haunting tale in 4,000 words or less? This year is a big one so, in addition to publication, we're including a small monetary prize for all the shortlisted stories. For all the Ts&Cs, h...
Crowvus is a small company, and there is no legal requirement for us to produce an annual report. That aside, it's both beneficial and gratifying to recap the year and revisit our aims and goals.
It's gratifying because you can celebrate the parts that you got right through the year. And it is so important to take a step back and look at your achievements. In 2025, we sold a record number of books, built the newsletter to a surprising number of subscribers (if you'd like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, then head over here!) and we had a phenomenal number of entries for the Crowvus Ghost Story Competition. Wow! What a year 2025 turned out to be!
It's beneficial because it helps you gain an understanding of the business. Because of the records I insisted on keeping through the year, I now know the percentage of our readers who shop at Amazon, and percentage who prefer paperbacks to ebooks, and the country where we sell the most books. All of this information went into the annual report I wrote at the start of January.
What Information Might Be Helpful
I should say this is not a guide to right an annual report which is legally required. This is just my opinion of what will be helpful for you as a small business owner in the coming year.
- Introduction
Revisit your company's aims and goals in the introduction. This is useful, not only for anyone you may wish to read the report, but also to remind you of the fundamentals of your business.
- Target Evaluation
At the start of 2025, we set several targets for Crowvus. These ranged from the number of books we wanted to sell each month, to marketing strategies. You should also be setting targets for your business, although I would keep them private, and at the end of the year, evaluate them. I used the traffic light system (because I'm a primary teacher!) so I highlighted the target green if it was achieved, orange if it was almost achieved, and red if not. I also wrote a paragraph next to each one to remind myself and explain to others why I had marked it in that way. For example, one of our targets was to send out a monthly newsletter. I marked it as orange as we sent out eleven newsletters in the year, and I wrote down why we'd missed October.
- Overall Sales
I included statistics of how many of each of our titles were sold, and put it in a pretty pie chart for good measure! It was handy to see what our most popular titles were, so we could try and understand what made them so eye catching.
- What Did Not Sell
Yes, it's not as fun, but it's important to write down if there were any products that didn't sell, and to try and evaluate why. For me, it was one of the hardbacks that costs quite a bit because it is a full colour hardback. I wrote on the analysis that I want to work towards producing a paperback version which will lower the price of the book, as people who have bought and read the book in previous years have given us favourable feedback, so I know it is not the content of the book that needs work.
- Kindle Unlimited
Relevant for a publisher or author, but if you're business is something else, this is irrelevant. We've earned part of our money as Crowvus through page reads on Kindle Unlimited. I noted the statistics of how much we earned from which books.
- Sale Location
Which country reads more of our books? For us, it was definitely the UK. Where do people buy our books? 71% of buyers bought the books on Amazon! These are helpful statistics to have as they allow us to understand our buyers a little better.
- Sales Format
Paperback, hardback or ebook? For us, paperback was the most popular, with 65.2% preferring this format. Again, knowing what our readers' favourite format is can help us accommodate them better.
- Social Media
One of our aims for 2026 is to develop Crowvus' social media, so it helped to write the number of engagements and followers we have for our social media channels to act as a base mark for our success in building these platforms.
- Quarterly and Monthly Breakdowns
The sales stats were then divided in quarters and then months. This was because it's helpful to see which our busiest times are, and compare them with future years.
- Competition Stats
A major part of Crowvus is the annual competition we run, and it's important to keep a note of how many entrants and entries we have.
- 2026 Goals
Finish the report off with looking towards the future. After analysing the previous year's goals, it should be a decisive task to set this year's goals. They don't have to be the same, and we adapted many of ours, either to allow for growth, or because we realised they weren't feasible.
As well as writing the goals, you should do write down what your Plan of Action is to meet each one.
If you'd like an editable template for a small business yearly review, then let us know in the comments or by emailing, and we'll see what we can do.
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