Tim Maddox Books

03/26/2026

Hey, everyone. Hope 2026 is going well for you all.

I am quite late in getting this out, but I can say that 2025 was a rousingly fun year for me as an author. Fair waring; this first section is a narrative review of what happened. I’ll have numbers at the bottom if that’s all you’re interested in, skip on down there now.

You didn’t skip? Well then,

Let’s start from the beginning… December 2024

Yes, technically this falls under a prior year, but the release of In The Reeds on December 14, 2024, is really the proof I was going on the active author trail instead of staying behind a computer screen. I had signed up for the Oregon Author Fair in Lebanon and wanted to have a second book on hand should The Tale of Snow White and Rose Red run into editing difficulties (which it did). With that in mind, I collected the stories I’d written for the weekly prompt contests on Reedsy.com as my second book.

This proved to be a worthwhile decision, as In The Reeds was my best-selling cover at events last year (helps when there are three separate Snow White and Rose Red covers, but still). I’ve found the concept of the stories, constrained to 1,000-3,000 words and written within a week’s time, tends to sell itself when I talk about it. Thanks to that interest, it’s the first book I’ve written to become profitable.

Back to the start of 2025, I had my first ever table at the Oregon Author Fair in February. It was a fun time and I enjoyed catching up with the authors I met while walking through the event last year, but I missed having Snow White and Rose Red along for the ride. Since I was inexperienced and unfamiliar with how to pitch a book to fair-goers, I spoke more on the upcoming novel and people were much more interested in the unpublished book than the two on hand… lessons learned.

With the early interest at the fair, I was excited to finally published Snow White and Rose Red on March 25. I’d first gotten the idea to adapt the Grimm’s fairy tale after a sentimental/spiteful look at how Disney has moved away from their fairy/folktale adaptations to other types of stories (which historically has never gone well for them). After seeing the 100th anniversary short, and being reminded that the Snow White remake was on the way, I committed to giving Snow White and Rose Red a novel adaptation, to be released the same week as the remake.

As the day arrived, I eagerly awaited the immediate results. They were… 0 books sold. Quite the humbling experience, though fitting for how the remake did that weekend…

(As an aside, I watched the remake opening night out of curiosity. My thoughts… if you cut out the opening in the castle and then hard cut at the frame before Dopey talks, I actually enjoyed it. It’s not great, but I had fun.)

That zero hit me fairly hard, to the point of some dejection lingering through the end of April. It wasn’t helped by the next event being great for forming connections to other authors, but was light on sales and with gas included barely broke even. Here I started to think that doing in-person events may not be viable for me going forward.

At this point two opportunities swept in, one after the other. The first was thanks to the organizer of Oregon Author Fair, who told me about a local bookstore wanting authors for thier anniversary sale at the end of April. I talked with Abe, the owner of Browsers’ Bookstore in Albany and decided to try the whole weekend.

And what a weekend it was! Everyone there was a joy to talk with, really making me fall in love with the tabling interactions at events. By the end of the three days, I’d also sold enough books to surpass what I received on unemployment for the week. This weekend more than anything else gave me the confidence that I could perhaps make the author thing work.

The second opportunity popped up from my barnstorming of bookstores in Central Oregon for two weeks after Browsers’ before I started my current job, but there is a note to make before speaking on it. I’d visited several of the Central Oregon bookstores before, and one in Bend made a lasting impression. Pegasus Books’s owner Duncan is a well-published author and had given me a number of pointers back in the summer of 2024. The one I remember the clearest was that he can general tell a self-published cover from a traditional published cover. That drove me to finding a good cover artist for Snow White and Rose Red, and that artist was Luisa from Armenia. When I brought the finished book in on that barnstorming trip, Duncan didn’t immediately guess it was self-published. I considered that a great accomplishment by Luisa. Thank you.

A day or after visiting Pegasus, I was up in Madras to see if Blackbird Tea & Tales would take my books. On thier door was a poster for Madras Mayfaire. They gave me the information and I came back two weeks later.

What Browsers’ was for a weekend, Mayfaire almost reached in a single Sunday afternoon! It was miserably windy and I had a slight migraine for the middle of it, yet it was (and remains) my best day as a traveling author. Getting in costume was fun, too. Was exceptionally glad I chose thermals that morning.

These two events, Browsers’ and Mayfaire, gave me the travel and events bug something fierce. I wanted to be out and talking with people about my writing. God sent them at just the right time to encourage me, and they became the events I chased for the rest of 2025.

I ended May helping the Northwest Independent Writers Association (NIWA) with thier table at Beaver State Comic Con in Redmond. Had a substantial conversation with one of the other authors about WW2 planes and fairy tale retellings (the SBD Dauntless is the superior dive bomber, by the way), while we also discussed short stories. One of the options as a NIWA writer is to submit a story for the annual anthology. She had some good advice on where to find markets for short stories, though the two I had in the works were already accounted for. More on them later.

I also picked up my first consignment at Beaver State. Another author named Bryan McBee at the con owns a bookstore in Kuna, Idaho (Kuna’s Book Habit). I’d met him while walking through a different con earlier in the year and decided to ask if he would be willing to take several of my books back with him. He agreed to, and the next month I got a check for a few that sold. It reminded me of an anecdote of Andrew Carnegie’s life about receiving his first dividend from railroad stock. Really tickled my heart to see my books selling on a shelf far away and not just on Amazon.

So, the event count going into June was 5. I did nothing in June, so it remained 5 through the first half of the year. Spoiler: I ended the year at 24. Quick check on the math returns 19 events over the next 23 weeks.

Starting from the Canby First Thursday Night Market on July 3rd until the Oregon Crafters Market on August 9th, there wasn’t a weekend I wasn’t behind a table. Then, after a needed break and a trip to see the Texans play the Rams, I ran every weekend from the Forest Grove Oktoberfest on Saturday 20th through the Christian Authors of the Pacific Northwest Christmas Book Fair on November 15th. Some events went really well while others didn’t, but regardless I had a ton of fun running all around the state.

I’d parse things out more, but to be honest, a lot of it blurs together since it was back-to-back-to-back under the same tent, especially the two in the same weekend setups. And I’m already running long as it is.

One interesting non-table event slipped in during November; helping the Friends of the Lebanon Public Library with a silent auction by reading stories from In The Reeds. They are the ones who put on the Oregon Author Fair way back in February. I’m typically nervous of public speaking/reading; instead of talking with people, all eyes are on me and my tongue likes to trip over itself. I did get a practice run at The Bookery’s Author Appreciation Day fair the week before, and at the auction I got to read my favorite of the In The Reeds stories. Got a great compliment afterwards from a lady asking if “The Remembered Past” was based on a real experience because of how I worded the tale. Nope, I’m just a hopeless romantic at heart.

I also had three Barnes & Noble tables during this part of the year (in Bend, Clackamas, and Eugene, respectively). It was surprising to me how willing the staff at the B&Ns are to host local authors, with Bend’s exuberance in particular matching any local bookstore I wandered into and Eugene having among the highest volume of memorable interactions with readers when I look back on the year. I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend checking in with them if you’re an author looking for events, and if you’re a reader, stop in and see what the authors they host are up to.

The short stories I mentioned also appear here. My first year in NIWA (2024), I wrote The Bard and the Forest Nymphs for Illusions. I still consider this one of my favorite tales which I’ve created. In 2025, my entry for Journey became Darkwalker. Very tonally different than The Bard and my other tales; it grazes the horror genre with a dwindling party against both an alchemy-created beast and the ticking clock of transporting a crystal to seal the beast’s master.

This provided one of the best compliments I received all year at the Journey release party. I got to talk with one of the editors and she asked which story was mine. I told her and mentioned I’d written in the previous year’s anthology. When she heard both titles, she said she enjoyed both of them and hadn’t realized they were by the same author because of how different they were. To be fair, The Bard is an original fairy tale written as the old fairy tales were and Darkwalker is a dwindling party horror piece, so they’re not exactly doppelgangers, but I was very happy to hear that bit of praise.

The second story makes me a professional author, for I was paid for the story. Wraith is the story which rivals The Bard for my favorite. A lone warrior who must defend a helpless village from the Wraith cultists. I had so much fun writing this alongside Snow White and Rose Red back in 2024, and after shopping it around for a few months it found a home with Sally Port Magazine. Working with Patrick and Nate on the tale is one of the best experiences I’ve had on the editing side of writing, and I was glad to see it appear in thier October edition.

One part of the process stood out the most. Nate had provided an initial edit letter that had many good notes, but I felt a sting regarding several points. When Patrick, the editor in chief, asked for my thoughts, I may have replied with a 1,700 word email defending my work. They were appreciative of the defense, and as we moved forward from there I did end up destroying the second act and rebuilding it from scratch as was one of Nate’s pacing points. It worked wonders for the story, and was a marvelous experience to go through.

Now we reach the end of the year, and the last two events… on the same weekend. My biggest venue of the year was the Town & Country Christmas Bazaar in Albany. Of the 200-odd vendors, I was placed at the back between a hilarious sunflower seed salesman and a quick-witted olive oil merchant who made the experience thrice as good as it already was. The three days finally surpassed the totals of Browsers’ from back in April, though no individual day caught Mayfaire. Met a lot of people who told me of new opportunities for the upcoming year and a number of other authors as well. Very much enjoyed my time on Friday and Saturday.

Sunday I had help look after the booth, because I was up at the Oregon Historical Society for Holiday Cheer. Probably the largest single gathering of authors I’ve been in, and it was a blast. Met a few new faces who I’ve crossed paths with again already this year and just enjoyed the conversations. Oh, and there were two guys in full Revolutionary War kit over by me. Great time.

And that wraps up the narrative review. On to..

2025 By The Numbers

Stories published: 3

• The Tale of Snow White and Rose Red (March 25)
• Darkwalker (August 1; NIWA’s Journey anthology)
• Wraith (October 1; Sally Port Magazine)

In-process stories mentioned online but not published: 5 (surprising; thought it was more)

• Morgiana & the Cave of Thieves
• East of the Sun, West of the Moon
• Kuningilin
• The Hammer of Fate series
• A Knight in the Fog

Books sold overall: 886 (majority are online sales through Amazon)

• Forest Flight: 79
• In The Reeds: 484
• The Tale of Snow White and Rose Red: 323

Books sold at events: 369

• Forest Flight: 72
• In The Reeds: 84
• The Tale of Snow White and Rose Red: 213

Events/fairs attended: 24 (19 of which were after July 1st)

Time at booth/table: 170 hours (~7.08 full days or 21.25 eight hour work days)

Top 5 favorite events (chronological order):

• Oregon Author Fair (February 22)
• Browsers’ Bookstore (April 25-27)
• Madras Mayfaire (May 18)
• Barnes & Noble Eugene (October 25)
• OHS Holiday Cheer (December 7)

Indie books I read in 2025 (need to read more…):

• The Orlell Chronicles 1-3 by Alice Bjornstedt (7 books in the series)
• Catalyntje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam by Lana W. Holden
• 366 Days of One-Hit Wonders by Matt Whitaker
• The Powder by Lars D. H. Hedbor

With that, I’ll put a belated bow on 2025. Thank you to everyone who I met during that wonderful year, be you author, bookstore owner, event organizer, or the folks who stop by and make being in public so much fun. Wishing you all great fortunes in the current year.

Take care, and may God bless you in the days ahead.