What Did Jaime Buckley Achieve in 2025 with Life of Fiction?

My end-of-year accounting to my community.

Nov 30, 2025

I’m not sure if this is a public service announcement…or claiming insanity?

Ya know, this is all inspired by Scoot.

This is all his fault.

For some reason, I love his monthly emails sharing what he’s done, where Gibberish is, what’s still for free, what’s going behind a paywall and what he plans to do next.

Kinda like a personal declaration, or maybe a ‘return and report’.

It’s had me thinking for a couple months…and my conscience nudged me.

“You should do something like that,” it said.
“Why?” I asked. “Don’t I have enough work to do?”
My conscience shrugged. “Sure, but this is more like a therapy inventory session. Gives you the opportunity to discover what you’ve accomplished, see if you actually hit any goals…and to have actual data to make new ones.”
It was my turn to shrug then. “Goals. Ya know what I say about those, right?”
My conscience chuckled. “I’m you, genius. Of course I know what you say. ‘Always shoot for the stars, cause even on a bad day, you’ll likely hit the moon.‘”
I grinned wide.
“But you also know that when you make goals, it’s always that last 1% that makes all the difference…especially when aiming at the moon. If you’re OFF by 1%, you’ll miss the whole planet 4900 miles.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

So here I am.

What WERE Our Goals For 2025?

Honestly, too many goals to list, and we didn’t want you thinking we were more insane than you already do. This is more important to us than anyone realizes, and striving to build a specific fictional world and keep the lights on at the same time is no easy task.

So let me share a concise list of our 7 headline goals for 2025, and then I’ll prove the detailed list.

Turned Life of Fiction from a newsletter into a living hub (FAIL).
With The Fiction HUB launch, live reveal events, and “The Gates Are Open — and Everything Has Changed,” LoF stopped being “emails with stories” and became the central access point to the whole universe—fiction, lore, game, art, and community all in one place.
Why do I feel we failed? Because the whole purpose of the HUB was to bring people into a space where we could personally interact on GoBrunch. But the time constraints on us just don’t allow the kind of time we wanted to spend there…and we felt we let you down because of that.
Launched and publicly built The Hero Within TTRPG (FAIL).
Starting with “The Hero Within: A Wanted Hero TTRPG Adventure” in January and continuing through a full slate of RPG dev logs (Attributes, Rolls, Classes, Skill Trees), we didn’t just announce a game—we built it in front of readers and invited you into the design.
Why do I feel we failed? Because we spent more time trying to involve everyone in the process (which we loved, BTW), instead of crafting something from our hearts and setting it in front of you to play afterwards. Not a mistake we will make again.
Pushed Chronicles of a Hero into a new phase of the main story.
From chapter 40 “In The Beginning” through chapter 71 “WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS,” 2025 delivered a solid run of core-series fiction, deepening the main arc while pairing it with side-stories like “Rent,” “The Visitor,” “Wagered Flesh,” and “The Whispering Gear.”
Established Ink & Purpose as the philosophical spine of the brand.
A full run of essays—“The Compass of Story,” “Fiction vs The Digital Void,” “Family Fiction Nights,” “Fiction as a Moral Forge,” “Why ‘Escaping’ Might Be the Most Honest Thing You Can Do,” and more—plus the Ink & Purpose cover reveal and “Why Every Writer...and Every Parent...Needs This Book,” turned a theme into a book-level pillar.
Expanded LoF into a cross-media storyworld (music, art, and motion).
GEAR GIRLS tracks, the Poverty Bundle, multiple lore-songs (“Echoes in the Smoke,” “We Were Never Meant to Win,” “Secondhand Halo”), recurring SPEED DRAWING posts, wallpapers, and cover-creation updates turned your world into something that can be heard and seen, not just read.
Scaled collaboration and creator community through The Fiction Cartel & live shows.
Regular FICTION CARTEL episodes (Gatekeepers, Discoverability, Red Herrings, Process of Publishing, etc.), 2x2 streams, “Coffee with Jaime” interviews, and cross-appearances built a wider creative network around LoF and made readers feel like they’re sitting at the same table.
Turned reader interaction into genuine co-creation.
Votes on theme songs, naming the fantasy world, choosing covers, giving feedback on mechanics, early alpha access to The Hero Within, “What Do YOU Want Most?” and ongoing gifts (wallpapers, bundles, shirts) shifted the relationship from “audience” to “partners in the experiment.”

This was the easy thing to figure out,…but there was more. When it comes to personal growth of the community….

We gained 192 new members of the community who love fiction.
We gained readers in 42 states and 37 countries.
We continue to have a 99% retention rate….meaning less than 1% unsubscribe from our community in a year (it was the same in 2024).
We average 5300 views every 30 days, and have a consistent 29%-32% open rate daily.

Is it outstanding?
Maybe not, but it’s consistent, regardless of content, timing and when ‘life’ happens.

That says a lot….about YOU.

What might be said about us?
I can break it down into 10 key points, with attached receipts.

I. “So when did this stop being ‘just a newsletter’?”

“When we launched Life of Fiction, it was a way to send stories to your inbox. In 2025, it turned into something else: a place where you could live inside those stories.”

Brief contrast: LoF 2024 = mostly posts + episodes.
LoF 2025 = hub, game, music, lore, live shows, and community decisions.
One thing became crystal clear:
- 2025 was the year Life of Fiction stopped acting like a publication and started behaving like a universe.

II. A world goes 3D: From emails to The Fiction HUB

My receipts…

What changed:
- Centralized access to fiction, lore, RPG, music, art, and backlist.
- Readers no longer “visit” posts; they enter a space.
The point we were trying to make this year:
- This is the structural backbone for everything that follows in 2026.

III. Building The Hero Within – A TTRPG forged in public

My receipts…

Key achievements (we hope):
- Defined the game’s spine: attributes, rolls, skill tree, progression.
- Class deep dives (Warrior, Defender, Healer, Wayfarer, Tinkerer, Mägo).
- Community feedback built into the design (questions, polls, comments).
What we learned and will now apply:
- We didn’t build a game alone in a cave—we let readers see us stumble, adjust, and improve in real time, turning them into co-designers. Hopefully that gives you confidence that we SEE you, and want to make something great FOR you.

IV. The beating heart: advancing Chronicles of a Hero

My receipts…

Mainline chapters 40–71 (In The Beginning → WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS).

What these chapters did:
- Raised stakes, deepened character arcs, and escalated conflict.
- Connected to side content: “Rent,” “The Visitor,” “The Whispering Gear,” “Wagered Flesh,” “THE LEGEND OF BILLO STUMBLESHANKS,” etc.
What we learned:
- The fiction isn’t background dressing for the hub or the game…the hub and game exist because the core story kept moving forward.

V. Ink & Purpose: Turning LoF into a movement about fiction itself

My receipts…

“The Compass of Story,” “Fiction vs the Digital Void,”
“Family Fiction Nights,” “Fiction as a Moral Forge,”
“Why ‘Escaping’ Might Be the Most Honest Thing You Can Do,”
“Why Every Writer...and Every Parent...Needs This Book,”
Ink & Purpose cover reveal.

Function:
- Defines LoF as more than entertainment: it’s about identity, conscience, attention, imagination, and family culture.
What we learned and now use:
- The essays justify why this whole fictional universe matters, especially for kids, parents, and readers who feel starved for meaning.

VI. Cross-media: Soundtracks, sketches, and the culture of Clockworks

My receipts…

Gear Girls songs (“Secondhand Halo,” “Echoes in the Smoke,” etc.)
Poverty Bundle, Music Index, SPEED DRAWING series, wallpapers, cover-creation posts.

Achievements:
- Gave readers a sound and visual language for the world.
- Turned lore into lyrics, scenes into sketches, and characters into icons you can literally carry on your phone.
What we tried to show you:
- 2025 is when Clockworks City and friends stopped living only on the page and started bleeding into playlists, desktops, and devices. Now you can see them more like we see them…each and every day.

VII. Cartels, coffees, and chaos: making creation social

My receipts…

The FICTION CARTEL episodes (Gatekeepers, Discoverability, Red Herrings, Process of Publishing, etc.).
Morning Coffee 65–110.
2x2 shows and “Coffee with Jaime” interviews.

What this demonstrates:
- Weekly rhythm of live interaction, transparency, and “building in public.”
- We’re not mysterious authors on a mountain; we’re the slightly frazzled guys with coffee, car trouble, grandkids, and big plans.
What we learned:
- LoF’s “universe” isn’t just fictional…there’s a social orbit of other creators and readers constantly in motion around it.

VIII. Co-creation: when the audience starts steering the ship

My receipts…

Achievements:
- Readers influencing direction (content focus, themes, naming, music).
- We rewarded you with real artifacts: wallpapers, bundles, early peeks.
What we learned through this:
- 2025 was not just productive, it was participatory…LoF became something built with the audience, not for the audience.

IX. Milestones and meaning: 21 years of Wanted Hero & a new LoF identity

My receipts…

Key idea:
- We recognized that the brand needed a refocus…more fiction, tighter mission, clearer priorities…and used 2025 to deliberately realign.
What we learned:
- 21 years of story fed into a year of reinvention, not nostalgia.

X. 2026 and beyond – “If 2025 was the build, 2026 is the test”

We don’t have any fluffy “despite challenges” nonsense. Just want to say:
- We have two concrete priorities we’re setting up…complete next major Chronicles arc, and start crafting world lore into collectibles.
- We also have an invitation for YOU: Share Life of Fiction with others. We’ve been banned from every social platform now, except Pinterest and YouTube for some reason (they don’t like family-friendly folks???), so we rely on YOU for our growth. Bring your family and friends!

That’s it.
That’s all I got.
Just a single year in the mind of Jaime Buckley.

Sorry there wasn’t more.
We’ll try harder next year.

Just know we love you with all our hearts.

Until 2026…
I remain, as always,

Jaime Buckley
(your ever loyal & dedicated author)

SPECIAL NOTE:

Starting December 1^st, you’ll receive daily emails about “Up Your Mistletoe”….a completely free story. You don’t have to sign up for it, we’re not asking anything for it…but we DO want as many people to enjoy it as possible.

Please spread the word.

Share it.

On December 25^th, there is a gift attached to it.
(More than the warm fuzzies and giggles you’ll already receive…)

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