What a load of balls

Just when you think you are making progress, life throws another brick at you, or a ‘curved ball’ as the Americans would say. Last Thursday, Pat was taken into hospital with a heart problem. After lengthy diagnoses including an angiogram, it turned out it wasn’t a heart attack, thank God, but a weakening of the heart caused by stress. Three months of waiting for a diagnosis on her cancer without a result has taken its toll on her. And we found out that the results of the bone marrow biopsy two weeks ago revealed nothing. We have an appointment with the Lung specialist tomorrow to decide where we go from here. Pat’s now on pills for a while.

All this minimises my own thoughts about books, writing and sales etc., although Pat has encouraged me to stick with it. As a result of that, I finally managed to finish my pulp fiction thriller — 55,000 words in six weeks. That, for me, was like a sprint. Where I usually take about a year to write a book, this short run has been a major learning curve for me: one that makes me realise that you can only really write junk in that short space of time. Research goes out the window, which means there is very little flesh on the bones of the story, and it’s easy to lose sight of the plot line; consequently you end up with a poor apology for a thriller. So when Mark Dawson says ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, I’ll be faced with the prospect of using the tag line that says something like — “Don’t let the facts get in the way of the thrills in this all action, gritty thriller!”. Boom, boom. You never know; I might sell thousands!

Now I have the writing out of the way for a while, I will have to dream up some advertising for my romance, Past Imperfect. I’ll miss Valentine’s day of course, unless I’m quick, which means burning the midnight oil sometime this afternoon if I’m to catch the romantics out there. I will also revive my AMS ads which have managed to drag out some sales for Roselli’s Gold. Not that many, I must admit, but enough to see the graph showing some colour.

Because of all the stuff that’s been going on over the last three months, I have neglected my current WIP, including my own promise to send out a clip of Natasha’s story each month to my subscribers. But judging by the open rates and the unsubs, I wonder if any of them out there have actually missed my monthly offering. No doubt I’ll send an email to them apologising for being so remiss, but then it means I have to get back on the writing treadmill and find some way of finishing the book.

Looking ahead, I have nothing in the pipeline apart from the book talk at the local Ladies’ Friendship Club on March 6th. My diary is clear as they say, which means I should be able to get on and write. Or maybe I should read a book. Wish me luck!

Making good use of my shovel

I can at last say I now have my romance, Past Imperfect, published as an eBook with me credited as the publisher. It took some time to get the holder of the eBook rights to return them to me, and after three years they sold precisely none. I already had the paperback available on Amazon, and sold a few, not many though; but now I have a chance to make the eBook more noticeable with some advertising. This is something I intend doing through BookBub ads, hoping to reach readers on Kobo, Apple, B&N etc. My current ads on AMS are producing sales of Roselli’s Gold, but still with a very poor ROI. I will let them run for another week, and if I see the sales have dropped off significantly, I’ll bin them and maybe push the Romance. I have high hopes for Past Imperfect, but it will only happen if I can target the right readers. I don’t think my current fans will appreciate the change of direction though. By the way, the link is https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07N8FCYPQ

I am almost at the end of my pulp fiction thriller. My target was 60,000 words, but it looks like I’ll have reached about 52,000 by the end, probably tomorrow. Once I’ve gone through it, I expect to push that up to my target. Next step will be to send it off to Mark Dawson. I don’t expect he’ll want to use it because I’ve drifted away from the plot lines he requires. However, there’s a piece of me that will be happy when/if he says no; after all, it’s a lot of work to simply hand it over (well, sell it), when I could add it to my growing list of titles. Some of you might wonder why I will still be offering it to him. Well, it was an agreement that we did it this way, and I intend honouring that.

There was a discussion on Mark Dawson’s group about one of his admin team leaving and starting her own FB ads. course. The questions raised were about who’s course is better, and what can one offer opposed to the other. This applies to all the numerous ‘courses’ out there. Mark said that the only people making money during a gold rush are those people selling the shovels. And he’s right of course; the on-line courses offering to turn us all into best-sellers are the one growth industry making money in today’s current publishing world. I see myself as a prospector having bought my shovel off Mark Dawson.

Looking ahead to the direction I’m going once I have finished the pulp fiction thriller, I expect, in a way, to return to my WIP, but I have to be prepared to set that aside as me and Pat get closer to when her treatment starts. She had a bone marrow biopsy last Monday, and the results are not expected for up to a fortnight. Hopefully they’ll be available next week and a decision can be made about her treatment. Having been through chemo myself, I know my free time could be seriously curtailed, and the thought of writing will not be the closest thing on my mind.

Next book event on the agenda for me is a talk at a local ‘Friendship Club’ in March. It’s all women. I have bought myself a personal microphone with a clip-on amplifier, just to make sure I’m heard. I might make their hearing aids screech, but hopefully they’ll just love my smooth talking and buy all my books. Wish me luck!

A Bonza time

Today I’m starting off with our CHINDI Author of the Week, Rosemary Noble. Rosemary has written three excellent historical novels that begin with the transportation from England to Australia of a sixteen year old lass called Nora. Her follow up novel is about Jane, a tough pioneering woman of the nineteenth century in Australia. Her third is about Sadie who returns from Australia during the depression and subsequently through the Second World War. Rosemary has earned great reviews for her trilogy of historical novels that sell really well in Australia. The books can be read as stand-alone, but all three are stories to savour and enjoy. You can find Rosemary at https://www.chindi-authors.co.uk/rosemary-noble/

My week began with the realisation that there were three people in our marriage. I had to retune our DAB radio to Virgin because the DJ, Chris Evans began his new, broadcasting life there last Monday. It was my wife’s wish that we followed. And there was me thinking I was the only man in her life!

I am making pretty good progress with my pulp fiction thriller. I am 7000 words ahead of my daily target of 1000 words. Pat has asked if she could read it, so I’ve printed off the opening chapter to see if she really wants to continue. She understands that it usually takes me a year to write a book, so there will be obvious defects with this one. But I have to say I am having a lot of fun writing the story. Pulp fiction is exactly what it is, and one of the key things in a thriller is an element of extremism. I try not to justify certain scenes and actions, because in trying to do that, I would need a lot more research and counter arguments to events that might need some explanation. Then I would get myself bogged down with prose. So here I am, flying by the seat of my pants and having a great time.

My sales on Amazon are moving at a steady pace, most of which are of Roselli’s Gold; the book I am advertising (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00S9SPMXA). I am picking up other sales too, which is a bonus. My ROI is rubbish, but I have to hold my nerve and push on.

On the domestic front. Pat goes for a bone marrow biopsy tomorrow which will be sent to London for analysis. Hopefully they will soon be able to start her treatment. Wish us luck!