The Long and Winding Road

It’s always good to see fellow indie authors from our Chindi book group doing well at local events. Three of our stalwart members — Angela Petch, Rosemary Noble and Patricia Feinberg Stoner — launched new books at Worthing yesterday. Early comments show there were some good results. This coming week it’s the turn of more of our group doing their bit for the Alzheimer’s Society. They’ll be turning up at the HSBC bank at Rustington tomorrow and Friday to showcase their books and raise money for the society. The post code, if you can get along to the event, is BN16 3DB.

I won’t be involved in any more Chindi events for a while because changes here in the Parker home leave me having to look after Pat. Her leg infection hasn’t gone down yet, and the cancer diagnosis leaves us with a fairly rocky road ahead. For that reason I’ve withdrawn from Chindi events for the simple reason I can’t make promises about my availability over the next six months or so.

Despite being chief cook and bottle washer, I have tried to keep up with my writing. I managed to send out the second part of Natasha’s story to my subscribers (http://bit.ly/2SjUIiz). I received two replies and had eleven unsubs! The open rate was poor, but it simply reinforces the fact that you have to work at this game, otherwise it will all whither on the vine. I also made another decision about my romance, Past Imperfect. I have decided to launch it next year with a professionally designed jacket and spend some money advertising. I read through the book last week. I managed that by reading it on my laptop while Pat was watching TV. I even had football on in the background listening to the commentary. Makes no sense, I know, but I eventually turned the commentary off. I finished the read-through and have now embarked on an edit. It was professionally edited by the way (Robert Hale), but there were a few typos and a couple of oddities I knew could be changed.

I’m learning more about the game when it comes to running Michael Parker Books as a business. Not doing much about it mind you, but there is so much information coming from the web that it fries your brain. Well, it does mine! I have managed an infitessimally small gain in my advertising, but nothing to shout about. I know it needs more work and soaking up more instruction from Mark Dawson’s SPF course. Mark has updated the whole thing, particularly Amazon Advertising. Seems even Mark has been caught out by Amazon’s drive for competitiveness. It looks like the weak will go to the wall unless they cough up more money. I’m talking about Amazon, not Mark Dawson!

I managed to get some work done on my WIP, and will soon be reaching that point when I have to write Natasha into the story, hoping that I can do that with subtlety. It’s a conundrum, but that’s what writers do, particularly writers of mystery.

Looking ahead then, Christmas could be different for me and Pat this year. Then into 2019 without a real clear view how it will be. When I look back a year ago, I had great plans for 2018. It all seemed to start well, but looks like it’s coming to a disappointing end. I’m hoping 2019 will be better. So what with my writing plans and looking after Pat, it looks like it’s going to be a long and winding road. Wish me luck!

Stop — Go

I missed the blog post last week because of Pat being in hospital. Hopefully the thousands of readers who read my blog will excuse me for that. (What’s the Latin for “Tongue in cheek”?) But I’m back now, despite being chief cook and bottle-washer in the house. It looks like it might go on for some time too!

I was able to get some work done on my WIP, and that at least gives me some satisfaction. I’ve also been keeping up with the ‘trends’ on Promotion & Marketing. I gave up on Instagram. I had signed up for a course with Bex Gorsuch, but it didn’t take me long to realise that my heart wasn’t in it. And with Pat to look after, there was no way I could get to grips with it. Bex was pretty good about it when I contacted her and pulled out.

There has been a lot of talk on the various forums about the sudden drop in sales on Amazon. Being a Mark Dawson student, I understand that this could be a deliberate shift in Amazon’s tactics to draw closer to the giants of Google and Facebook, and consequently we indie authors are faced with the prospect of having to beef up our advertising and start paying out considerably more money. Mark has upgraded his AMS ads course to help us all develop our advertising skills, and one thing he has promised is how to crack the Amazon Advantage entry rules. I tried to sign up to Advantage so I could advertise in the UK, but it seems to be screwed in favour of vendors. I’m not a vendor, but I was asked for a vendor code and my VAT registration number. However, Mark has promised us that he will uncover the mystery of completing the Advantage application process which he admits is quite complicated.

One of the decisions I made while on holiday in Australia was to let my AMS and BB ads run without any tinkering. It just happened that this was the moment when Amazon cut people’s sales figures by as much as 40% due to their change in the way in which they position product and sponsored ads. It meant virtually no sales for me at all. This week I decided to change the ‘copy’ on my BB ad for Roselli’s Gold. It had languished on 2 sales in almost three weeks. Within 24 hours of rewording the ad, I sold four copies. Not a lot by most authors’ standards, but it did show that advertising copy is a mystery that needs to be revealed to authors like me. I now need to have a go at my AMS ad, but I think it might be better for me if I go through Mark’s updated course before doing anything.

I haven’t done anything to Past Imperfect. As I mentioned in my last blog, I now have the eBook rights back. The change in circumstances in the Parker household has simply shoved the project on to the back-burner, and it’s unlikely to see any change before Christmas. I think I’m probably telling myself that it won’t happen for some considerable time; certainly not until I am happy with Pat’s progress.

I’ve just finished reading the crime novel, I See You by Claire Mackintosh. It’s extremely well written, but unusually it’s written in the 3rd. and 1st person. It took me a while to get used to the switch in narration but I managed it in the end. It isn’t something I would try; I think I’m even scared of trying to write a novel in the 1st person at all — much too difficult. I’ll stick to my tried and trusted method. You never know, I might even get my book finished! Wish me luck.

Just when you thought......

Just when I thought I was getting ahead; the whole plan went to pop. Today I should be going to a Remembrance Service with Pat, but she’s in hospital. Last week I thought I had my writing plan on track when it became clear that the treatment Pat was getting for the spider bite was not working. We spent all day Monday in A&E, followed by daily trips there. By yesterday it was clear that she wasn’t improving, so she was admitted. At the moment she is OK, but being monitored and receiving treatment. So, here I am trying to get my head together, scrabbling round and getting some jobs out of the way, and spending some time with Tuppence (our Cockapoo), who will think she’s being neglected and will want to leave home. Hopefully Pat will be home tomorrow.

When I said my plan was on track, it also involved the intent to give some serious thought to my AMS and BB promotions, but even that’s gone flat, and I can’t be bothered to look at it for now. I did manage to get about one hour on my WIP, but my heart wasn’t in it. The reason I’m able to get this blog written is because I’m pinching time by not going to the service today. I usually look forward to the Remembrance Service. Being an Air Force family, it makes sense. Between me and our four sons, we have notched up a total of 120 years’ service, and our youngest, Stephen, is still in the Royal Australian Air Force. So yes; an Air Force family.

On the subject of promotions going flat, there has been a great deal of talk, particularly on the SPF forum, about the lack of sales, and disappearance of critical data, from Amazon. The blame is laid at the absence of “also boughts”, although some writers are destroying that argument by buoyant sales. But despite the pros and cons of the argument, my sales are pathetic, and they mirror the virtual flat-lining of book sales on Amazon (according to the complainants). But I had to smile when one of the SPF group complained. He was spending $6000 a month on advertising, his sales were down significantly but he was still making a profit! Which brings me on to another trend (I think). Comparing that author to me, he spends about 6000 times the amount I spend. Although I follow the expert advice and give Amazon the opportunity to take my money, it doesn’t. So who is the more valuable customer? And why doesn’t Amazon take my money? Someone has mooted the possibility that AMS and BB are moving the goalposts and favouring the big spenders and traditional authors. To highlight that, I watched a Brian Cohen podcast on SPF in which he talked about book jacket design. He showed some of the covers he had designed for authors like John le Carre and Mark Dawson — and also Denis Wheatley! Denis Wheatley must have died before Brian Cohen was born, but yesterday I saw the same book advertised on the daily email I receive from BookBub for their featured deals. And it isn’t unusual for those BB ads to include several best-selling authors every day. I think this makes it tricky for writers like me who write across different genres, but I will live in hopes and keep pushing the ads.

So what now? Well, I finally have the official letter from the publisher handing me back the eBook rights to Past Imperfect. It has been removed from the on-line book sellers, leaving it clear for me to publish. But I still can’t make up my mind about publishing the book under my own name, or use a feminine pen-name because it’s a romance. And I need to think about the book jacket. Pat has promised to pay for a book jacket design as a Christmas present for me. The trouble is, I don’t know which book to change, either Past Imperfect or Where the Wicked Dwell. Do I need these problems? Ah well, we’ll see. Wish me luck!