A Mixed Bag

Decorations going up, a few more words added to my WIP and another book sale. Three actually. An elderly lady came round to the house during the week to buy two of my books. She wanted them as a Christmas present for a friend of hers who has read a couple of mine and wanted to read more. I sold one at the HSBC stall earlier in the week — well, not me really, one of the Chindi volunteers — so that makes three. You know, even then I can’t be sure because D2D keep adjusting my previous months sales, even though we are well over a week into December they’ve adjusted the number up by a count of three. Add a couple already sold this month on D2D and, hey, I’m looking good!

Staying with D2D, I received a royalty statement telling me I had earned $0.56 for the sale of three books on Bibliotecha. No, that’s not a typo: $0.56! I tried to log on to the Bibliotecha website, but it wasn’t available, so I contacted D2D asking them to confirm the royalty. They have contacted me and said they will have to consult their accountants and get back to me. It could be a library loan, but unless I see something to convince me otherwise, I’ll be asking D2D to remove all my books from that site.

I’m looking ahead to 2019 and the re-launch of my novel, Past Imperfect and wondering how best to promote it. I know I could do a countdown deal with Amazon, but I’m reluctant to let it remain exclusive to them for three months. That’s a decision I’ll come to later. I finished the read-through and made a couple of changes to the book. That makes two readings in less than two weeks, and I still think it’s good. I’ve been in touch with Christine Hammacott, a member of our Chindi group, and we will be producing a new jacket for the launch. Christine has been a graphic designer for over twenty years and has done a couple of jackets for our members. This is a professional contract by the way, not a freebie.

I am committed to a book talk next year at the local women’s friendship club in our village hall. This was booked a year ago! The event will be the first week in March. I hope the women get real friendly and buy lots of my books.

I would like to mention one of our Chindi authors, Rosemary Noble, who has written a trilogy about a corner of Australian history, each a stand-alone novel, but all linked. The trilogy was inspired by the transportation to Australia of British felons in the 18th and 19th century. Rosemary has attracted some terrific reviews, and is currently on blog tour. Why not look her up? https://dbgreviews.blogspot.com/2018/12/sadies-war-australian-saga-by-rosemary.html

My current situation at home with Pat still means I am the chief cook and bottle washer. I cooked a stir-fry last night. Pretty good it was too! Pat’s leg swelling is going down but at a very slow rate. Next Tuesday she has her lung biopsy for the cancer treatment, which we hope will start as soon as possible. Pat’s in good spirits under the circumstances, but it’s something we have to deal with. We have Christmas to look forward to though. After that? Well, wish us good luck.

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.