The Eagle has landed

Safely back home after a five week sojourn in Australia, the Middle East and Singapore. Like my writing; this was a marathon, not a sprint. As much as me and Pat enjoyed our time, we are glad to be back home. But now the work begins: bills to be paid, business to catch up with and a time to contemplate the promises I made to myself with respect to my writing and adding more effort to my application. No more procrastination I hear you say? Hopefully not. The photo (for those who can see it) sums up the plight of many writers: unknown, constantly writing in hope, and papering the walls with rejection slips. We came across this in Chinatown, Singapore. I admit I had some moments of inspiration and began writing an addition to my current WiP. I’ve introduced a character who was never meant to be part of my story, but the change has given me inspiration and the hope that I can now move forward and get to the end of my own particular marathon.

Another small progress I‘ve made is to finally get the eBook rights from my publisher for my novel, Past Imperfect. Because this book, which is available in paperback, can only be classed as a Romance, I need to consider a different approach to promoting it. It’s quite a departure from my usual bag of mixed genres, that I can only see a new readership being interested. But how do I get to them? And although the eBook has been available for a few years, my publisher has achieved virtually no sales with it. That means I can look at it as a new book. If I can make real progress with my WiP, it could mean two books launched within a couple of months of each other.

I see there have been a lot of complaints made against Amazon for the apparent lack of sales over the last month or two. I’ve seen this on the SPF Facebook group mainly (Mark Dawson’s crowd). People are suggesting that Amazon (and in some respects, Facebook) are not reporting the figures correctly or are unable to. But I smile when I hear complaints that sales have dropped from a thousand a month to about five hundred. Or even $1000 down to $500. Those smaller figures are almost stratospheric to me. I’m lucky to be selling one book a day, even when I doing well. So that’s why there’s a smile on my face. And yes, my sales this month have been abysmal, but I put that down to me being away on holiday for five weeks and not tweaking my ads on AMS and BookBub. However, I can’t help but think that Amazon has a tiger by the tail and it’s difficult to control.

One joy of returning home after five weeks away was to see our little Cockapoo, Tuppence, come hurtling through the gate when she was brought home by the dog-sitting company. She was yelping, twirling and doing all kinds of somersaults. It was so good to see her. It’s funny how you can get emotional about a furry little animal, but they steal your heart, don’t they? Next on the agenda is to settle down, get practical and get on with the routines, the writing and all that comes with it. Wish me luck!

Memories

I often start with how the week began. Today I have to say the week began sadly with the news that my younger brother, Arthur, had died. It wasn’t unexpected; he had been ill for some time, but nevertheless, it was a shock. And now I have memories, not of a 75 year-old man, but me and my little brother when we were kids and the antics we got up to. I’ve known him for 75 years — longer than I’ve known my wife — and I could probably write a book about our life as young kids and how we changed when we grew up and became part of a world that was never something we thought of; too busy being children I suppose. And as a writer of action thrillers where I can dispense savage justice and kill my characters with impunity, death is simply ink on the paper. But we all know that the reality is different, and I will mourn my brother’s passing like most siblings would.

This being the week before we fly out to Australia meant there was a lot to do, eyes to dot and tees to cross, and with very little thought to writing. My WIP remains untouched, and will remain so until we get back, but I did embark on something unexpected. One of the Chindi group pointed out that there was nowhere to leave a comment on my blog page: something I’d never even thought of. So I decided I would have a go. I followed the WIX help section and managed to get a comment box at the bottom of my blog page. So far so good, but when I checked the live site, my comments box was in Spanish! It took me ages to figure out why. It turned out that I had used the Facebook comment box, and it was that which defaulted to Spanish. I checked the settings on my FB account: all were set to English, but because I opened my account when we lived in Spain, some gremlin in there decided it couldn’t relinquish a little bit of the Español.

I am still plugging away at ads with BookBub and AMS. There’s still no distinctive edge to either of them, although AMS do seem to be giving me a slightly better return than BB. My ROI is negative, and I suppose it will always be that way until I master the art of promotion. Whenever I see podcasts and read posts about the way forward, I know there is nothing new for me; I’ve been there, done that and got the Tee shirt, but never the prize of sumptuous sales figures. I still watch and read in case some little nugget is dropped that I can pick up and run with.

The Parker household is low at the moment, because the dog company Barking Mad has picked up our Tuppence. They’ve taken her away to her new home for four weeks. Now we can get on with our packing and missing her.

There probably won’t be a blog post from me while we’re away, although I might try to put some photos up on Facebook. But before I sign off, I just want to dedicate this post to my little brother, Arthur. R.I.P.

Getting some results

Lots of things happened this week because we are getting closer to our holiday. A trip to the travel agent, the clothes shop, the boutique and the dentist — not all for me of course. But that’s preparation and making sure you have the priorities right. I did get some new Tee shirts, I must admit, but I was pressurised into buying them. (Must be a soft touch). There seems to be so much to do and so much to think about that it leaves little room for writing. I received an email from Paula at BookHub giving me the names of those lucky winners who had chosen my book The Devil’s Trinity as their choice of book, which left me with little option but to type out a congratulatory message along with the download link. I’ve asked all those who won (about 25 people) to put a review up on Amazon for me. What will be more interesting, I think, is how many of those who won will send me a thank you email or even put up a review.

I am still hanging in there with the AMS ads. Last month my average sales combined with D2D were just over one a day. This month started in a similar fashion, but a slight improvement has lifted my average to two a day. I hope it will continue to improve at that rate and give me a good return on my investment. At the moment I’m losing money, but because it’s my hobby, I’m prepared to accept it. While we’re away I will keep a close eye on my AMS ads in case they get out of hand. To date, over three weeks, I have spent about $29, so I’m not exactly breaking the bank.

I also got back to my WIP with a vengeance almost. I introduced a character which I believe has changed the whole shape of the plot, and given me something of a lift. In fact the character was already part of the story, but not involved in any of it and there was no plan to change that. Then suddenly it all kicked in, and now I can see a definite outline bringing the plot to a conclusion which had been open-ended and bugging me. Once we’re back from OZ, I might be able to get on with some serious writing.

I also contacted one of our Chindi group about designing a cover for one of my current titles. It was a kind of ‘toe in the water’ approach really. I have done my own covers using Photoshop, but am now thinking of seeing how much of an improvement a professionally designed cover will do when it comes to promotion and marketing. It will need a lot of sales to cover the cost of the work, I know, but it will be a subjective experiment. If I like the result (of the sales, not the artwork) I would be tempted to go the whole hog for my current WIP when it’s finally ready.

Yesterday we spent some time with our No.3 son and his wife in Dorset. Walked with the dogs through the woods and parkland, had home-made pizzas for lunch (our boy is an excellent cook) and generally chilled out before tackling the mad, crazy A27 drive home. Fortunately the drive was uneventful, which make a change.

Getting closer now. One week today and we’ll be airborne. Then no more WIP for a while, enjoy some sightseeing round Dubai, OZ and Singapore. Spend my royalties. Dig into my savings and come home to the news that some film impresario wants to make a film of my book (anyone!). Wish me luck!