Picking and choosing

I’ve come across a lot of Q&As this week about which is the best way to find readers? Which advertising platforms? Are stand-alone authors fighting a losing battle? There are answers to all these questions, right answers too if you happen to make the right choice. But what is the right choice? One best-selling author whose interview I read on Nick Stephenson’s 10K forum advised focussing on a single strategy: one that works for you, and binning everything else. Don’t waste time writing a blog was one of her suggestions; they achieve nothing. Nick put a little note in at that point about the value of blogs. I remember reading of two writers, both women: one American and the other an English writer, who found success by writing a kind of diary of their daily routines. One, I think, was about cooking and just keeping up generally around the house, and the other about trips to the hairdresser and that kind of thing. In both cases they were encouraged by their ‘readers’ to put the work into book form. Then bingo! Best sellers.

So what works for me? I wish I knew the answer to that. One query on the Mark Dawson’s SPF community today was about the difference between stand-alone authors and those who write series novels. The answers were mixed: some authors were enjoying success with their stand-alone books, while others found the opposite. The answer to any question about finding the right audience has to be promotion and marketing. Of course, you could become instantly famous by attempting to attack a public institution with a gun, but the future would be very bleak. I was going through my old contracts the other day and came across my first royalty statement from Macmillan in 1980. I sold 2000 books in the first nine months of publication. For an unknown first time author, that was good. And it was unexpected according to my publisher. Macmillan didn’t keep me on though, but that’s life. And in those days it was more or less down to the publisher to push the book. I was too naïve to know any different.

The other suggestion I’ve seen is to write more books. I don’t see that as the answer though. I have eleven books in print, which should be plenty for my readers to get their teeth into, but not all of them want to read stories set at different times and in different places. It’s a real challenge, and the increase in sales, even when they are marginal, are always pleasing and always puts a smile on my face. I’ll be advertising on Amazon from tomorrow and hope to see that rise which will make me smile. Seeing my bank balance go down as I pay for the ads won’t though, unless I get a decent ROI.

I met up with an author friend of mine during the week: Paul Asling. We talked about the speech recognition software, Dragon. Paul showed me how it worked. I was impressed, but knew that if I bought the software, there was no guarantee I would use it. It isn’t expensive, but then I could spend the money on promotion. So while we’re all struggling to come up with the answer, I don’t think there is a right or wrong way; it’s all down to being prepared to spend and wishing for a good dose of luck.

Remember, April 1st. tomorrow — April Fool’s Day. I wonder what made-up stories will hit the newspapers tomorrow? Of course, it could be: Michael Parker hits the one million sales on Amazon. Who knows? Wish me luck!

Happiness and busyness

Had a lovely disruption to my usual time for blog writing: my grand-daughter came over with Orin, our No.3 Great Grandson. It’s always lovely to see them. I also had a fairly busy week one way or another. I managed to dig out some effort and began work again on my WIP. Trying to come up with a crime novel is far more difficult than I imagined. I’d be hopeless as a serial killer: wouldn’t have a clue. Sure, I can write good stuff, but it all has to come together seamlessly in the end, otherwise I’ll get found out.

During the week we had an on-line Zoom meeting: three of the directors (me included), trying to thrash out some sensible way to go with the Chindi group. We are attracting more self-published writers, which is a good thing, but we have to take care that the group doesn’t become unmanageable. As the treasurer, I can see the workload increasing, cutting into time spent on writing, social media, promotion & marketing etc. Oh, and doing the usual domestic stuff too: sleep, eat, breathe, walk the dog. My, my, what a busy boy am I.

My sales are slowly increasing on Draft2Digital. Although I am not making any money, I expect to break even with my current progress. My main concern is that the advert on BookBub will run out of steam and I will have to come up with another, something I’m loathe to do while I see those numbers going up. I’m currently studying the Mark Dawson video on AMS advertising because my sales on Amazon have slumped dramatically. I’m not alone with this situation, I’m sure. I often see posts on some of my author FB forums from authors complaining about their poor returns and asking the inevitable question: what am I doing wrong? The chances are, they are probably doing nothing wrong, but maybe not spending enough money on advertising.

I watched a podcast on which Ernest (Ernie) Dempsey explained how he cracked the mystique behind attracting readers, and one thing he suggested, which I think is worth trying, is to produce a short video of yourself answering the kind of questions readers might ask. He uses his iPhone, but it’s possible to do this with the desktop PC as well. I must admit I’m tempted, but might feel silly asking myself questions. It’s worth a punt though. We will be trying something similar on our Chindi website. We’ll be having an “Author of the Week” slot. There’ll be short video clips, media promotion and tweets for the author. Our first slot is for children’s author, Christopher Joyce (Creatures of Chichester). He’ll be coming up on April 9th for a week. You can see his books on Chindi-authors.co.uk

I’ve put my name down for a table-top sale in July on our small, residential estate where I live. There will be a dog show, charity stalls and a BBQ. The lady who will be judging the dogs is also the lady who comes round picking up the money for the ‘Bonus Ball’ competition each month. The dogs love her because she always has biscuits in her pocket. She reckons that on the day of the dog show, all the dogs will be flocking round her for a biscuit. How can she pick a winner? We’ll be putting Tuppence in, all prepped and smelling nice for her walk round. Should be good. I’ll be trying to sell books too. Wish me luck!

Mere technicalities.

St. Patrick’s Day today, and it always reminds me that I should have been called Patrick. Seventy six years ago today, my mother was sitting in a field on a sunny day, surrounded by daffodils at a cottage hospital in Cuckfield, West Sussex, expecting me, knowing that she would call me Patrick because of our Irish heritage (she never mentioned what she would do if I turned out to be a girl). But I arrived the following day, the 18th., so in a fit of pique she called me Michael. It’s Irish I suppose. My wife’s name is Pat, so it’s a blessing really, otherwise we’d have been known as ‘Pat & Pat’. So to all my Irish readers — Happy St. Patrick’s Day. He was English by the way, so I’m told.

It’s always good to read of success stories in the Indie publishing world. Yesterday I watched the podcast on Mark Dawson’s SPF group with Earnest Dempsey as the star. It often transpires that these success stories are down to hard work, perseverance and the essential element, talent. Dempsey (who is known as Ernie) said it was necessary to find a balance between writing and marketing. He described it like keeping spinning plates rotating on their poles while writing at the same time. I’ve always said it’s necessary to keep the balls in the air, which is a similar analogy. I have already been thinking of trying my luck with Amazon Ads, but still keeping my BookBub ads live. I can see a moderate growth with BB, but Amazon isn’t keeping pace, which is probably not surprising considering the vast number of writers competing for readers; so I need to keep those plates spinning and the balls flying.

I haven’t touched my WIP this week. Just looking at my social diary (i.e., my calendar), there have been too many opportunities to procrastinate, and in the world of procrastination, I think I would top the best-seller list. Or should that be the ‘best time-wasters’ list?

I began the task of updating my profile on D2D by making an author page. You can see it at https://www.books2read.com/ap/xog1mx/Michael-Parker. Any comments? It looks like D2D are making big strides in attracting indie writers to use their services, which doesn’t surprise me because of the positive comments I’ve seen on various author forums.

I had to set up a new landing page on MailChimp last week because, for some reason, my usual one was no longer available. I used MC’s FAQ page for an answer, but I needn’t have bothered. As a result of making a new page, I brought my two subscriber lists together, which brought the numbers down to 1200. According to MC’s figures, I lost 400 subs. I’m not too bothered about that, because I can always use Facebook Lead generation ads if I wanted to increase it. I’ll let it grow organically for a while, although there is a caveat to that: I have started an email promotion campaign with Books Go Social, which means I need to send an email to my subs each week or so with a recommended thriller. The trouble is, every time I send something to them, I get about ten unsubscribes, so I could end up losing more than I’m gaining. I hope not. Anyway, we’ll see. Wish me luck!