Happy planners

Last night our Chindi group enjoyed a pre-Christmas get together at The Dragon restaurant in Rustington. Twenty of us made it there, although not all were writers. However, it made for a good number to crowd into a very full restaurant. The oldest of our members is in his eighties, and is reaching the fulfilment of three years’ work: he is publishing a semi-fictional account of a soldier relative who fought during the First World War. Our youngest member there was a newcomer to the group who writes children’s stories. We are a diverse bunch and cover just about all genres in fiction and some non-fiction. It was a chance, too, to be able to chat with some of the group about what problems we have encountered throughout the year, and what success we’ve had. Success in our case is largely relative, but we all have been able to blow our own trumpets from time to time.

We have some good ideas to carry us forward into the New Year, and it gives us all a sense of excitement and hope. We are already discussing our summer promotions in the Chichester Arts Festival, plus we have a couple of things planned for Littlehampton, which should be around the earlier part of the year. And March is something else eight of us will be looking forward to because of the UK Southern Book Show at Worthing. I’m sure we’ll come up with other little gems too, but it does give us some impetus, knowing that we are reaching out and not waiting for things to happen.

Earlier this week I cracked on with my WIP, and managed to push ahead somewhat. I still have a long way to go with this, and will probably struggle to have it ready for a summer launch at my current rate of progress.

I mentioned my efforts last week about BookBub advertising and the fact that they seem to feature a lot of best-selling authors: some who aren’t even living now. I received an email from them advertising Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which kind of reinforces the complaint I saw on an author forum about BB capitalising on the top writers and leaving less room for the indie guys. So far I have received an email each day and only one has featured an indie writer, all the others have been NYT best-sellers. Make you think.

Anyway, back on the advertising bit: it is a recommendation from BookBub that it helps to use their list of top authors when searching for a “keyword” writer. As I am trying to promote my book, A Dangerous Game, I searched through their list for an author similar to me. Almost without exception though, the list of thriller writers is populated with those who write series characters. This makes it hard for people like me, a cross-genre writer, to find an author to use as a “keyword” author. I’ve already tweaked my ads, and even changed them, hoping for some positive results. I can’t expect overnight miracles, but there are pointers to the way in which your ad is performing. I’m getting a few sales, thankfully, but at the moment I can expect to struggle. Hopefully things will improve in time. Wish me luck!

Nothing but a dreamer.

We’ve just returned from an overnight stay with our son, John and his wife, Bryony in Dorset. It’s good to get away for a while, spend some time with the family, couple of beers, walk the dogs. There’s no time to think about books, promotion, advertising and sales figures because those things will be there when you get home. There’s always the anticipation of what might have happened to the book sales while you’ve been away, and true to form in my case, very little has happened. I checked my BookBub advert (I have two) and find that they will need serious attention if things don’t pick up, but not today; there’s always tomorrow.

The planned launch of the box-set hasn’t come off, and it looks like it’s going to fail before it gets started. The launch date and pre-launch push didn’t happen, it’s been delayed now until after Christmas, and cracks seem to be appearing in the overall commitment necessary to make it work. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but leaves me with the sense that involvement with other authors, for me anyway, is not the best way to go. So once this year is out of the way, I’ll stick to my own plans for promotion, marketing and writing. I don’t include the CHINDI group in this, because we have contact with each other by meeting up, doing book stalls and getting together from time to time. In fact, next Saturday, a lot of the group will be at a Chinese restaurant in Littlehampton for a Christmas bunfight. Should be good, and we’ll have plenty to talk about.

I made a little progress on my WIP last week, and dug myself out of a hole I’d managed to get into. Making small gains in this writing business does help. One thing I do frequently is watch movies on Amazon Prime, hoping to pick up some ideas. Unfortunately I tend to watch a load of rubbish that passes for crime drama, but I did pick up a little nugget that I will be able to slip into my WIP.

Some-time during the week I found myself thinking about music from my past. This was as a result of sitting in a waiting room where a couple of elderly ladies were talking about the youth of today and all that goes with it. My mind went back to when I had finished my second novel, Hell’s Gate, and imagined it on the big screen (it never happened of course). The novel is set in British East Africa in 1898, and was inspired by historical fact. One of my all-time favourite pieces of music at the time was The Dawn by Osibisa. I could see the whole thing on the big screen: my story and the compelling, African music. Ah well, what it is to be a dreamer, eh? Incidentally, you can get the book at

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RW1VTGO/?tag

and https://www.books2read.com/u/4XGd9m.

I mentioned Hell’s Gate last week and the length of time it was taking to get the paperback file uploaded to CreateSpace. I thought I’d cracked it until I received an email from CS asking me for ‘Content Validation’ for the book. I sent them a photocopy of the rights authorisation from my publisher. Good thing I still had it on file. Once they have accepted that, I can look forward to getting the copy from Amazon UK, and then I can get on to do another, hands-on edit.

And as we come to the end of November and look ahead to Christmas, I can see the social diary filling up with various dates for this and that. I’ve no idea what Santa will be bringing me for Christmas, but I hope it will be a ringing endorsement of my books, coupled with a blossoming advert campaign. Wish me luck!

Keeping different balls in the air.

Much has happened this week, but not all to do with writing. I’ve made a little progress with my WIP, but have been distracted by other things. I continued looking at the BookBub ads training video by Adam Croft to help understand all the information BookBub provides with regard to the ad. I had two running, but it soon became clear that I had made the wrong choice of author to follow (including me), so I created a single ad, and am now following Mark Gimenez. It’s too early to tell how successful that will be, but early signs are not too promising. However, I must be patient.

Another diversion was my decision to re-edit my book, Hell’s Gate: something I thought would not take too long. Needless to say it took up an enormous amount of time. It came about because I want to advertise this particular book on BookBub as a ‘Literary’ work of fiction on African, colonial history. I’ve always used the keyword ‘Action & Adventure’ for this book, but now I see it another way. It wasn’t until I started the process that I discovered I hadn’t released the paperback on CreateSpace, so that’s where it will be heading. I have it with Ingram Spark. I haven’t changed any of the text; this was simply a tidying-up exercise.

Last Monday, our book group CHINDI had an on-line meeting. Using the website, ZOOM, we get fifty minutes free where we can chat and see each other on screen. One of our writers, Christopher Joyce, gave us an update on his book launch the previous Saturday. He has published an ‘Alien Cook Book’ to complement his Children’s books. You can find Chris’s books in our shop at www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop. There are lots of other good titles of all genres in the shop, many of them priced low for Christmas.

Tomorrow, I am expecting the launch of my box set along with a bundle of other box sets in time for “Cyber Monday”. This is something the writer, Mike Continues, has put together with others. How successful this will be is anybody’s guess, but it can’t do no worse for my box set than it’s doing at present. The agreement is to run the promotion for six months. I live in hopes for that, but don’t expect much. When it kicks off, I’ll be sending out a newsletter to all my subscribers.

Five weeks to go now to Christmas. We are out on Wednesday, shopping at Winchester. I doubt if we’ll get all the presents we need, but it will not be for the want of trying. No doubt we could do this on-line, which would save our feet. It’s something we could do at leisure, but there’s nothing like traipsing round the shops, armfuls of carrier bags, and getting home to realise you’ve forgotten that important present. So long as I don’t forget my wife, I’ll be OK. Wish me luck!