Forging ahead

This is the point where I will be looking ahead with a renewed enthusiasm. I made some unexpected progress on my WIP, and I launched my first BookBub advert (two in fact). Having watched Adam Croft’s excellent video several times, I plunged in and launched two adverts. Using Adam’s advice, I advertised my thriller, The Devil’s Trinity with my name as the author to follow. The second ad., same book, was with Ty Patterson. I looked at the ‘also bought’ list on my author page to find a suitable author. The first one I chose gave me too big an audience, so I clicked through the various names until I found Ty Patterson’s name put me in the ‘Green Zone’. It means an audience reach of about 10K. This, apparently, is a sensible start. The ad. began yesterday at about 4pm. The second ad. will go today. Now comes the tricky part: I have to monitor my progress and tweak until I see an improvement. I will probably look at BookBub’s own top 100 author list to find a bunch of thriller writers who will give me a similar audience to Ty Patterson. I’ll also be going back over the videos.

The unexpected progress on my WIP came by ignoring the writer’s block and jumping ahead to the latter part of the plot. I found myself writing quickly and enthusiastically, even extending the idea I had for the outcome. It means that I’ll have a beginning and an end with a word count of about 25000. Although it seems I still need to do a lot, like find another 50,000 words, it isn’t as daunting as it was a week ago.

Getting back to the BookBub advert briefly, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Adam Croft in response to the comments I made in my blog last week. It put a smile on my face, and it was so nice to get a comment from someone who actually reads this. I was even more surprised to think that this best-selling author (over a million sales on Amazon) actually took the trouble to write and encourage me. Good for you, Adam.

Christmas isn’t far away now, and the various sales pitches are springing up everywhere, no more so than our CHINDI group. We have opened our shop for Christmas specials, so why not pop in and see what’s on offer. We have a growing membership in our group with authors who have notched up awards in their writing career. There could be something there to suit everyone’s taste. www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop.

I mentioned author cross promotions last week. Looking at my sales, I see no benefit, which means I’ll knock them on the head for a while. I am still committed to Paula Wynne’s BookHub Christmas promotion, but that is simply adding one of my books to the bundle she is giving away. http://bookhub.online/readers-news/win-a-book-bundle.

So what now? With Christmas Day only six weeks away, it’s about writing out the Christmas cards, getting presents, arranging get-togethers etc. Our CHINDI group are meeting up for a Christmas meal next month. Although we meet up occasionally, and on-line daily, it’s good to get the chance to chat face to face. I’m looking forward to that. We have an on-line meeting on Monday where we’ll be able to see each other on our computer screens, but there’s nothing like the real thing.

And something else I mustn’t forget: it’s Remembrance Day. There will be ceremonies all over UK and elsewhere in the world to remember those who fell during the terrible conflicts we’ve witnessed on this earth. I served in the Royal Air Force, and so did our four sons. Happily, none of us experienced the terror of real conflict. Mind you, one of our boys has a chest full of medals. He’s still serving but in the Royal Australian Air Force. He looks like a General in his best uniform. So tomorrow I’ll wear my Poppy with pride and hope the leaders of this world will see some sense. Some hope! Wish me luck!

Understanding why.

When I read interviews or watch podcasts of writers who have successfully self-published, I admit to feeling a little envious of their success, and wonder if I’ll ever be able to achieve the kind of sales figures they enjoy. My wife asked me the other day if I get upset when I see what others have achieved doing what I’m doing, but I told her that it would be pointless getting upset; the fact is these people have worked hard to achieve their success, and that is the limiting factor in my case. I have watched two mega selling authors in the last week: Adam Croft and Hugh Howey. Both these writers knew how to do the hard yards and come up with a solid way to promote their work. I have watched others over the last few months, always looking to see if there was a shortcut maybe that I didn’t know about. But the truth is — its work, work, work.

This brings me to a kind of late, 2017 resolution (procrastination got in the way): to try harder. I paid the royalties into my bank today — those I received as a result of the BookBub advert earlier in the year — and decided I would like to do that each month, and watch them increase; but how? Well, this week, Mark Dawson is releasing his latest advertising course for authors, which includes all the updated stuff on Facebook, Amazon Ads and BookBub. As a student of his, I get all this free, so I’m looking forward to dipping my toe in the water with BookBub advertising (not a ‘Featured Deal’). But I know that simply following what I’m told, without working at it, I’ll be wasting my time. So it’s up to me: must work harder. You will all get to know how I’m doing, but it could be a while before that happens. If I was a racehorse, you wouldn’t put your money on me, so I now have to see if I can’t make this old nag romp home first past the winning post.

I made some progress with my WIP. I’m at the writer’s block stage. This is familiar territory to most writers. I’ll get through it of course, but at the moment I can’t see how. I sent a short extract of the WIP to my subscribers, wondering if I would get a reaction. I did — 21 of them unsubscribed! You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?

I scrambled through a couple of cross promotions recently and came to the conclusion I’ve been coming to for a long time: they’re not worth it. Others might disagree, but I’ve seen no increase in my daily sales figures to convince me it’s all worth the effort.

Tomorrow I will be on a book stall for a couple of hours at our local British Legion. Some members of our book group (Chindi), will be there at the one day Christmas Market trying to spread some literary cheer in the area. I probably won’t sell any books, but that isn’t always the case. It could turn out entirely different.

And on the subject of trying to spread literary cheer, our book group, Chindi, are running a Christmas promotion on ALL our books in the run up to Christmas. Almost all genres will be on sale through our website at reduced prices. So why not pop along to www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop and have a look at some of our bargains? I might sell some there too. Wish me luck!

Overcoming life's little problems

Well. I got my PC back from the shop, but had to phone them because it still didn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. Fortunately it was cleared up by the technician over the phone after having to take it back for another session with the techie guys. I was almost back in business, but had to get on with the cross promotion I had agreed to do. Although I thought I had reduced my book for the promotion, it turns out I hadn’t; but I didn’t find out about that until the author’s promoters contacted me. Embarrassing? Yes. But all is well now and the cross promo is running. I’ve only sold one book though so far, so it can’t be making much of an impact out there, can it? For those of you who may want to see which author I am promoting, click the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075R35B5J/

I got back to my WIP and am feeling a little more confident about where I’m going with it. Yesterday I typed about 1000 words, which is a lot for me because I often stop to research something that needs clarifying. But at least I’m making some kind of progress. Another kind of research I was engaged in was preparing my sermon for this Sunday evening at my church. Yes, we have to do research for that as well. I will put a link in my next blog should any of you out there wish to hear what I have to say.

Yesterday I watched a video on Mark Dawson’s SPF group. It was a forty minute interview with Adam Croft; another student of Marks, who has sold over a million books on-line. He spoke about the poor sales of his stand-alone novels, and mentioned that the valued opinions out there believe you have to produce a ‘series’ of titles if you are to make a success of self-publishing. Well, he blew that theory out of the water by using BookBub advertising to advertise his ‘eighth’ book. As a result of that, his other books are selling: something they failed to do previously in any great number. I said last week that I would be looking at Amazon ads (AMS), but now I will give BB a go. I’m a member already, so I don’t have to apply to go on BB’s waiting list. This is not a “Featured Deal”, but is similar to FB ads and AMS. It’s worth looking into — for me anyway.

Next month, our book group, Chindi, will be advertising great deals for their books coming up to Christmas. Have a look at www.facebook.com/chindiauthors. There are some great books there with generous discounts and genres to suit everyone in the family.

Looking back over my week, health has figured largely in our lives. Fortunately for me and Pat, nothing too serious. Mind you, having injections in the eye, which my Pat is having, probably is serious. I had a couple of hospital visits: different hospitals, nothing to worry about either. And a friend of ours passed away over the weekend. Losing a loved one is sad news for anyone, but on Tuesday we held our church house group here, and the theme was: Celebrating Janet’s life. We had a lot of laughs and spent a couple of hours in tears of mirth instead of tears of sadness. Oh, and one of my fish died. That was sad.

So, next week I begin with preaching at my local church, looking ahead to Christmas (shopping!), getting more pages added on to my WIP and maybe, just maybe, getting to grips with BookBub advertising. Wish me luck!