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!

When Gremlins attack

Just when you think things are running smoothly, a gremlin hops into your daily routine. My PC went belly-up on Tuesday: it wouldn’t boot up. Took it into the shop, got it back on Friday and now I can’t access the internet. I’ll be going back to the shop on Monday to have a “talk” with them. Obviously I’m not without a PC or the internet, but I have to use my laptop, which is not geared up like my main PC. These problems, when they come, always seem to pick the most inopportune moment. I am supposed to be preparing a Newsletter promotion for a fellow author. In return he will be posting about my book, A Dangerous Game. It means seven days of tweets, FB and social media, and now I have to come up with something satisfactory so I don’t fall short of the agreement I made.

Another hurdle I have to cross is that my church has asked me to preach on Sunday week (October 29th). No big deal really, but the access I have on line to research the stuff I need is already part of my ‘Favourites’ on the main PC. So now I’ll have to go hunting via my laptop.

On top of that, a very close friend of ours has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I had to give up two mornings this week to ferry a very distraught husband in to the hospital. Plus I was asked to sit in with him when the doctor delivered the sad news. His grief, and my friend’s condition, make my problems pall into insignificance.

Naturally I have made no progress with my WIP, but it has never been too far from my mind. My foray into Facebook advertising was pretty disappointing too, but I’ll survive the trauma of handing Jeff Bezos (FB founder) my money for so little in return. I will do nothing now until next month because I reached my self-imposed budget limit. I’m thinking of having a look at Amazon ads. According to Mark Dawson, a prolific user of FB and Amazon, they offer a more direct way of directing your potential readers straight on to your Amazon product page. It makes sense: an FB ad asks someone to click a link to an Amazon product, whereas with Amazon Ads, the product appears and the click takes the reader to the place where they can purchase the book. Plus the fact that the product page contains so much more information about the author, the book, the also-boughts, the reviews, and a host of other stuff, which would cost a fortune to place on an FB ad.

We took our dog down to the beach for her routine walk this afternoon, but had to turn back because the beach has been battered by the strong winds brought on by “Storm Brian”. I despair of the naming culture for hurricanes and storms etc. The name ‘Brian’ suggests a gentle nature. I have a couple of friends with that name, and neither of them is violent. Why don’t they pick names with connotations of strength and danger? Attila, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon, Brian? Spare me, please.

So what happens next week? I might have a serviceable PC, and I might even have got back to my WIP, but whatever happens, as always: wish me luck!