Turning Pages and Looking Ahead

I made a start on my September advertising campaign on Facebook, and hope to see some return on my investment as we make our way through the month. I intend setting up another advert, and will switch from one to the other, just to see which one is delivering the best. I have already sold at least one of my three book box sets since the initial launch. It puts a smile on my face so long as I don’t compare myself to some of my web colleagues on the Nick Stephenson and Mark Dawson Facebook groups. Whereas most of us are certainly struggling to make sense of FB advertising and targeting audiences etc., some writers report successes that absolutely blow you away.

My current project is nearing the 50,000 word mark, and I believe I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If I can keep my current average up, I should complete the first draft just before Christmas. It’s a long way behind my first, optimistic target of a launch during the autumn, but it is what it is.

The results of the book stall at the Arundel Festival proved very good. We raised over £300 for Cancer Research and sold well over 100 books. It was a joint effort by the majority of the CHINDI group, but a word of thanks and praise must go to Carol Thomas (http://www.carol-thomas.co.uk) who did most of the work and sold plenty of her novel, Crazy Over You. You can check it out at her website. The results we achieved mean that we will probably want to do it again at next year’s festival.

I received a request from an American author who I don’t know. He has asked me to review his eBook. It’s his first novel and not one that I would consider reading. But because it’s his first, it makes me think back to when I first published as an indie author and wanted to build up my reviews. I also thought back to when I had my first book published in 1980 and how chuffed I was at actually seeing my work in print. I have agreed to review this author’s book but have told him to be prepared for a harsh review, just in case I don’t like the book. I will not trash it though, because I made that mistake some months ago with a budding writer, and regretted it ever since. Hopefully it will be a good story and be well written.

I have also been featured in a short interview on Alexandra Amor’s website. Alexandra is an established, Canadian writer. You can read the interview at http://alexandraamor.com/qa-with-thriller-author-michael-parker/.

Last but not least, we popped into the KIA garage this morning to have another look at the car we’ve ordered. We were not expecting it until the end of October. The salesman had a big smile on his face when he told us the car would be here within a week. He hadn’t intended to tell us until Monday, but seeing as we walked into the show room, he thought it would be better to tell us, just to see the smile on our faces.

What else? Well, I could win the lottery, I suppose. Wish me luck!

Cancer Research and Car Sales

I had an interesting week, what with a trip to the dentist to begin with and finishing by ordering a new car. In between I was at Arundel in West Sussex doing my shift on the CHINDI book stall supporting Cancer research in the UK as part of the Arundel festival. I also managed to publish my three book box set on Amazon, but have so far failed to get it right for Draft2Digital, but more of that later. Oh, and I did manage to write a bit. For the benefit of Carol, who I know reads this blog, I added another 500 words yesterday, just to make sure I’m ahead of you!

I was able to resolve the formatting problem I had with the middle novel of my three book box set. To do that, I had to save the Word doc. in html as a web filtered document. This took me back to the early days of Kindle when it was necessary to go that route before converting to Kindle. Even then you had more work to do to get it right. Now, thankfully, Amazon convert the document automatically (unless you have an ancient document that their conversion software doesn’t like).

With D2D it’s a whole new ball game. I already have my titles with them and have had no conversion problems that I know of, but for some reason the box set came out all wrong. I have been in touch with D2D who have pointed me in the right direction. Hopefully I’ll have it right within a couple of days.

The book stall at Arundel has proved eventful and reasonably successful for the CHINDI group. We are raising money in support of Cancer Research UK and attracting some rewarding interest. About four of our authors are doing well. I have sold two paperbacks to date (three days to go), but I don’t look at it as a competition between us, simply a joint effort to promote our group and raise money for charity.

The weather has been good; too hot much of the time for the poor book sellers, but it does lift your spirits. My spirits were lifted by a small result after e-mailing my subscribers with the news of my box set. I sold eleven that day (Kindle). That may not sound like a lot, but the three books are my lowest sellers, and I’m trying to persuade people that my stand alone, cross genre novels are really worth reading, hence the reason I lumped them together and launched them at a rock bottom price. I’ll be spending some money next month on a Facebook advert, and hopefully visitors to my website will be intrigued and persuaded by the offer.

The car? Well, I had to finally admit to myself that my KIA Sportage was really too big for me and Pat, and it’s a devil of a car to park straight! My boy racer days are over and I have to be sensible, so we went to KIA this morning and ordered a sensible, Kia Venga automatic. Had a test drive and liked it immensely. Pat can actually see out of the front windscreen without having to stretch her neck, and the seat height for the two of us is just about right. We have to wait a while though because there are no Infra Red Venga automatics available, so it’s likely to be November before it turns up. Must look after my Sportage now until the deal is done. Wish me luck!

Boxing Clever? Maybe not.

No, Tuppence didn’t win best puppy, but it didn’t appear to bother her. Why can’t people be more like dogs?

While I was struggling through my manuscript, I thought it might be a good idea to put it on hold and knock out a box set for three of my least performing novels. After all, it would only take an afternoon to set the thing up and get it on KDP, so I thought. For a box set of books, they need to be one document, each book following on from the other. So I began to process of creating a file and loaded the first book in. It needed a little attention, but I made good progress and then loaded in my second book. Then the problem of inserting a “Table of Contents” reared its ugly head. Each time I searched for Chapter One, say, I ended up at the beginning of the document: right chapter, wrong book. Undaunted I loaded in the third story and, after a few adjustments, realised that one of them had the wrong indents. It would have been a bit time consuming to work through each page, so I binned it all and started again. So the next day I was at it again until I had it all working perfectly. Then came making up a box set image in PhotoShop. I can make a 3D image of a book, no problem, but to make a 3D box set image gets a little tricky. Sure, you can Google it, but there is always a problem, usually one of not being able to understand the wiz kid who is explaining how to do it at ninety miles an hour and using a programme that doesn’t quite match up to the latest version of PhotoShop. I gave up in the end, having decided to make an image of three books, all in 3D but stacked as though they were part of a box set. Three days later and it’s still a plan. I will get there eventually.

I had coffee during the week with a fellow author, Rick Haynes. I’ve only known Rick briefly, but we have a lot in common, not the least that we come from the same area in London and went to the same speedway stadium in Somerton road, home of the Wimbledon Dons (defunct now). Same Pie & Mash shop? Yes, still there I hope, although it may be a kebab outlet or a halal butchers. Whatever it is, it won’t be serving bagels. It’s nice to spend some time reminiscing and talking about common ground. We chatted about books and writing of course, and Rick is well on his way to producing his second, full length fantasy novel to go with his short stories and “Drabbles” (no, I haven’t either!).

I said earlier that I was struggling with my WIP. What author doesn’t? I have made it past the halfway mark and have a clearer idea of where I’m going with it. I just need to up my discipline levels and knuckle down.

Next week I will be at the Arundel Festival for a couple of stints on our CHINDI book stall. We are donating a sum to charity as part of the fee, and giving something like a 20% cut of our sales to the cancer charity. At the moment it’s raining, there is a very strong wind blowing and the forecast doesn’t look too promising for now. The festival began today and will run for a week. At the time of writing, one of our authors has sold seven books (Dan Jones). Dan usually does sell well because his books are self-help based on his twenty years of working with children who have problems like Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism. He has released a particularly helpful book of bedtime stories for youngsters, which is receiving good reviews on Amazon (ASIN: B015HVQZV4). You can find out more about Dan and other members of the CHINDI group, plus buy their books at www.chindi-authors.co.uk.

So for me next week it’s a trip to the dentist, two stints at Arundel, a family meet at Petworth (lovely place) and more work on my novel and the box set. Wish me luck!