February 28, 2015

Just when you think you are making progress, another gremlin leaps into the system and spoils your day. I spent a few hours cursing the internet last Thursday because mine was up and down like the proverbial lingerie of a lady of the night. I took my PC into the shop who checked it there and then and said there was nothing wrong with it. Speak to your provider, they said. In my case it is Sky Broadband. I bring the PC home, plug it in and the sound system stops working. It’s been perfect up to now. So there I am diving under the desk unplugging this and that. But the PC refused to concede defeat, which meant another trip to the shop; although not until Monday because Friday we were out most of the day, and the shop is closed Saturday. This morning it worked fine. I think the gremlin is laughing at me. Some might say its finger trouble, which I accept, but it still managed to drive me up the wall. And the internet is behaving itself too.

Last week I put one of my books — The Eagle’s Covenant — on ‘permafree’. I advertised it and was pleased to see it rise up in the rankings and reach No.3 in the free, political eBooks. I also made the top 1000, which is a lot higher than somewhere down around 150,000 where it usually languishes. I can see a very modest rise in my book sales at the moment, but I’ve no idea if its because of my keyword changes, or some readers are beginning to enjoy my work at last. I have found though, that my modest rises are in UK; not America. That’s still proving to be a tough nut to crack.

As part of my drive to reach a greater share of the reader market, I am trying to put together a presentable campaign using the email service of MailChimp. I’m finding that a little difficult and confusing, probably because of my age, but I have managed to send a couple of test emails to me and my wife. I have now asked my four sons to let me add their names to my campaign. Once I am happy with the way I have set it all out, then I will ask all my readers (!!) to sign up. But it is something of a chicken and egg argument: if I have very few readers, how do I get to a target of 2000? (That’s as far as I can go with the free portion of MailChimp). Wish me luck!