The Arundel Festival sales are going well; we’re exceeding the figures we achieved last year. I should qualify that statement really: they, our magnificent Chindi stalwarts manning the stall, are exceeding expectations. But today, unfortunately, the opportunity to raise more money for the charity has been rained off. Our Chindi girl, Carol, tried gamely to set the stall up but the continuing downpour meant it was in vain. Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Sunshine is forecast and it’s a Bank Holiday. Fingers crossed then.
My AMS ads are proving to be a continuing mystery, despite seeing slow, steady sales of Hell’s Gate, I have yet to see anything significant for Roselli’s Gold. I also have a weekly spend on tweets: only about one pound a week, but it means five of my books are tweeted and retweeted by Author Sidekick. Trouble with that is that there is no way of knowing if those tweets result in any sales. Interestingly though, I am getting a lot of searches on LinkedIn, and a lot of views on my Facebook page. I guess it means that people are becoming more aware of my name as an indie writer, and are looking at me via social media. I just wish they were buying my books though!
I’m currently reading Sam Bourne’s thriller, To Kill the President. It’s too early to say if I’m enjoying the book (I’ve read Sam Bourne before), but I did wonder if he is writing a scenario that he would like enacted in the Whitehouse and have Donald Trump done away with.
I’m also bobbing between Brian Meeks’ book on AMS ads, Tammy Labrecque in email marketing and Adam Croft on the indie author mindset. He’s the featured writer on the SPF podcast this week, so I’ll be looking at that later.
I have made some inroads into my WIP. Slow progress I must admit, but I have had to juggle several things this week: not least an on-line meeting with the new, proposed Chindi Directors. Yes, me and the other directors are jumping ship. Well, not quite that drastic, but stepping aside to let new faces in and give them the opportunity to spread our Chindi wings further.
During the week we hosted an evening meal for a Romanian family. They are over here for the wedding of one of our church members. Pastor Nelu, his wife Florica and their daughter, Tabitha who came along to translate for them. Nelu’s English is not too good, but Tabitha is fluent. Lovely family. Nelu is a beekeeper and brought us over three jars of different honey. We also had our No.3 Great Grandson over for lunch on Friday. Well, his mum and grandad came too of course. Orin (the toddler), spent most of the time running around and playing. It was lovely to see him; he’s always smiling. Just another reason why I wasn’t in my room sweating over my WIP.
Looking ahead, I have some admin work to do for Chindi as well as preparing for our trip to Australia in three weeks’ time. We needed a Doctor’s certificate in order to get a Visa for OZ because of our ages. That was a surprise, but we have the visas now. Oh, and something else happened to make me think: I received a royalty statement from D2D for my Barnes & Noble royalties for $124 last August (2017 — a year ago)! Not bad eh? But I think that must have been an error; I’ve had royalties from B&N each month. Not much, but something. Perhaps I’ll get some more backdated stuff, eh? I hope. Wish me luck!.