As this week and this month comes to an end, I can say it’s finishing on good news. The hospital has finally diagnosed Pat’s cancer and we will be seeing the haematologist on Monday afternoon for the consultation and the beginning of Pat’s treatment. Yesterday when we got the news, we were both in a flood of tears, cuddling each other with big smiles on our faces. It’s ironic that when we are supposed to be in despair at the news of cancer, for us it was a massive relief to know the treatment can begin after waiting for almost eight months. It’s going to be a hard road for Pat, but with faith and prayer, and the skill of the doctors, I know Pat will come though.
As readers of my blog will know, I have been advertising my book, The Boy from Berlin on Facebook. The two ads are identical, but one has been running for two weeks in UK, the other for a week in USA. In that time I have sold 39 copies of the book on KDP, and two on D2D. This represents a terrific turn round in my monthly averages: whereas I’ve been selling about one book a week, I can hope to see that figure rise to an average of ten copies each week. Naturally I will be tweaking my ads because it’s good advice to do so. I won’t make drastic changes, but as the numbers slow down, so I’ll look to maybe change my target audience. Needs some thought though. And next month (July), Stuart Bache is contracted to design a new jacket for me. It will be interesting to see how that impacts on the sales. I had one comment posted on my FB page from someone I don’t know. He put the jacket up and said, “Brill read”. Great stuff.
The next bit of good news is that I finally managed to type “The End” on my WIP. I never thought I’d get there with all that we’ve been going through this year. It’s taken me the best part of twelve months to get this far and it’s a relief to reach the end. Naturally the book isn’t ready yet, but I will be printing it off and going through it with my red pen. Once I’m happy with that, I’ll start the process of publishing. I can’t afford to ask Stuart Bache to do the jacket, but I’ll look into finding some designer recommended by people I know.
And the other bit of good news is that photo at the start of this blog. That’s me at our local ‘Fun Day’ on the green in our residential park home estate. Last year I sold six books and was well pleased. This year I sold nineteen books! At least, I think it was nineteen. I started losing count after twelve. I was staggered. One woman bought two books and while I was signing them, she picked up another and said her son would love that book. I reached the stage where I thought I might have to nip home for more books. So, a really good day. Next on the horizon is Pat’s treatment, my editing and a look at how I can tweak my FB ads and increase my sales. Wish me luck!