Blog for December. This Monthly blog for December could be my end of year blog, but it would take too long to look back over 2022, so I’ll just pick out some highlights. The most significant would be my eight days at Headford in County Galway, Ireland, at a Writers’ Retreat organised by my American Publisher, Wild Rose Press — thirteen American women and me! I flew from Ireland to London for the SPF Book Conference in London after that: two days plus an evening party on the first night. The result of my involvement in the world of books restored my ‘mojo’ and I got back into writing again. So much so that I finished writing my latest Crime thriller, A Song in the Night (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHKH6QDW), and, unbelievably, I decided to write a Romance under a pen name. I finished it during the NaNoWriMo gallop with SPF in November and published it as Emma Carney. The title is Happy Lies the Heart (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BQH1F1LK). The romance idea was just for fun, but now I will probably have a new jacket designed by thebooktypesetters.com and think about a series. Just needs some discipline; something I seem to lack nowadays. New Year’s Resolution perhaps? So, what about my December? Well, I put the Christmas decorations up. Not too many, but at least the house was ready for my Church House Group Christmas party on the 13th. That was good: plenty of food, mulled wine, mince pies (natch) and a finger buffet. I cooked BBQ Chicken wings etc. We had a houseful but were not too crowded out. Being a glutton for punishment, and not knowing my own mind, I dived into a music training session with Jonny May. I joined his group over a year ago. The guy is phenomenal. I’ve learned a few things with him, but this time I started on a Bb scale course. I’m still at it, but I’m managing to achieve small steps. Another highlight in December was a trip to the UK Southern Book Show in Arundel. The show was arranged by fellow writer, Natasha Murray. I used to have a stall at her earlier events, but since losing Pat, there’s only me and Tuppence left at home, and I can’t leave Tuppence in order to have a book stall all day at an event. Anyway, I turned up with the dog and was able to chat for about an hour with at least six ladies (all writers) who are old friends from the Chindi book club, which folded a few years ago. I also spent time chatting with some of the other writers there. It was really good. And as a ‘bonus’, Natasha awarded me the UK Southern Book Show Super Fan award! One thing we all had to deal with in December was the bitterly cold, Arctic temperatures. We even had a seven hour power failure, which was no fun. When I think of what those poor Ukrainian people are having to put up with, it makes a seven hour power failure look like a minor inconvenience. The World Cup! Loved that. I also attended a Christmas Lighting Service held by St. Wilfrid’s Hospice at Chichester Cathedral. I received an invite because the Hospice looked after Pat here at home during her last days. Naturally the Cathedral was packed, but it was freezing cold. Another welcome bonus was a £5 royalty payment from Heygates Book Shop in Bognor for the sale of one of my books. I made a brave decision too: I took some of Pat’s winter clothes to a charity shop. When I thought of all those people who are either homeless or freezing cold because they can’t afford to turn their heating up, I knew I had to give Pat’s stuff away. I felt quite gloomy after I’d done it, but I knew Pat would have approved. I’ve still got loads of her clothes here, but it will be a long time before I can feel it's right for me to pass them on. I attended the final 2022 meeting of the Bognor Write Club. We had a kind of ‘Christmassy’ type do: mince pies, a selection of Christmas Super hero stories (all our own work), and a ‘Bran Tub’ type draw where we all picked out a prize; each one a contribution from those attending. And on Christmas Eve, we had a family Zoom meeting, which included our No.4 son, Stephen, and his family in Australia. On Christmas Day I went over to No. 3 son, John and stayed the night. So Christmas is finally over, the New Year has begun, resolutions will be made and forgotten about, and we’ll all hope and pray for the right outcome to all the problems our broken world throws at us. I can only hope and pray that all of you who read this blog of mine will have a really happy and contented 2023. If you read any of my books, please tell people about me; word of mouth is important. Happy New Year.

November ended possibly a little better than it started for me in terms of production rather than sales. When I published my latest crime thriller, A Song in the Night, I saw an immediate uptake in reaction to my Facebook ads and started seeing a constant increase in page reads. I also sold seven, plus a few of my other titles. Here we go, I thought: big Oak trees from little acorns grow. But it cost a lot of money for what I was getting, so I switched to Amazon ads and the bottom fell out of my book world. Nothing — zilch. I was getting no reaction, no page reads and, consequently, I wasn’t spending any money. But the annoying irony is that I started getting downloads for my WW2 story, Shadow of the Wolf, which I’d put on D2D as a free book. In a little over a month I have given away sixty two of those with no advertising. My next plan was to launch two brand new, identical Amazon campaigns in UK and USA. After four days I have just almost 5000 impressions and three clicks. No-one is interested enough in the book jacket and blurb to even click and see what they think. So, the bonus is I’m still not spending any money, but I’m stagnating in the book market. I don’t know what the answer is yet, but as a side bet, I’ve purchased two Cyber Monday deals (it’s Thursday as I write this) on Kindle Book Review, who I’ve used in the past, for A Song in the Night, and The Devil’s Trinity. Incidentally, I sell more of the latter on D2D than all my other books — and that is with no advertising. Beyond all that though, I’ve been busy. I used the NaNoWriMo month to complete a Romance; something I have never written as a standalone novel. But the difference is, it will be published under the pen name, Emma Carney. Why? You may ask. Well, it seems I can get no traction with my own name, and goodness knows I have been around a long time, so I thought, why not? Someone may like my love story enough to buy a copy. I’ve ordered a proof copy, which is due to arrive next week, so I expect, hope, to have it ready in time for publishing by Christmas. My other life, that which fills most of my days and routines, continues in a fairly mundane pattern with occasional interruptions, happy ones of course, with family visits, phone calls, chats etc. The rain has tormented us on the south coast, reaching daily levels far in excess of previous records. We’ve had local flooding, but nothing like we have seen on the National and World news. I began preparing for Christmas and wrote up all my Christmas cards. These, apart for a few, have been posted or delivered by hand. After that, I dragged the Christmas tree out of the loft and began decorating that. I’m not as creative in that department as I am in the book world, but I try. Another diversion for me (and millions of other people) is the Football World Cup. I hope, like a good book, it has a happy ending for the English fans. One other thing in passing. I was described as “Gifted” in the Financial Times years ago. Last night I watched the BBC documentary on Christine McVie; the singer, songwriter and keyboard player with the band, Fleetwood Mac, who passed away earlier this week. Now, she was “Gifted”. What now for me? More attempts at reaching for the stars I suppose. I’ll be going to a book event in Arundel tomorrow. I know a few of the authors who will be there. It’s something I would have done before my lovely wife passed away, but not anymore. So, I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and a terrific New Year. Stay safe.

A lot of stuff happened to me during the month of October: some good, some not so good. None of the downs were life threatening, nor were the ups come to that. I published my latest crime thriller, A Song in the Night, and ordered a proof copy. I couldn’t believe how many errors there were, considering I’d read through it twice before publishing, but such is the life of a writer. I edited again and uploaded the new manuscript. Once I was happy with it, I produced the eBook. And that’s were it went off the rails again. There were no table of contents (ToC) in the book, even though I included a ToC in the manuscript. Always have done and never had a problem. I contacted KDP Support and was advised that I needed a “Logical ToC”. It’s something new I guess, but why did KDP have to change something that worked fine? I did try to figure it out using KDP’s instructions and advice from Google, but I’m still scratching my head over that. I decided to promote my latest book on Bargain Booksy, using a promotion company I’d watched on an SPF Podcast. Promises were made of course, but I sold nothing. I pointed this out on their Social Media platform and, surprise, surprise: I received an apology and my money back. Next up was a threat of legal action from an American finance Company who keep the accounts for D2D, an aggregator I have used for about five years. It seems I used the wrong name for my tax return, so my account was suspended, fraud was hinted at and the threat of legal proceedings against me. And all my books were delisted. Fortunately, I posted a warning on the SPF Facebook Group and Mark Dawson, the administrator, contacted one of the D2D staff. I received an email from them. They didn’t even know this had happened. Eventually the error was corrected (by them) and all my books republished. Phew! Then my banking app stopped working because HSBC were very excited to introduce a better way of accessing the online bank. It meant I was unable to view my account or even have control. I went into the bank here in Bognor and fortunately, the lady behind the glass took my phone off me and fifteen minutes later I was back in the new and “Exciting” world promised by the bank. Why do they do this? It all worked fine, so why change it? Can you remember what you signed for three years ago? Me neither. I received an email from my Web provider, Wix, to let me know that they would be taking £300 out of my bank for my premium account. This would be for another three years. After a spell of apoplexy, I checked back through my Website editor and found that I had agreed to this in November 2019. It was only £2 per week. Nothing, eh? Until you forget and they want to lift £300 out of your bank. So, I grinned and put up with it. So you see: all those ‘downs’ were not life threatening but did get me stirred up. Not something I need at my age. Oh, I forgot. Went to take Tuppence down the beach for the morning walk and found I had a flat tyre. I decided to take Tuppence round the village and change the tyre when I got back, but I couldn’t undo the nuts! Nothing I did would shift them, so I had to call Green Flag. A guy came out from the garage and five minutes later I was mobile again. But on to some positives now. My latest book, A Song in the Night, is now available, but only on Kindle Unlimited. I thought I would give it try. In three weeks I have picked up almost 2000 page reads. That’s the equivalent of about four book sales. It’s an encouraging start, bolstered by advertising on Facebook of course. I have also sold ten copies so far (eBook and print), plus I have sold five other books; one of which was my box set. I’ve had the box set on KDP for about five years and only ever sold one copy I think. But it was a nice surprise to think, maybe, the interest in my latest book may have pointed readers to my website and my other titles. Another ‘positive’ in a way was the decision I made to promote my Christian Narrative. I realised that as much as I like to see some benefit from advertising, it has always been my works of fiction (apart from My Pat, a love story) that I’ve promoted. I thought to myself that if I want God to open doors for me, I really ought to promote my Christian book: A Word in Your Ear (how God changed my retirement plans). So I now have ads for that on Amazon, but in the USA at the moment. Probably hoping to get some sales for that in the Bible Belt down south. This month is NaNoWriMo for authors around the world. It’s for anybody really. It stands for National November Writers Month (I think). The idea is to produce 50,000 words in four weeks. Although it’s a peculiar kind of arrangement, the idea is to write 2000 words a day knowing that there are others alongside you, all over the world, doing the same thing. I actually did a thirty minute ‘sprint’ with three other authors on my laptop and about 50,000 in the SPF group on the first day. But I had to admit that I was already 36000 words ahead because I’d started a new project: writing a romance under a pseudonym. The word count for that currently stands at 46000. The first draft will be finished well before the end of the month, but I will be going back to the beginning and rewriting where I can. Eventually I hope to have the completed novel at 60,000 words when November comes to an end. Wish me luck!

Last month was something of a revelation for me with regard to my word output, but not so much for my advertising skills. Looking back through my September blog, I see that I promoted The Eagle’s Covenant on Amazon and binned it. I went back to Amazon Ads, and using Janet Margo’s instructions, I rebuilt the campaign. Janet is an ex Amazon advertising exec and has joined Mark Dawson’s group to help update his Ads Course. Hey Ho! I thought; this should be good. I followed her advice to the letter, even submitting five separate ads and setting a budget across the five ads at £300 each (1500 total). This included a Lock screen ad, which is not usually useful for unknown authors like me. Janet warns about that, but her advice was to give it a try. So I did. Results since the 7th September? Zilch! Despite 37,500 impressions on Lock screen and 300 across the remaining adds. I got 77 clicks on Lock screen and 2 clicks on one other ad., but no sales. I spent just over $17. Says it all really, doesn’t it? The resultant connection with The Book Typesetters and their design for my new book jacket has produced a brilliant cover. I’m so pleased with it that I just had to include a thumbnail image here. I’m waiting for a Proof copy before publishing it: something I hope to do as a pre-order for November 1st. I will go back to Amazon and Facebook to promote it but have promised myself to be a little more circumspect when framing my campaign. As a result of changing my routine and creating more time to write, I have completed and published a short autobiography about the two years following the loss of my lovely Pat. I’ve called it What Happened After. It won’t be promoted; I simply felt compelled to write it and send copies to my family and friends. That was a 17000 word booklet. But not stopping there, I gave some thought to writing a Police Procedural crime novel. I downloaded two crime novelists who I know a great deal about and read their work. It didn’t take me long to realise that police procedurals are literally all dialogue. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get out of that particular straitjacket. I often tell people who say they want to write a book, that they should “Write as you can, not as you can’t.” By not following my own advice, I fell at the first hurdle. Mind you, knowing me, I’ll probably try again, particularly as I have a great opening scene for a crime thriller. However, still ignoring my own advice, I needed to do something having spent a lot of time finishing two books, so I started on a Romance. It’s just for fun really, and I will use a pen name. I’ve tried several names so far, but none of them seem to click. The one I’ve eventually settled on is Emma Carney. I’m not even sure I’ll use that one, but we’ll see. So far I have written 20,000 words. My daily target, which I had to trim because I wasn’t getting any work done in the house, was 2000 words a day. (I do get work done in the house of course!). My average so far is 1500 words a day. At this rate I’ll have another book available by Christmas. I’m still planning to use TikTok as a platform for my work. I need to go through the course again, but I have posted videos there already, so I’m not a complete novice.. I’m waiting for my book to be available before I go daft and promote the hell out of it. Other events during the month were lunch dates with my family and relatives. A trip to the Bognor Writers’ Group. That clashed with the England V. Germany game, but thankfully I was able to watch the recording. Dog walks, domestic duties, gardening (killing weeds really), running my church House Group, and trying to polish up my piano playing skills on my Clavinova. Life can be full, but underneath it all, it can be difficult too. So what next for Michael Parker? Who knows? I might change course and become a painter, a musician, a dog walker. The world’s my oyster. Wish me luck!

September 2022. Looking Good. The month of August was quite a busy month for me. Now that the jigsaw of my life was being put together slowly, I was able to get on with my latest book and I eventually finished it. I had to change my routines for this. I gave up buying a newspaper and consciously reduced the amount of time I spend sitting on my backside watching TV. I was surprised just how much writing I could accomplish, and how much time I had to deal with unexpected diversions. I gave up some of my time to paint my neighbour, Jackie’s fence. My side needed doing (it’s a trellis fence), so when I knew Jackie planned to pay someone to do her side, I told her I would do it for nothing. She’s going to buy me dinner though. The start of that job was delayed because I was getting over Covid. Fortunately the weather was okay; the heatwave hadn’t arrived. I was also fortunate enough to spend some time with two of my sons, Vincent and John, having lunch with their families at Port Solent. It has been years since I was there, but it was good. I also managed a lunch date with my sister-in-law, Carole and her husband, David. I started another advertising campaign on Amazon, but my efforts have been abysmal. So much so that I binned the campaign after a couple of weeks. I have now started the Amazon Ads Course again (paid for it years ago) and hope I can enjoy more success with that. I also plan to go through the TikTok training. I am posting on TikTok, and my granddaughter, Sarah, has given me some pointers with posting on TikTok and Instagram without the latter rejecting the former. Something to do with TikTok’s watermark. I have read on my Facebook groups of amazingly spectacular results with TikTok, so I’m persuaded it’s the right way to go. Naturally I will continue with AMS. Other aspects of my writing which are looking up is a project I’ve started and spent a little time on. There’s nothing to reveal about this because it hasn’t been completed yet. With regard to my novel, I have completed the editing and formatting of the manuscript but have engaged a professional book jacket designer to do the jacket for me. I did think about doing the jacket myself, but having come across this designer by chance, I decided to let him do the work. His prices were good: not as much as I paid for The Boy from Berlin. The irony is that I am currently redesigning my book jacket for A Covert War and using Photoshop to do it. But the biggest part of my month, and a kind of welcome change, was to pick up my friend, Pauline, from her home in Lincolnshire and bring her down here for a week of travelling around, sightseeing, visiting family and enjoying what the countryside has to offer. Pat and I first met Pauline and her husband, Brian, in Spain twenty five years ago. We were great friends while they lived there and continued that friendship when we returned to England. Sadly, we are both on our own now. Brian died a couple of months after my lovely Pat. We chat each week on Facetime, and I have been up to Lincolnshire a couple of times, including bringing Pauline down here last year. Tempus Fugit. Back in the book world again, I went to the Bognor Writers’ Club for their monthly meeting. It’s part of my attempts to make connections. I also popped into the bookshop in Bognor Regis where a local author, Peter Redford was holding a small event. I spent about fifteen minutes chatting with Peter and bought one of his books. I also left some of my books with the owner of the bookshop who has managed to sell a few of mine over the last few months. I have also posted a new campaign on Amazon for The Eagle’s Covenant. The book happens to have the highest number of reviews in the UK and the USA, and the highest average star rating of 4.5 of all my titles. But the number of reviews is abysmal compared to most other popular thriller writers. Consequently I am using Janet Margo’s instructions in building a campaign as a ‘novice’, using Ad Groups and committing a big budget. Janet used to work at Amazon on the advertising panel, so she knows what she’s talking about. Naturally I have to look at what’s happening each day, otherwise I could be spending money pointlessly. I feel this could be my last chance at understanding AMS Ads and know how to negotiate the minefield out there in an effort to attract readers and book sales. Looking back, it seems like I’m on the mend; but believe me, it’s hard without my Pat. I still miss her, and I’m sure she’s encouraged that I’m managing to put some meaning back into my life. Onward and upward hopefully. Wish me luck!

(Blog post for August 2022) The month of July has witnessed a definite change in the way in which I have started to turn my life around. The impact of the Writers Retreat in Ireland in June, together with the Self-Publishing Live show in London, has been the reason for this. I needed to find a way of changing my routine so I could devote more time to writing, marketing and promotion. The first thing I did was to stop buying a newspaper. It is amazing how much time can be wasted reading unwelcome news, pages of adverts and moaning about nothing worth reading in the papers these days. The next thing was to stop watching so much TV and to spend more time writing. Once I had got used to this idea, I found myself sometimes writing in the evening with just the radio on. I do watch TV of course but try diligently to watch only particular programmes. Naturally, I still have to deal with normal routines: gardening, housework, walking the dog, going to church etc., and there are breaks when I am invited to share time with the family. So what have I achieved to date? I made the decision to rewrite my current WIP after a one to one with my Publisher, Rhonda, in Ireland. It meant starting from the beginning of my 40,000 words and approaching it from a different angle. So far I have produced 50,000 words and have now worked out a sequence of events that will complete the story and bring me to my usual target of 80,000 words. If I continue at my current rate of progress, I could have the book ready by Christmas. We will see. Promotion and marketing? Well, last month I told you how I sold about sixty-five books on Facebook using a David Gaughran video as a guide. I continued with that and sold another twenty-five books before the campaign faded away. I did another ad on FB, but achieved nothing with that, so I have switched to Amazon Ads. Not too sure about that though. I have also run a FREE book campaign with Hello Books. That finished July 31st, and over the three days of the promo I have given away around seven hundred books. The title is Where the Wicked Dwell. The book will be free for a few more days on my Amazon Product page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WD8988W. Alongside those efforts, I have submitted Hell’s Gate for a standard, short campaign, with Author Glow. I’ve no idea how that will go, but for me now, it is all about immersing myself in the book world and getting my ‘mojo’ back. On the downside, the result of my two weeks away meant I ended up with Covid. Six days positive followed by what is often referred to as ‘Long Covid’. It was no fun and seriously curtailed my involvement in most things, although I did manage to write. But beneath all the good and uplifting news, I still miss my lovely Pat. I am managing that; meanwhile the book world is like a metaphor for a crutch that supports me as I try to live my life as normally as I can. I will keep plugging away. Wish me luck!

July 2022 Blog For those of you who wondered what happened to my June blog: I didn’t write one. Looking back, I know I was going downhill in my mind, thinking a great deal about Pat, and letting it affect my whole outlook. I guess it’s an element of the grieving process too. Another aspect of my convoluted mind was the upcoming June holiday and the need to shake off my mental chains and flee the marital home: twelve days away in the world of books, which is an environment in which I can survive without trauma. I came home today, June 30th, filled with a huge kaleidoscope of thoughts, imaginings, and revelations. And just a little daunted on what I hope to achieve if I can possibly change my daily routines. The first eight days of my break were spent in Ireland at a small town called Headford in County Galway. It was a writers’ retreat organised by my American Publisher, The Wild Rose Press. It was a combination of daily workshops and touring in a private bus, which included not just old castles and ruined Abbeys, but also some Irish Craic and an hilarious night in Galway. And what made this so unique in some respects was that I was the only Englishman among thirteen American women. I was lucky to get a one-to-one with the CEO (pre-planned), and also an excellent one-to-one with their marketing guru, Samantha. Brilliant stuff. I arrived back in London on Sunday ready for the Self-Publishing Live Show at the Southbank Centre. It was a two day conference with 700 authors attending. There was a party on the first evening with a band, which didn’t help too much because of my hearing, but I managed to chat with four other writers, and that helped break the ice. The presentations were really good, handled very professionally and packed with the kind of information that can only feed the imagination with what is possible if you are prepared to work at it. One thing that became very clear (to me anyway), was that the pandemic didn’t just blow the world apart, but it blew the book sales figures into the stratosphere. It didn’t help me though because that was the point where I gave up writing and promoting to nurse my wife. So in that respect I missed the bus. But I do know, because of my writing history and my product, I am sitting on a potential fortune. All I have to do is find the right shovel and learn how to dig it out. Now that I have spent twelve days inside the world of books and writers, I feel more inclined to pick up where I left off three years ago and see if I can make it happen. Coming back to the ‘real’ world, I need to think about how I’ll be repositioning myself in terms of dealing with the normal, day to day things that we all have to deal with, and also to get my brain into gear; to get my ‘mojo’ back. One thing I will continue with is advertising. I started a Facebook ad campaign at the beginning of May, using David Gaughran excellent advice, and sold sixty five copies of my book A Dangerous Game. I also sold other titles on the D2D Aggregator where all my books are available. I allowed the advert to run again for June and have sold 25 copies. I expected it to tail away like that, but it has given me the inspiration to create another ad for another book to run through July. I will also think about running something with Amazon. Perhaps I will find the right shovel. Wish me luck!

Another month passes and I, like most of us, wonder where it all went, and why so fast? I have continued to make progress with the TikTok course. I’m at 87% so far and intend to complete it before starting on my TikTok adventure. Will I make a success of it? Well, if I was a racehorse, I wouldn’t recommend putting any money on me. But I’m going to try. Today (April 30th) I am promoting my nuclear thriller, The Devil’s Trinity, with the Kindle Book Review featured book deal. I have had a moderate success promoting this book in the past, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will continue to sell. As far as my monthly sales go, they are next to useless at the moment (six books thus far), but that is because I have made no effort to promote anything. The reason for that is because I had planned to wait until I felt confident with TikTok. However, I received an email from David Gaughran (a genius) giving me (one of his many subscribers) a free walk through video on creating a Facebook Ad., in which he talks you through creating an Ad. on FB, and avoiding all the pitfalls. I’ve used FB several times without success, but the beauty of David’s video is that he creates the ad step by step and points out those “suggestions” that FB use to drag your money out of you and says to avoid them. So, that’s my next attempt at promotion. I’ll let you know next month how I got on. On domestic front, I have excelled myself in making progress in the garden.It is not my favourite pastime; Pat was the gardener, I just did the heavy lifting for her. But now it’s my responsibility, I have to make sure I keep on top of it. I’ve planted a lot of Geraniums, which was Pat’s favourite flower, and have ordered a bunch of other stuff to add to them. Next thing is to reduce a border I cleared by the lawn and put a line of turf in. I was invited by my granddaughter, Gemma, to go foraging with her and Orin (her 5 year old) in the woods near her place. The idea was to return home and cook a meal with what we foraged. Fortunately my son, Terry, came with us, which meant I could chat with him while Gemma and Orin foraged. It was a long morning and we finished with a Pesto lunch. Actually, it was quite good. I think Tuppence enjoyed the walk too. I have also been sucked into the technological age and fitted four Smart lamps to be controlled by Alexa. Last night I was watching a YouTube video that included a short ad on Alexa, when suddenly my lights kept going off everything time the name was mentioned. Do we really need all this? So, back to the world of books. My progress with my latest thriller is very slow. I have reached the ‘writer’s block’ stage and have virtually ground to a halt. I have managed 38000 words, which means I’m not even halfway through the first draft. Last weekend I popped into the Heygate bookshop in Bognor Regis for a chat with Jason, the owner. He likes to support local authors and has quite a few in a special display. He’d managed to sell two copies of my paperback, No Time to Die, and handed me my royalties from that. From there I went back to our local village hall and bought a book from a local author who had an event there. I like the idea of supporting local authors that way. Whether I’ll ever read the book remains to be seen. And finally, I have joined the Bognor Writers Club. They had their first, face to face meeting last Monday after spending two years meeting on Zoom because of the pandemic. Hopefully I’ll make new friends and enjoy time in the book world. See you next month. Michael.

Making headway March is a busy birthday month for my family: my birthday (81), my son, Terry, and his wife, Claire. Consequently I saw a fair amount of our offspring, which is nice. I also spent some time chatting with our youngest boy, Stephen, in Australia, and while we were talking, John turned up, so he got a chance to chat with his brother. John and I went up to Norfolk for a weekend with the eldest boy, Vincent, and his wife, Jackie. So all in all, I’ve been blessed. Another step in my ‘rehabilitation’ was finally paying for my week in Ireland: a writer’s retreat break for seven days, organised by my American publisher, The Wild Rose Press. I also submitted an extract from my current work for a critique by the CEO who will be leading the ‘Tour’. Yes, it’s called a tour because it won’t be about books all the time; we are also getting to tour the area around Galway. There will be twelve of us, but only me from the UK; the others are from the USA. The extract, by the way, was the first fifteen pages of my W.I.P, which will be returned to me in time for the break. When my Irish holiday is finished, I will be flying back to London and staying for the Self-Publishing Show Live at the South Bank Centre. It’s a two day bash, but I’ll be there a couple of days earlier, which mans some downtime and a look around the city where I was brought up. Well, me and my brothers were often up the West End getting up to mischief. Happy days. I am making steady progress with my current book. The working title is “Desolation”, which has nothing to do with Wyoming, where the story is set. I’ve just reached the 30,000 word mark, so still a long way to go. I’m hoping I will have broken the back of the story by the time I pitch up in Galway. I began the month putting ads on FB, Amazon and BookBub, but within a week, I’d pulled FB and BB. Amazon lasted a couple of weeks. Complete waste of time (I’m useless at marketing), so I opted for a one day ad on ENT, and another burst on Reedsy (I think). So far this month I’ve sold 39 books. That’s like four or five months of sales all squashed up into four weeks. Hasn’t cost the earth and will probably be the way I’ll go until I can see organic growth pushing up the numbers. Another venture I’ve taken is to start a course on TikTok. This is being run by two American ladies, Lisa Dubois and Jane Rylan. They are both phenomenally successful with their book sales through TikTok. I saw them in a podcast on Mark Dawson’s SPF. They gave us a short, five day course (ten minutes each day) to introduce us to TikTok. They have now come up with a brilliant, full length course, which is free to all paid up members of SPF. I made up my mind to stick to it, concentrate and make it my ‘go-to’ app for book promotion. Only time will tell if I have the staying power, but I do need to work at it, so I’ve made that promise to myself. Some time ago I offered local residents on the small estate where I live, the opportunity to get some good advice on publishing a book. The idea as for anyone who wanted to write their own story, maybe for the grandchildren, and didn’t know how. I wasn’t offering a course, just a couple of hours of free instruction to help them on their way. I had one reply. Thankfully the chap came to my house and we spent a couple of hours dotting the eyes and crossing the tees. He went away happy. Hopefully he’ll make the effort. I had another request from a different source. We set a date but the lady bailed out at the last minute. Nerves? So that’s about it for now. From a book world point of view, I feel a little happier and hopeful for the future. I’m even going to join an author group here in Bognor Regis at the end of the month, which I’m looking forward to. Should be fun. Wish me luck!

Storms in life Well, I managed to get my tickets for the SPF Live show at the South Bank Centre in London. The show will be over two days with a drinks party in the evening. Two years ago, at their first SPF show (nothing last year), the party was on board a boat on the River Thames. I’m looking forward to spending four days in London to cover the show and have some flex time too. Prior to that, I should be in Ireland for the Writers’ Retreat holiday. That’s still on according to my American Publisher who emailed us last week to update us on the planned week. Having looked ahead at what’s to come, I can’t help but feel it might all come to nothing if that megalomaniac, Vladimir Putin doesn’t pull back from the brink. All I can hope for is that the Russian people remove him from power and restore peace to Europe (and the world?) I am still making progress on my Marcus Blake thriller set in Wyoming. Some years ago, in fact, a good many years ago, my elder brother, Jim, told me of an incident that could have had horrifying consequences if the whole thing had played out. I remembered that incident as I was writing up another chapter of my book, and as a result of that distant memory, I’ve used it. Last week I downloaded the latest thriller, Blood Tide, by Neil Lancaster. I’ve read all his books (three to date) and was looking forward to this one. But within a couple of pages I found a major typo, by the time I’d got through the first chapter I had come across five more. I messaged Neil with the details and said I hoped these were not deliberate. I checked on another Kindle Reader but the errors were still there. Neil thanked me and said he’d passed the problem on to his publisher. I couldn’t help but point out that the author is responsible for all mistakes in their book because he/she has to be the last person to have eyes on it before it goes to the printer. I think that fell on deaf ears. But it is a truism I’ll never forget, having learned the hard way when my first eBook on Amazon went on offer for free about ten years ago. It had been formatted by an Australian colleague of mine because, in those days, you had to upload your file in html: something I had no clue about. Anyway, I managed to give away 40,000 free copies, only to learn from another writer that there were no commas in the book. Yes, I never checked the final product. I’ve delved into advertising again, only to learn that I’m useless at it. I spent about $70 in USA and £30 in UK and earned about £10 in royalties. I thought I would plunge in again though and have advertised A Dangerous Game on Amazon. I did try setting up a campaign on Facebook, but not having done one for a long time, it bamboozled me, so I gave up on that. During last month I’ve managed some family time despite the risks of Omicron. I spent a few hours with one of my granddaughters (Sarah) and her family, and also with my other granddaughter (Gemma) at her little boy, Orin’s fifth birthday party. Wow! Another family bash was to celebrate my Grandson, Adam’s promotion in his job as a senior cabin steward with BA. A surprise party was put on by his Polish girlfriend, Agata. Great do. I also managed to survive the storms which battered us here in UK. I always get down to the beach first thing with Tuppence (my Cockapoo). On the morning of Storm Eunice, the wind was fierce, but the storm hadn’t picked up too much, so our beach walk was not too bad. After that the wind speeds along the south coast here reached 80 to 90 miles per hour, with a recorded gust of 122 mph just along the water from us on the Isle of Wight. That’s it then for this month. Hopefully my next blog will be filled with the enormous success I’ve had with my advertising. Until then, stay safe. Michael Parker

November 7th. 2021 Looking through my previous blog post, I could see a sense of wanting to do more and get involved. Well, Robbie Burns had it right with his immortal words about the best laid plans of mice and men going “oft aglay”. I started with the best of intentions by beginning the Amazon Ads course again, changed my writing schedule to earlier in the day by making the most of a fresh mind, and left the domestic chores to the afternoon. It looked like it was working, but then I went down with a chest infection which needed antibiotics. The whole thing floored me and even two weeks after completing the course, I still haven’t got back to normal. So my plans went out of the window. I’m clawing my way back though, and to that end I decided to re-edit my pulp fiction thriller, Hunted, and offer it free to my email subscribers, plus anyone who comes across the link while it’s available. This is the link: https://BookHip.com/JNFFDBC. I have also made some progress on my current project; the fourth in my Marcus Blake series. This one will be set in Wyoming and will be a step up for Marcus in that he will have more of a Jack Reacher type role in this but will not be a Jack Reacher clone. There will be Indians. Before going down with this infection, I felt my plan to open up was going well. I’d restarted my church House Group and was attending the Sunday services (albeit with a mask), visited both my granddaughters and managed a trip up to the Greenwich Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark with my No.2 son, Terry and my grandson, Freddie. I’d even managed more Clavinova time. I’m also lined up for a couple of social events with my next door neighbour this month. Oh, and my plan to capitalise on the James Bond film release worked because I sold a dozen of my books of the same name during last month. Cost me a lot on Amazon Ads, but at least it put a smile on my face. My idea last month to consider the Na-No-Wro-Mo writing exercise in November was a non-starter. It appealed to me briefly, but, the chest infection notwithstanding, I would never have been able to complete the task. And I don’t think there would be a pay-off either. The indie book world is now an overstuffed juggernaut that swallows self-published books, making them disappear for ever unless the writer wants to spend a lot of money advertising and hoping the potential readers take notice. I think the majority of us are probably better served by concentrating on a local market and hoping to expand from there. You may recall me writing about my romantic family saga, Past Imperfect, published last month in America? I looked at the ratings today. It is 3.7 million in the best seller ranks, and around 100,000 in the Romance genre. My publisher will not spend money promoting it; that’s down to me, but in the American market? No, not a cat in hell’s chance. Not to worry though; I will do some advertising, but I need to revisit the Amazon Ads course and think about where best to spend my money. Incidentally, I see that Robert Galbraith’s book (AKA J.K.Rowling), Troubled Blood, has a print length of 945 pages. Phew! Makes you think, eh? I don’t think my box set runs into that length. Perhaps I should stretch my latest Marcus Blake thriller into a 1000 pages. At my age I don’t think I would finish it! So there you have it: a very brief synopsis of my life over the last four or five weeks. I could have mentioned walking my little dog, cutting down the lavender bush along the front border; washing, ironing, sneezing, coughing, and goodness knows what, but that would mirror most of your lives too. Oh, and something else I’ve learned too: Slan agus beannacht: (be safe & blessed). Till next time. Michael

Those of you who followed my weekly blog posts will know that I stopped once my lovely wife had passed away. I had already given up writing and declared that I wouldn’t write anymore because I could no longer see the point. For me, life had more or less come to an end. A year has passed now, and on August 18th, the anniversary of Pat’s death, I watched her funeral (plenty of tears). That evening I went out to a fancy restaurant with Pat’s brother and his wife. It was my sister-in-law’s suggestion; one that I am glad I finally overcame my reluctance and agreed to join them. Two days later I began what I would probably call my ‘Odyssey’. I travelled up to Norfolk to spend a weekend with my eldest son. Then I drove round to Lincolnshire, stopping off at my elder brother’s place for a couple of hours, to pick up Pauline, a long-standing friend of mine and Pat’s. Pauline lost her husband ten months ago. We came home and spent the next few days visiting my family in West Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset. Ten days after setting out, and covering 1000 miles, I was back home reflecting on the way forward, and acknowledging it had been a kind of catharsis; a move ahead in the healing process. Although I had decided to no longer write, the book world never really left me; it is too ingrained in my psyche. I submitted a couple of my books to online publishers, never really expecting anything to happen, when the Wild Rose Press in America agreed to publish my romantic family saga, Past Imperfect. The book was released under their name on September 1st. I have no control over the book, having signed a five year deal. No money changed hands; they dealt with the formatting, jacket design and metadata. Shortly after WRP accepted my book, I began having thoughts about writing again. I had an email from Kobo about ‘Na-no-wromo’ (?), a yearly challenge for authors to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I didn’t give that too much thought until I remembered I had already started a sequel to my pulp fiction thriller, Hunted. I had a look and found I had written 17000 words before I stopped writing. So now I’m wondering if I really want to get back in the game. I think the answer is probably a yes but needs a little more thought. I bought myself a Yamaha Clavinova earlier this year (a digital piano) because I wanted to learn to play piano. I played keyboard for years, but playing the piano is something entirely different. I thought that would fill the empty space left by the absence of spending time on another kind of keyboard knocking out thrillers, but I think I could cope with both. This blog post will be my first attempt at getting back to my book world, but instead of posting weekly, I will keep it to a monthly blog (unless something unusual happens). We’ll see. Wish me luck!