Looking Ahead

Just had a weekend away from broadband, PC’s et al. We visited friends in Andalucia and had a pleasant time travelling around, looking in at the markets and visiting a delightful little spot called Villaricos on the coast. Even though I was nowhere near a PC, I still continued to write in my head. Do all writers do that? When my wife catches me daydreaming, she insists I am writing my next novel. She’s not far wrong; I’m usually sorting something out that I can use in my books. There’s one thing I cannot do though (amongst others), and that is to find some way of promoting my books so that they catch the eye of the reading public. I have dropped the price of the last book I published on Amazon: THE DEVIL’S TRINITY. I had it priced at $4.99 when it was released as a Kindle last October/November, working on the premise that readers will go for a higher priced book rather than the lower ones which often contain so much rubbish. It didn’t work: my title just languished in the very low ranks. It was during this period that my latest novel, THE BOY FROM BERLIN (my publisher still has the rights to that) was reduced in price on an Amazon Daily deal. It sold 1700 copies in a day at £0.99p. Once that price was restored to about £5.50p, the sales died away. And that was in the UK only. Imagine how well it would have done had it been available at the low price on Amazon.com. Anyway, I have reduced the price of my title and hopefully it will result in sales. I did drop the price of HELL’S GATE to a minimum, but the sales were disappointing. It just goes to show that without a strong campaign behind you, there’s little chance of achieving much. But I will keep on trying. The latest addition to my books on Amazon will be SHADOW OF THE WOLF. This is a war story of about 60,000 words in length, so it will not have a high price tag. I’m hoping for a lift because of this. One of my sons believes this is the best book I’ve written, but time will tell of course. Incidentally, my latest hardback, THE BOY FROM BERLIN, which did so well on that daily deal as a Kindle, is now available in paperback. This is from Harlequin Books who have the rights to North America and Canada for this title. Once again I hope this will give me a lift. Who knows? Wish me luck.