Catching Up

Late today; should have posted this yesterday. Had some good news over the weekend: my bargain deal, THE DEVIL’S TRINITY, was picked up by ENT, and the result was 122 sales that day. Compare that to an average of one sale every two weeks and that’s a huge result. It lifted the book from about 350,000 in the rankings to 1200. It also reached #34 in the Action & Adventure category. There’s usually a follow on effect, although I’m not expecting too much. The ranking is now falling away as expected, but it was great to see it up there with the big boys.

My latest title to go on Amazon is THE EAGLE’S COVENANT. I will be getting round to some promotion later this week. I did plan a paperback giveaway, but then realised that I can’t because Harlequin Books have the paperback rights for North America. They will be publishing the book in November, so I will have to wait until then before giving copies away. However, I will be exploring the possibility of releasing the book in UK, because I still have the rights there. Just something else to think about.

I have been giving some thought to the way in which I put myself about on the various social networks, knowing that the sole reason for me using them is to promote my books. I think it’s time to consider the old saying: “less is more”. I think I need to bite the bullet and dump some of those networks that I use but never see the benefit. I believe Goodreads is probably the way to go, along with Twitter and Facebook. Trouble is I really only see family and friends on FB. And Twitter? I always feel as though it’s a complete waste of time considering the enormous number of tweets that flow through my account each day, and that’s with about 700 followers. Who reads them? Perhaps I’m doing something wrong. I have used a website called Fiverr. I was able to tweet through them to about 100,000 tweeters using someone else’s tweet account. I paid five dollars and had tweets going out about my book for a week.

I’m now working on another book. This will not be a thriller, but as I am under contract to my publisher, she will get first refusal once it’s finished. I’ll leave you all guessing as to what kind of book it will be. All I can say at the moment is that this is one that I wrote several years ago but never offered it up for publication. Even now I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. I dropped all my latest research and 30,000 words for a thriller set in Mexico because I couldn’t get this novel out of my head. And being a writer, as most writers will know; once you get an idea stuck in your head, and it won’t go away, you have no excuse but to get it down on paper. So, maybe this time next year I will have another title to publish on Amazon. Wish me luck!

Weekend Read

Latest Release
My latest Kindle title, THE EAGLE’S COVENANT is now available on Amazon (both sites) at $2,99. Check it out at htttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CJZE6Y0/?tag

Bargain Book

I have been promoting one of my titles, THE DEVIL'S TRINITY since dropping the price two weeks ago to $0,99, but very little happened. Then yesterday ENT picked it up and posted it as a bargain, daily deal and bingo! sales started climbing. I was looking at a sale of about one or two as a result of the price drop, but just a small ad (free) for a day on ENT and I have a big smile on my face. It reached #34 in the Action & Adventure category, and at the time of writing it is beginning to fall away. But what the hec: a nice little surprise for yours truly. Why not check it out athttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A40ZUWE/?tag ?

The Ups and Downs of My Book World.

Life is full of little surprises, and none of us are immune to them. My last post included a piece about a young, lady writer I joining Acclaimed Books and hoping to publish a collection of quotes that made people happy. I had passed on a recollection of something that had made me happy and included in that was a reference to my church here in Torrevieja. I subsequently learned that any reference to God, church or religion of any sort was not welcome, and would be edited out of any quotes she received. As a result of this I withdrew my submission. The young lady is free to publish what she wants within the bounds of decency and law of course, and I now doubt if I would have recommended her to AB.c had I known earlier of her stance on a subject that is close to mine and many people’s hearts. I did say to her when she approached me about Acclaimed Books that I would be quite happy to help her if she needed it, but it would be hypocritical of me now to help her produce a book in which those beliefs I hold are rejected. So that makes my position an unhappy one. I have always been disposed to offer advice to ‘wannabe’ authors, and have had the pleasure of pointing people in the right direction many times. Now sadly I have to face the other way, and that is one of those little surprises I never expected.

My three day promotion of SHADOW OF THE WOLF finished on the 20^th. of this month, and my download results were poor although not unexpected. I ended up giving away 700 copies. Now I have to wait and see if there is a sales bump as a result of the rankings I attained during the promotion. I reached #3 in War fiction and #75 in the top 100 thrillers. The day after my promotion my rankings had plummeted to over 367,000. This doesn’t auger well for future sales, so I just have to hope that those people who downloaded my book for free will like what they read and buy some of my other titles. Lots in fact!

I am currently working on THE EAGLE’S COVENANT and have converted it to kindle format. I’m busy proof-reading it and hope to have that finished by the end of the month. The paperback version will be published in November by Harlequin Books. Hopefully by then there will be some decent reviews on Amazon for Harlequin to include in their promotion. Wish me luck!

Quotes

More Promotions

I have a lot of thinking to do about the way in which I will go with respect to my writing. I am currently working on a project which could take all of this year to complete. This isn’t a problem as any writer will know, but I keep getting distracted by wanting to turn my attention to other projects like book promotion and marketing etc. I also have another title waiting to be published on Amazon. This is THE EAGLE’S COVENANT, which was published in hardback about four years ago by my current publisher, Robert Hale, and is due for publication in paperback by Harlequin in November. I have the rights to the e-book, and all that needs to be done is the conversion to kindle format. My son has finished the book jacket, so what am I waiting for?

I have also received an ‘offer’ through the contact page on my website to promote my books ‘in perpetuity’ etc. giving me the chance to raise my rankings to the highest places, pushing my books among the high rollers etc. Do I sound cynical? You bet I do, but there are some pretty good statements included in the promotion blurb. I did say recently that the only people making money among the indie writers populating the bottom of the kindle pile are those people offering to make your book a success for a price. But without some kind of professional push and effort, my sales will probably continue to languish among the bottom feeders until I’m that old it won’t make any difference to me whether I make it or not.

So what do I do? Blow $250 on a marketing campaign orchestrated by someone I have never heard of but promises much? Or do I rely on my own efforts and continue to sell one book a day (my current sales on Amazon)? I’ve been promoting the hell out of THE DEVIL’S TRINITY, but no-one is taking any notice. Pity because it is an exciting read. It has picked up a couple of reasonable reviews, so I can’t complain.

Today on the home front, I have the pool men in. (Swimming pool). They are giving it a ten year overhaul. They turned up this morning mob handed at 8-30, ready to go. They’ve been jet spraying the empty pool, repairing broken pieces, cleaning here and there. They had the sand filter out and replaced the sand and fitted a couple of new valves. It should look like a brand new pool once it’s all done. I don’t use it much. My wife spends most of the summer swimming. Me? I think I swam twice last year, and only because I was bullied into it. I’d much sooner be writing.

We had a young lady join our Acclaimed Books Group this last week. Her name is Clare Lawrence, and she is compiling a book of quotes on “What Makes You Happy?”. She wants 365 quotes for her book so that she has one for every day of the year. If you feel you would like to contribute, please contact Clare at any of the following links. Thank you.

Clare Lawrence.

clare_bean3@yahoo.co.uk / clare21@live.com

:https://www.facebook.com/clare.lawrence.184 

https://www.facebook.com/clare.lawrenceii 

https://www.facebook.com/TheWhatMakesYouHappyBookProject

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clare-Lawrence-Author-III/196401540488536

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clare-Lawrence-Celebrity-Journalist-II/158561497563297

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clare-Lawrence/443166629059252

https://twitter.com/#!/

https://clarelawrencecelebrityjournalist.wordpress.com/ 

The Other Side of Life.

Shocking news yesterday. Pat and I had just come back from church when we received a phone call from our neighbour to tell us that our Vet had murdered his wife. This was the Vet who came to our house four weeks ago to put our dog, Lucy down. We have used his practice for a few years now and he has operated on our cat and dog, plus giving them the usual vaccinations etc. The shop, which is in a local village, was always busy with a mixture of Spanish as well as ex-Pats. The vet’s daughter ran the shop. She was always there with a smile on her face, and always remembered your pets’ names. They rescued lots of animals, and it wasn’t unusual to see a dozen or so puppies or kittens in their shop, happily playing with toys, unaware of their own fate. They are an Argentine family, and have been in practice her for a good number of years. I think probably everyone who used the surgery were very happy with him. Then this: such a tragedy. He is now in custody, the practice is closed and I wonder if it will ever open again. We no longer have Lucy, but we still have Treacle (our cat), so we’ll be looking for another practice.

On the book front, I can now see my way clear to get down to some writing. I have a short story to finish, then I’ll begin on my next, full length novel which I hope will keep me occupied for a while. If we sell our house, that will be a major disruption because we will be returning to England.

I have been promoting SHADOW OF THE WOLF, which will be free on Amazon April 18/19/20, and I have also paid for retweets for my book, THE DEVIL’S TRINITY. It’s amazing how you can misjudge the potential of your own books. I thought this one was a must for the American market, but I have only sold about five or six copies since it was released a few months ago. One of my better sellers is NORTH SLOPE. This seems to sell slowly but continuously. Maybe it’s because it has 43 reviews to its credit, and most of them are four star. I’m still waiting for someone to review SHADOW OF THE WOLF. Hopefully it will happen. I’m confident it won’t be panned (fingers crossed). Wish me luck!.

Two Kinds of Promotion

It’s April Fool’s day today and the beginning of a month where I have high hopes of getting my title, SHADOW OF THE WOLF into the spotlight. I intend putting it on the Kindle Select promotion for three days: 18/19/20. It will be free of course and I’m hoping to pick up some good reviews and, naturally, some sales after the promotion. It’s always a risk, giving away your books for free. If you get a high number, it means that readers have picked up your book for nothing and may not even bother to read it (it happens). And you think of how much you could have earned if those downloads had resulted in sales. But you have to sow in order to reap, and maybe a substantial number of those who read my book will realise that I’m worth keeping an eye on. It’s always necessary to promote the title, and this can be time consuming and sometimes a complete waste of time, but it’s a necessary evil. I started my campaign yesterday, posting on about eight sites that want notification of your free titles well in advance. Some won’t even look at your book if you don’t have a certain minimum number of reviews for it. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg argument: how can I get reviews if I’m not prepared to give free copies away?

Another problem I have with SHADOW OF THE WOLF is: how do I categorise it? It’s a war story, but not about battles between two opposing armies. The story is set on a remote island off the north coast of Scotland in 1943: a defunct whaling community where the young men are away fighting a war. The old men and women are at home living a relatively, peaceful existence, knowing there’s a war on but not experiencing the horror. Then suddenly they find themselves under the heel of the Nazi jackboot. I could categorise this under ‘Mystery’ because there is a mystery to be solved. ‘Thriller’ because any story involving soldiers and innocent civilians has the DNA thread of excitement and fear running through it. Or I could call it ‘Action & Adventure’, which would also satisfy the description. But however I describe it, the book is one of my best and worth keeping an eye out for.

I have another full week ahead of me, what with an Easter soiree with friends, promotion and all, and it keeps me away from writing. But I do have something else to occupy me this week, and that is preparing a sermon for next Sunday at our local fellowship here in Torrevieja (www.tcf-spain.org). Our Pastor is away for a couple of weeks and it’s down to me to bring the word to the congregation on Sunday. Some people say that because I am a writer it gives me the ability to write a good message. I say that I’m in God’s hands when I set out to do my research and it’s Him who fills the pages with text. Perhaps I should ask for guidance when I’m writing and when I’m promoting. Wish me luck.