In the Mix

January 29th. 2017 Bit of a bumpy week for me with regard to promotion and marketing. I had a Bookbub promotion, which failed to achieve the results I had hoped for. I have just about covered the cost of my investment, but on the bright side I have been able to reach more than 1000 new readers across the world. I can see the results showing up in India, Canada and Australia, which is like a small, but growing market for me. The other kind of bumpy promotion is getting my head into gear with respect to a new venture: I have teamed up with author Paula Wynne and agreed to work on a project through her website in return for some valuable, online promotion for a year. This isn’t about just getting my books on a website, but becoming part of a successful writer’s team in the hope that it will open more doors for me. I find it difficult to put my writing head aside and dive into marketing. Paula asked for “savvy social media” partners. Savvy? Me? Well, I’m about to find out. The other, developing side of the on-line presence is the new direction in which my author group, CHINDI, is going. After a board meeting (sounds important), the changes we thought would be beneficial were put to the members. So far the reaction has been good. The first change comes tomorrow evening when, instead of the usual, formal monthly meeting of the members, we’ll be having a social chat. Those of us who can make it will be meeting up at a restaurant in Chichester for a coffee and natter about what we are up to and how we see the group progressing. I’m hoping to be able to spend a bit of time with Helen Christmas and Christine Hammacot; two authors who will be with me for a talk/seminar during the Chichester Literary Festival. We’ll be talking about writing a crime/mystery novel: the whole aspect from creation to publication. Should be fun. My Kindle Scout submission seems to be floundering. I spent the first week in the ‘Hot & Trending’ list, but now my ranking there has fallen away. It’s all about putting yourself about on-line and asking (begging) for votes. The problem is: where do you find those people who are not your usual followers? I paid for a small Fiverr.com advert in which the deal was three days of tweeting to something like 150,000 followers. Sounds impressive, but I do have my reservations about the impact Twitter has unless you’re a celebrity. As I’m talking about it, why not vote if you haven’t already done so? https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1EC59ZYJLQ07G. Once the Kindle Scout submission has finished, I will publish the book and do a bit of advertising. I think by that statement it is clear that I don’t expect an Amazon offer to publish the book. Still got my fingers crossed though. My promotion for The Devil’s Trinity at £/$0.99 is likely to run for another day or so, and then the price will go up. I’ll be pushing that too, but I think it has just about run its course. I have received my first instruction from Paula and need to concentrate on what is expected of me, and in return experience the value of this kind of cross-promotion. Wish me luck!