Waking up to the good news and the not so good news

March 18th. 2017 It’s my birthday today, and the week has ended on a promising note, but also with a cautionary reminder about the cross-promotions I’m involved in. My social media workload went up, not by a dramatic amount, but enough to take up much of my free time, which meant nothing added to my WIP. The promising note I mentioned is the small rise in my book sales, and the addition of subscribers being added to my list every day. Oh, and the birthday cards, phone calls and my wife taking me out to lunch. The cautionary note was a major blunder on my part when I forgot I had a limited number of free downloads with Instafreebie for my promoted book. It meant that the authors I promoted were asking their subscribers to download my book which was no longer available. Naturally I went back on Instafreebie and opened the book to unlimited downloads. I thought I had checked everything: all the links, my spelling, no typos etc., then sat back and expected it to all happen. The link is right now. If you haven’t looked at my latest thriller, why not download the free book? https://www.instafreebie.com/free/O89QV. My author group, Chindi (www.chindi-authors.co.uk) have come up with a scheme to distribute free paperbacks around the area. It’s an idea picked up from something that’s happening in London (and maybe elsewhere?). We’ll leave a book somewhere — bus station, park bench, café, pub — but the books will have a small leaflet inside asking the finder to read it and then pass it on to someone else. We may not make a fortune by giving away our paperbacks, but it’s another form of promotion and marketing. I received the paperback copy of Where the Wicked Dwell from Ingram Spark earlier in the week. There’s nothing wrong with it other than I could probably have tweaked it to improve it, but the background colour is not as good as the Photoshop jpeg I uploaded. I’ve uploaded the amended files to CreateSpace and am now waiting to be told it’s available on Amazon. If I’m happy with it, I’ll use the files to take advantage of Ingram Spark’s free offer to publish the book in hardback. I did this with A Dangerous Game last year. It means having all my books on the shelf in hardback. Last week I said I was happy with my WIP, maybe with one or two reservations, but now I’m beginning to doubt my choice of new novel. I could press ahead and bang out a thriller, but I would fall short of my own standards, I think. Mind you, I do tend to use the keyword “Pulp Fiction” in my publishing details, so maybe I am lowering my standards. The two writers I’m promoting this week are Kristin Helling and Scott Michaels. Their promotion links are http://www.kristinhelling.com/free-book (Kristin), and https://scottmichaelsauthor.com/uthg-promo (Scott Michaels). Why not have a look? Next week I’m being interviewed live by Debbie Mack, a New York Times best-selling author. Hopefully some of her stardust will rub off on me. Wish me luck!