Happiness and Busyness

March 24^th. 2017

Had a lovely disruption to my usual time for blog writing: my grand-daughter came over with Orin, our No.3 Great Grandson. It’s always lovely to see them. I also had a fairly busy week one way or another. I managed to dig out some effort and began work again on my WIP. Trying to come up with a crime novel is far more difficult than I imagined. I’d be hopeless as a serial killer: wouldn’t have a clue. Sure, I can write good stuff, but it all has to come together seamlessly in the end, otherwise I’ll get found out.

During the week we had an on-line Zoom meeting: three of the directors (me included), trying to thrash out some sensible way to go with the Chindi group. We are attracting more self-published writers, which is a good thing, but we have to take care that the group doesn’t become unmanageable. As the treasurer, I can see the workload increasing, cutting into time spent on writing, social media, promotion & marketing etc. Oh, and doing the usual domestic stuff too: sleep, eat, breathe, walk the dog. My, my, what a busy boy am I.

My sales are slowly increasing on Draft2Digital. Although I am not making any money, I expect to break even with my current progress. My main concern is that the advert on BookBub will run out of steam and I will have to come up with another, something I’m loathe to do while I see those numbers going up. I’m currently studying the Mark Dawson video on AMS advertising because my sales on Amazon have slumped dramatically. I’m not alone with this situation, I’m sure. I often see posts on some of my author FB forums from authors complaining about their poor returns and asking the inevitable question: what am I doing wrong? The chances are, they are probably doing nothing wrong, but maybe not spending enough money on advertising.

I watched a podcast on which Ernest (Ernie) Dempsey explained how he cracked the mystique behind attracting readers, and one thing he suggested, which I think is worth trying, is to produce a short video of yourself answering the kind of questions readers might ask. He uses his iPhone, but it’s possible to do this with the desktop PC as well. I must admit I’m tempted, but might feel silly asking myself questions. It’s worth a punt though. We will be trying something similar on our Chindi website. We’ll be having an “Author of the Week” slot. There’ll be short video clips, media promotion and tweets for the author. Our first slot is for children’s author, Christopher Joyce (Creatures of Chichester). He’ll be coming up on April 9^th for a week. You can see his books on Chindi-authors.co.uk

I’ve put my name down for a table-top sale in July on our small, residential estate where I live. There will be a dog show, charity stalls and a BBQ. The lady who will be judging the dogs is also the lady who comes round picking up the money for the ‘Bonus Ball’ competition each month. The dogs love her because she always has biscuits in her pocket. She reckons that on the day of the dog show, all the dogs will be flocking round her for a biscuit. How can she pick a winner? We’ll be putting Tuppence in, all prepped and smelling nice for her walk round. Should be good. I’ll be trying to sell books too. Wish me luck!