March 10th.
2018
This is the Chindi book group at the UK Southern Book show — the ‘Worthing
Event’. There were mixed feelings about the day, but for myself, I was happy to
be there, meet other authors, talk to readers and sell a couple of books. The
day went on too long, meaning some early departures, including our group. I was
scheduled to give a fifteen minute talk at 5.15pm, but it was obvious that I
would be speaking to myself by then. We had authors and publishers from all
over the United Kingdom, which surprised me because I expected the majority to
come from the southern part of the country. Fortunately the bad weather had
subsided by then, which meant just about a 100% show from everyone. As for the
foot traffic, the visiting public, it was hard to quantify the attraction the
show had, despite being inside the theatre on Worthing Pier.
The organiser of the event was Natasha Murray (nmurray.moonfruit.com). It was the first time for her and she did
everything herself, which was an amazing and tremendous effort. She has asked
for feedback too, and I know there are a few of our group who have shown a
reluctance about doing this again next year, but I expect to turn up if Natasha
holds the show again. She has already promised changes to the date (later in
the year), and maybe a change of venue. My own feelings about these kind of
events is that it’s more about marketing, networking and meeting people rather
than selling books and making a lot of money.
I’m now leaning towards an extended effort on promotion and marketing. I
don’t mean I’m going to spend more money, but I want to consolidate links with
potential readers and other author forums. I watched a podcast yesterday about
a new writer who gave up her job and spent three months developing a community
relationship with potential readers before even publishing a book. The amount
of work she put in was remarkable, but the results proved worth the effort.
Within twelve months she had tripled what she would have earned had she stayed
at work. Now I don’t pretend that I’m about to do anything like that, but it
does highlight the need for some serious effort in the P&M department for
results to flow. I’ve no idea yet how I’ll improve my social media skills, but
it’s something I have to work on.
My WIP has been modified for the umpteenth time now. Something tells me I
should give it up and write fairy stories or something, but I’ll persevere and
aim for a completed novel by the end of the year. Because I’m writing what is
essentially a crime novel, I have to keep going back in the story to drop
something in that gets picked up by the main character later in the story. I’m
finding it difficult because crime writing seems a little bit specialised to me
now. I’ll probably start sending teasers out to my subs list, see what they
think maybe.
I am seeing improvements to my BB ads sales. I have overtaken the
February figure already, but still have a long way to go and, probably, much
tweaking to do. I might have to run a second ad, just to get some kind of
comparison.
On the domestic front, Tuppence just about scraped through on her
weigh-in, and is now back under our control. Let’s hope she manages to stay
slim. Wish me (us) luck!
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