July
4th. 2018
I have to say that my blog has been delayed because
the World Cup got in the way. So while the Americans are celebrating
Independence Day, we English are celebrating our first victory in a penalty
shoot-out. For those Americans who don’t understand football, let me say that
the referee in our game against the Colombians was American (no, I’m not
suggesting anything!). The picture of Jordan Pickford saving a penalty in the
shoot-out is significant to us because that was the moment we knew we almost
had it in the bag: just one more of our lads to take a shot at the Columbian
keeper and we would win. Well done, Eric Dier for being “cool” and scoring the
winning penalty.
So
what’s all that got to do with writing and selling books? Well, I’m convinced
that photograph is allegorical: Pickford is not really a footballer; he’s a
stopper working for Amazon and other on-line book sellers. He’s there to stop
all my efforts at promotion and marketing — not a particularly difficult task,
but he comes into his own when he’s up against the professionals I employ to
sell my books (BookAds). And he’s been doing a classy job up till now. Ten days
into the AMS ads campaign and I’ve sold three copies of my book that BookAds
are promoting. It’s so glum that I’ve picked up advertising on BookBub ads
again, just to see if I can outstrip BookAds. Hopefully BookBub will have a
weak ‘stopper’ and I’ll see some results.
This
week is important for members of our Chindi group (www.chindi-authors.co.uk). It’s the
Chichester Festival time, and we are holding six events in Chichester. These
will be at Henning’s Wine shop (in the room above) for five evenings,
culminating in a stall at Graylingwell Park, and also a ghost tour round the
city that evening. I’ll be doing a talk on the ups and downs of an Indie
thriller writer on Friday evening. If you’re in the locality, why not pop in?
It’s a ticket event, but they can be purchased on the night.
Last week we had a visit from our
Grandson, Sam who lives in America. His family home is in Australia, but he
came over to UK from the States with his girlfriend, Taryn. He’s lived in the
US for a couple of years now, and its funny hearing a mixture of American,
Australian and English colloquialisms. We wanted to take them out for a meal;
Taryn said she wanted Fish and Chips, seeing as it was her first visit here and
she’d heard so much about the traditional English take-away. We ended up at the
end of the pier in Bognor, sitting by the beach eating our Fish and Chips. Really
enjoyed it and I’m sure Taryn did too.
I have often said that I feel as
though I’m in a literary straitjacket, trying to write series thrillers. Having
decided to put my WiP on the back-burner for now, I’m fast coming to the
conclusion that the reason I have struggled with this book is simply that: I
shouldn’t be writing another Marcus Blake thriller; I should be looking for
inspiration from another source, and there’s plenty of that around. So there’s
the dilemma: do I pick it up later in the year and produce something mundane,
or do I try for that inspired moment as I have done with all my other books?
Wish me luck!
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