Life in the Slow Lane

August 26^th. 2018

The Arundel Festival sales are going well; we’re exceeding the figures we achieved last year. I should qualify that statement really: they, our magnificent Chindi stalwarts manning the stall, are exceeding expectations. But today, unfortunately, the opportunity to raise more money for the charity has been rained off. Our Chindi girl, Carol, tried gamely to set the stall up but the continuing downpour meant it was in vain. Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Sunshine is forecast and it’s a Bank Holiday. Fingers crossed then.

My AMS ads are proving to be a continuing mystery, despite seeing slow, steady sales of Hell’s Gate, I have yet to see anything significant for Roselli’s Gold. I also have a weekly spend on tweets: only about one pound a week, but it means five of my books are tweeted and retweeted by Author Sidekick. Trouble with that is that there is no way of knowing if those tweets result in any sales. Interestingly, though, I am getting a lot of searches on LinkedIn, and a lot of views on my Facebook page. I guess it means that people are becoming more aware of my name as an indie writer, and are looking at me via social media. I just wish they were buying my books though!

I’m currently reading Sam Bourne’s thriller, To Kill the President. It’s too early to say if I’m enjoying the book (I’ve read Sam Bourne before), but I did wonder if he is writing a scenario that he would like enacted in the Whitehouse and have Donald Trump done away with.

I’m also bobbing between Brian Meeks’ book on AMS ads, Tammy Labrecque in email marketing and Adam Croft on the indie author mindset. He’s the featured writer on the SPF podcast this week, so I’ll be looking at that later.

I have made some inroads into my WIP. Slow progress I must admit, but I have had to juggle several things this week: not least an on-line meeting with the new, proposed Chindi Directors. Yes, me and the other directors are jumping ship. Well, not quite that drastic, but stepping aside to let new faces in and give them the opportunity to spread our Chindi wings further.

During the week we hosted an evening meal for a Romanian family. They are over here for the wedding of one of our church members. Pastor Nelu, his wife Florica and their daughter, Tabitha who came along to translate for them. Nelu’s English is not too good, but Tabitha is fluent. Lovely family. Nelu is a beekeeper and brought us over three jars of different honey. We also had our No.3 Great Grandson over for lunch on Friday. Well, his mum and grandad came too of course. Orin (the toddler), spent most of the time running around and playing. It was lovely to see him; he’s always smiling. Just another reason why I wasn’t in my room sweating over my WIP.

Looking ahead, I have some admin work to do for Chindi as well as preparing for our trip to Australia in three weeks’ time. We needed a Doctor’s certificate in order to get a Visa for OZ because of our ages. That was a surprise, but we have the visas now. Oh, and something else happened to make me think: I received a royalty statement from D2D for my Barnes & Noble royalties for $124 last August (2017 — a year ago)! Not bad eh? But I think that must have been an error; I’ve had royalties from B&N each month. Not much, but something. Perhaps I’ll get some more backdated stuff, eh? I hope. Wish me luck!.

Changing perspective: casting my nets.

August 19^th. 2018

Another big week for the Chindi group as the Arundel Festival kicks off to ten days of fun, art, mayhem and lots of tourists. Our members have set up their stall outside the Cancer UK Research charity shop with over 200 titles available, all signed, the proceeds of which will go to the cancer charity. We have done this for the last three years and exceeded our targets each time. I won’t be there this year, but the ten days will be covered in shifts by our lovely, talented writers.

My week began with another nail-biting venture into Amazon ads. The four ads I’d put on a few weeks ago did little for me. I cancelled three and left one running. So far my ‘aCos’ has dropped to less that 100%, which (I think) means I’m spending marginally less than my sales are earning. The sales of Hell’s Gate are incrementing gradually, but not with too much speed. So, continuing with Brian Meeks’ advice, I started another seven ads; this time for Roselli’s Gold. Nothing has happened yet because the ads have only just been approved by Amazon, and the advice I’m given is that it’s possible that nothing will happen for several days. So it’s patience and nail-biting time. The biggest problem is writing ad copy. I had to write five different lines of copy for five of the ads (same book, same ad). The cost per click is the same for two ads, then another CpC for two more, and a single, higher rate for the fifth ad. It’s bewildering, but hopefully if I stick to the ‘Guru’s’ plan, I might see some gains.

We had a friend staying with us for a week. She brought her little Chihuahua called Daisy: a dog with attitude; it wanted to fight every dog it saw. I told her she should change its name to Genghis, might be more appropriate. What is it with little dogs? Fortunately our Tuppence had us to look out for her.

Another move I’ve made is to download two eBooks: one written by Adam Croft about getting into the mind of an indie writer and changing your perspective. The other is a book by Tammi Labrecque on email marketing. It isn’t about learning with Mailchimp, Aweber, Mailerlite and all that, but the approach that’s needed to cultivate readers. The point about Tammi’s approach is that you do not try and sell your books. Daft? Sounds like it. But the book was strongly recommended by David Gaughran. I have told him that if I don’t sell a million books by the end of next year, I’ll beat him over the head with the book. He accepted that so long as it’s the eBook I use.

Looking at all that from another point of view, I have to say that because nothing seems to work for long, you have to start considering what it is you’re doing wrong, what you want to achieve and accept that a change of direction could be the answer.  So, I am about to give up trying to persuade people with my smooth-tongued rhetoric and stick to cultivating them by way of a completely different approach. The sermon at church today was about Jesus telling Peter that he’ll never catch fish the way he’s casting his nets and will do far better by casting his nets on the other side of the boat. The nets almost broke with the catch. So, lesson learned here? Am I using the wrong approach? Time, then, for me to cast my nets the other side and maybe, just maybe, I’ll catch a ton of readers and convert them to my books. Wish me luck!

Fully engaged

August 11^th. 2018

Another week goes by and I can look back and see a modicum of progress in my WIP and seeing marginal gains in my advertising campaign (Sound like a politician, don’t I?), but I’m nowhere near where I want to be with either of them. I also watched part of the SPF podcast and another author I’ve never heard of: Lexi Blake. I enjoyed her interview. She’s a top writer and has published over sixty books on different platforms; a very jolly person and good to listen to. She had some good tips about approaching different elements of the writing process. I take all these things on board and still find myself nodding when I know I’ve followed the same path but somehow manage to get lost somewhere along the way.

One of the pieces of advice that keep cropping up is reader engagement and cultivating some kind of connection and garnering reviews. In the eighteen months since I published Where the Wicked Dwell, I have given away probably more than 250 copies, and sold maybe less than 200. Last month I gave away about eighteen copies through Voracious Readers with a one-day promotion. I have had a total of four reviews for the book (UK & USA) in the eighteen months of its publication. I have got used to having no connection with my readers, despite blogging and selling, so imagine my surprise when one of the Voracious Readers contacted me and said how much he liked the book. This is the review he put up on Amazon and Goodreads for me:

Good thriller plot line that keeps you guessing with the main protagonist a likeable character who, like a dog with a bone doesn’t give up until the end no matter what’s thrown at him. Loved the idea of a secret voodoo cult with high profile associates. Great page turner. 

So that’s another day with a smile on my face.

I wasn’t smiling too much last Monday. I got a phone call from the dentist to say he had a cancellation so could I make it and get the extraction over and done with. Now I have a huge gap in my gum (well, it feels like a huge gap), but thankfully the discomfort hasn’t been drastic. I can still eat, so that’s a blessing.

I finished reading John Grisham’s novel, Camino Island. I expected a pacy thriller, but this was more like a parochial story of writers and a book shop. I kept wondering when he was going to get to the point but had to admit that he’s an excellent writer; clever too. I did speed read from time to time, but on the whole it was a good read. I would recommend it to Grisham fans.

I have started a Karen Slaughter thriller. I can’t get used to the way the narrative dives off in different directions. I’ll persevere and see where it leads. I suppose I should have a look at a Lexi Blake novel too, but she writes Romantic Suspense, and I’m not sure I could deal with that. I’ll check the “Look inside” facility on Amazon and make up my mind. I need to build up a small library for our upcoming trip to Australia; for those evening when we have nothing to do. Or for the long flights. We’re stopping off at Dubai on the way for a few days. I read today of a British woman who got arrested and thrown in jail for having alcohol in her bloodstream. She had a glass of wine with her meal on the Emirates flight.

The next event for Chindi is the Arundel Festival. We will be supporting it as we always do, thanks to the enormous effort put in by our own, Carol Thomas. She always sells well. Have a look at her current title, The Purrfect Pet Sitter. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Purrfect-Pet-Sitter-Carol-Thomas-ebook/dp/B079T5XXFV Hope I do as well as carol normally does. Wish me luck!

Mama Mia

August 4^th. 2018

My week began with a picnic in the park. Our Chindi group like to meet up about once every three months for a chat and talk about books etc. We used to meet monthly in a pub, but it got too noisy, so we reverted to meeting on-line with a programme called ‘ZOOM’. It worked after a fashion, but in the end we settled for a regular, three-monthly face to face. The beauty of these meetings is that you get to see people who have joined the group through Facebook, but who you have never met. It was a pleasant evening, the sun was shining, a little breeze to cool us off, and words of wisdom were bandied about like confetti. Well, not really, but there was a lot of good stuff there. Not all the members came of course: there were about eleven of us; a third of the Chindi group.

I also began the week with new ads on Amazon and BookBub. So far there is little to show for my efforts. I’ve sold one book on D2D, which is usually the result of my ads with BookBub, and two books with AMS. I’ve also seen a lift in the page reads for my book, Shadow of the Wolf. I didn’t even realise I had that in KU. I have my box set there, which attracted some page reads about five weeks ago. I’m using Brian Meek’s book on AMS ads, and have to keep going back to it to figure out if I’m looking at the stats correctly. My ROI would be a nightmare for someone of Meek’s ability, but for me it’s all about learning something, trying to understand the mechanics of AMS, and hoping some good will come of it. I have been tempted to go back to Facebook, but I can see something positive with BB, and I’m hoping I’ll crack AMS. The downside to Amazon is that there’s no point in raising your bid price to sell more books; it doesn’t work like that, otherwise we’d all be pouring money into advertising on-line. I’ve spent $11 so far, earned $4.99 and had 1800 impressions with two of the four ads. The other two are virtually lifeless.

I got stuck into some writing, thankfully. I was getting to the stage where I thought I had subconsciously given up. But the dying flame flickered into life and I am putting pen to paper again. The problem is though; I now have three books on the go. Apparently, this isn’t unusual with many writers according to one of my FB forums.

I watched the SPF podcast yesterday. The star of the podcast was Lynda le Plante, writer of the TV series Widows and Prime Suspect. She came over as someone who has no illusions about herself, and gave some good insights on how it all began for her, particularly when having to talk to some unsavoury people in the sex worker business. Some of the hookers she spoke to wouldn’t say a word until they’d been paid. Others just told her to bugger off with stronger words than that. But it all paid off for her in the end.

And during the week, me and Pat went to see Mama Mia! Here we go again. Loved the film; it put a big smile on my face. I could have watched Lily James all night I think, but what man wouldn’t? Such a talented actress. And being a fan of Cher, I enjoyed her performance of Fernando. So perhaps I should take a leaf out of Bjorn and Benny’s book and use that as my by-line when it comes to deciding which book to get back to. Mama Mia, here I go again! Wish me luck!