Head scratching time

April 27^th. 2019

I was hoping to let you have the Book Lab link today, but unfortunately James Blatch hasn’t sent it. He scheduled it for yesterday but he’s been on a cycling holiday in Mallorca, so I guess that’s the reason for the delay. Never mind; I should have it next week.

I met up with fellow CHINDI author, Paul Asling during the week. He is about to launch his second crime novel and wanted a couple of pointers. I have to admit that Paul could have given me some because his first London crime thriller, Love you till I die, has sold really well. Why not check it out? https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07757CZZ5 With 25 x five star reviews, it must be good. I read it last year as a beta reader for Paul, so I can vouch for its quality. And staying on the topic of quality writers, I want to bring another of our CHINDI group to you: Carol Thomas. Carol is our Chindi Author of the Week. She is a very talented writer and produces quality work. You can read about Carol and her latest book at https://angelapetchsblogsite.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/chatting-with-carol-thomas-again/

I am making progress with my WIP. I keep adding scenes that are moving the story closer to the denouement. I know I will have a problem rearranging the scenes and changing the plot line a little, but that’s the life of a writer. If I make significant headway, I could see it finished in four weeks. I’ll probably ask for some beta readers for this because I’m not sure my wife will be able to do her usual, and read through the MS for me. I’m sure she’ll try though.

I am currently reading The Dry by Jane Harper. It’s a debut crime thriller and has received excellent reviews. I am about a third of the way through and enjoying the book, but I don’t find myself rushing back to it, as good as it is. This is more than I can say about He said, She said by Erin Kelly. This is the book that Jennie Nash used to compare my prologue on Book Lab. My book, The Boy from Berlin, had 23 reviews, while Erin Kelly’s had 1600. Both books were released on Amazon at the same time. I really struggled with it and finally gave up less than half-way through. I tried, believe me, but it was like wading through treacle. I decided it must be me; 1600 people can’t be wrong.

On the domestic front, Pat’s problem is still defeating the specialists. Her consultant phoned during the week to say the X-ray and blood tests she had before Easter had failed to produce an answer. The next step is a PET scan. This should help them because they’ll be able to compare it to the PET scan Pat had in January. This time the radiologists will be looking at it and hoping to come up with an answer. Meanwhile we are trying to build Pat’s strength up by letting her do a little more around the house and garden. Already this week she has prepared three hanging baskets after a lengthy visit to our local garden centre. We stopped for lunch of course. Today we took the dog down to the beach and braved the high winds. It took a lot out of her, and she was quite knackered by the time we got back to the car, but at least she’s getting stronger.

Next on the agenda for me is a trip to the dentist next week: I have to have three teeth taken out. Not looking forward to it. Wish me luck!

Getting tense now.

April 20^th. 2019.

My Book Lab interview finally came on Tuesday night when I met up with James Blatch via Zoom. We talked about the video critiques he’d sent me from Bryan Cohen, Jenny Nash and Stuart Bache, and what I planned to do with them. I told him it would be reckless of me not to follow the advice of those professionals and that is something I intend to get on with. I’ve booked Stuart Bache for July to do the jacket, which was the earliest he could fit me in, and I have re-written the prologue to my book, The Boy from Berlin. Actually, I have re-written it a few times and no doubt will do so before I republish. The completed video podcast, Book Lab 5, should be released on Friday 26^th. I have to wait for a week before I make any changes. I will be using Bryan Cohen’s blurb and using a new prologue, but the jacket will have to wait until July unfortunately.

So what affect will this have on the sales of the book? Hard to tell really, but I have seen claims that a Bryan Cohen blurb has produced spectacular results; and this from other writers. The rewritten prologue should answer the questions Jenny Nash put to me, but the acid test comes in the way in which I promote and advertise the book. I will probably go with AMS and BookBub, split testing with Robert Harris and Jeffrey Archer at first.  I’ll need to be on the ball too, but there is so much information out there about AMS and BB, I hope I can make some headway.

Fired up by the interview and the opportunities it presents, I got stuck into my WIP and have started building a plot line to bring the book to a conclusion. However, something else has popped up and, quite frankly; it has given me something of problem. After seeing my subscribers’ list fall by at least ten subs each time I sent an email, I suddenly have a surge of an additional 35 subscribers. And although I have to put it down to a short, one day promotion I did, those results are remarkable — for me anyway. And in addition to that, I am selling copies of my pulp fiction thriller, HUNTED. Not many, I must admit. So the problem I had was: do I knock out another 60,000 word pulp fiction thriller and hope to see more sales? Other thriller writers do it regularly, so why shouldn’t I? I said to my wife that this would be like I’m prostituting myself on the altar of sensational thriller writing that has no real merit other than providing quick thrills for the reader. Nothing wrong in that though, is there? But pulp fiction is simply that: basic thriller writing without too much in the way of research (in my case). We’ll see. And I have already scribbled the bare bones of a plot!

On the domestic front, my Pat is still struggling with the fact that the hospital has not come up with a satisfactory diagnosis for her cancer. In fact, the specialist is edging away from that idea now and thinking about something like polymyalgia. And the devil of it is, we are waiting for a biopsy result from Southampton hospital, but the medical teams meet here in Chichester for discussion on Fridays and Mondays, and this being the Easter weekend it means the teams will not meet until a week later, hence no news for Pat. And when I’m trying to talk to her about my books’ progress, Pat can hardly get excited about it. I don’t blame her. Hopefully we’ll no more in a week’s time. Wish us luck!

Getting down to the nitty gritty

April 13^th. 2019.

Well, it finally happened: James Blatch of SPF sent the three video links to me of my book, The Boy from Berlin being ‘critiqued’ by three top people in the publishing business. Bryan Cohen rewrote the blurb, Stuart Bache looked at the cover while Jennie Nash (a formidable editor) took the prologue apart in the nicest possible way. The total video time was eighty minutes, so it wasn’t a case of being gentle and being quick. I had actually received Bryan Cohen’s rewritten blurb and his reasons for the changes, which meant I’d had time to take it in. The book jacket section was twenty minutes, while the editorial piece was forty minutes long. James Blatch will be interviewing me on Tuesday when he’ll ask for my observations and comments. Once he has edited the four videos, he’ll publish it on You Tube as SPF Book Lab No.5.

What this means to me now is that I can rewrite the opening prologue. I was guilty of failing to observe the POV (point of view), and also losing the logic of the sequence. I thought my prologue was pretty good, but once it was carved open by an expert, I could see where the changes were necessary and will help the potential reader who checks the ‘Look inside’ facility on the Amazon product page. I can also get the book jacket redesigned by Stuart Bache, one of the top book cover designers in the publishing business (Stephen King, John le Carre), and I can reproduce Bryan Cohen’s excellent blurb. He has also provided examples for Facebook and Amazon ads, which is a bonus too. None of this has cost me any money, but I will be paying Stuart Bache to redesign the jacket (there’s already an SPF bonus discount attached because I’m a Patreon member). The end result in my changes will probably not be seen, if any, until much later this year.

Last Thursday, our CHINDI group met up at the Swan Hotel in Arundel. There were about twenty of us there, including several new faces for me. Although I’ve met them all on our FB group, it’s good to see them face to face. We managed a group photograph, all squashed into a corner with a book in hand. We each gave a short intro about ourselves and any current projects we had on, and also talked about our involvement in the upcoming Chichester Arts Festival and the summer event in Arundel. It was good to spend some time among people who only want to talk about books. We didn’t even mention Brexit!

On the domestic front, my Pat is still waiting for her cancer diagnosis. So far her biopsies have gone to six different hospitals: Kings College, Royal Marsden, West Brompton, St. Georges and Southampton, not forgetting our local, St. Richards. She was removed from the lung doctor’s list and referred to the haematology department, but within forty eight hours was back with the lung doctor. We have an appointment on Monday when we hope to hear more and to be told when her treatment can begin. It’s a real worry for the both of us, particularly Pat.

My weak attempts at AMS and BB ads goes on, and I’m now having to accept that I will probably never crack it. My ads for my Crime thriller, Where the Wicked Dwell has achieved nothing, so I will have to cancel those and see about advertising another title. Hopefully, the results of my Book Lab 5 adventure will see my sales go up, but it will not be until we’re half-way through the year. Wish me luck.

Addled and Rattled

April 6^th. 2019

The first advert to appear on national UK television in 1955 was a tube of Gibbs SR toothpaste immersed in a block of ice. Black and white of course. It made headlines in the national press, which meant that Gibbs had stolen a march on their rivals, albeit temporarily. Their target audience was anyone watching the TV, their audience reach was anyone watching the TV as well, and the knock-on effect was carried over in the newspapers to a huge audience. Job done. But how would they achieve that in today’s modern world of advertising? Indie authors are well aware of the need to advertise their books, but only a minority are able to achieve the desired results. Sure, there is a great deal of information out there, some of it very good, but boy, is it complicated.

On the Mark Dawson SPF Facebook group, the question was posted by one member about the cost of advertising. He had spent $40 and had no sales, and that was on AMS and BookBub. He asked what would be a reasonable amount to spend? The first reply was from a lady writer who said she spent $400 a DAY! No, that’s not a misprint. It was followed by a perfectly understandable query about the cost, but she replied that she didn’t begin that way; she kept it small: $75 a day and gradually built up as she sold more books. Another writer pitched in who was spending $200 a day, and further responses went as high as $1200. This is when I felt myself shrinking back in my chair.

Of course, those who posted those enormous figures did claim that it meant a great deal of testing and changing their adverts on a constant, almost daily basis. There was talk of distorted CTR as a result of a badly configured ad, not targeting the right audiences with the right authors, split testing using the same advert but with a different daily spend, daily budget and careful monitoring. Now I’m on my knees and struggling to get back into my chair. It’s clear to me that my pathetic attempts at promotion and marketing are infantile, and no way are they going to achieve one sale. My only recourse is to rely on organic sales.

Another question was posed on the Indie author mindset — this is Adam Croft’s group — about what price is better? The consensus of opinion came down to a price higher than the bog standard $2.99/$0.99, and pitch the book at $3.99 and go up from there. So I decided to follow that conventional wisdom and advertise my crime novel, Where the Wicked Dwell (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WD8988WWhere the Wicked dwell) at $3.99. My results thus far on AMS are 1300 impressions and a spend of $0.55. On BookBub it’s about 1400 impressions and a cost of $5.00. So, after four days I have achieved zilch. What must I do now? Well, according to a lot of answers I’ve seen, I must spend up to at least $100 a day, split test my ads, change the authors I’ve referenced in my ads, select a different target audience, change my daily budget, get the money spent quickly rather than spread the cost over too long a period, and get a gun and shoot myself in the foot so I would have a good reason to be hopping mad! But no, I’m not going to do any of that; I’m going to be really cool and typically British. I will soldier on and prove them all wrong because my books will sell themselves, right? Yeah, I thought so.

Back in the real world, I have made some progress on my WIP and come up with a dramatic arc that will (should) make the reader wonder where the hell I’m going with it. But I’ve given it some thought and believe it will be a big help. I’ve been editing the story with the aid of Scrivener where I keep a scene by scene copy of the book, and rearranging some of the character’s situations too. I’ve only increased the word count marginally, but I believe I can see a way through to reaching a minimum of 60,000 words as I get to the end.

Looking ahead, I hope to get to our CHINDI meeting on Thursday in Arundel. That will be the book group’s tri-monthly gathering, simply to get to know each other, meet face to face and generally talk about books. Should be good.

Those of you who have been following my blog and wonder how my wife Pat is getting on: so far we are no further forward. Pat has been referred to the haematology department for further investigation. Poor girl is fed up with it all. So am I. But we’ll persevere. Wish us luck!