Great minds think alike.

August 24^th. 2019

The week began with a visit to the haematologist for Pat’s blood test results and a resumé of where she is with the chemo. It turned out that one of the chemicals, etoposide, was too toxic for her; no doubt it would have killed her had they persisted with it. That was the reason she ended up in hospital for a week. That has been resolved now, thankfully, and Pat is on her third chemo session. We had to go to the hospital three days running, which cuts into our free time, but it is what it is and we have to put up with it. Pat is a little wearier now, but so long as I keep an eye on her, we should be OK. CT scan next.

On the book front I’ve had an interesting week. Haven’t sold any books, but I have dived into a couple of courses on email marketing and Amazon ads. The former is with Adam Croft, the latter with Bryan Cohen. If I can master their advice, I should be able to look forward to a better understanding of how to use the kind of tools that an indie writer needs these days to make sense of the whole business. I have already decided to change my tactics with regard to marketing and will be adopting a new approach to my 1200 or so subscribers. I still have a way to go, but I will try to stay with it. The Amazon ads course is a little different in that there is a lot of study, about nine hours in total, and that’s without running a campaign. I will be testing the water later with my latest book, No Time to Die with an Ads campaign. You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07WFQMQV4. That will be followed up with The Boy from Berlin.

When I circulated the jacket for No Time to Die, one observation from somebody was to ask what kind if title that was. Someone said it didn’t mean anything with regard to the genre etc. But I liked the title and decided to stay with it. Then a week after I’d published the book, I find that the latest James Bond film is to be called: No Time to Die. What a coincidence! See, great minds think alike. I might be able to make some capital out of the common link, but I have to wait until next April when the film will be released.

I had a couple of problems getting my jacket changed with KDP. I couldn’t publish the book because there was an error with the meta data, highlighted in red. I couldn’t see it. I checked all the KDP data pages for the book, but there was no red highlight. I contacted Amazon and was told that the pricing for Japan was incorrect. This is set automatically when you choose a price for USA; all the other areas have their price boxes filled in. Seems that I was charging 1215 Japanese yen for the paperback instead of 1218. Three yen? Anyway, we got it sorted. The updated book arrived today. Looks fine now.

Something to look forward to next year for members of Mark Dawson’s SPF group: a meet-up at Amazon’s HQ in London early March. I know the SPF group has a huge following, and I’m sure the meet-up will be buzzing. And from what I’ve learned about Mark and his partner in the business, James Blatch, it will be a pretty good turn-out. Hopefully I’ll be able to go and, hopefully, I’ll be able to tell people how successful I’ve been with email marketing and Amazon ads. Am I dreaming? Wish me luck!