It's all a worry

September 28^th. 2019

This week has been not too bad with Pat. It’s the last week before she’s due to recommence chemo (on Tuesday). Her hair is beginning to grow again, but it could all disappear once the chemo is back on. It isn’t all plain sailing though; her mini stroke has left its mark, and I’m concerned that she isn’t making any real progress. But that’s me worrying and wanting to see a speedy cure. Pat has had some stimulation in the visit from our number two son, Terry, our grand-daughter, Gemma and her little ‘un, Orin. Terry has just come back from our grandson’s wedding in Atlanta, so he was able to tell Pat all about that. Tuesday evening a lady friend from church came to sit with Pat while I went out for the evening. They did some flower arranging. Well, our friend did the arranging but at least it was something for Pat. She had a blood test yesterday in readiness for the haematologist on Monday. Just prior to that she’ll be having a chest X-Ray. Hopefully the doc will give the go-ahead for the chemo to begin again.

My evening out on Tuesday was to a book talk at Bognor Regis library given by best-selling author, Lesley Thomson. I’ve never heard of the lady, but it gave me an opportunity to step out of my current world and into the other one I occupy when I can: my book world. I bought one of her paperbacks, The Detective’s Daughter and started reading it on Wednesday. I know I’m going to have difficulty in getting through the book because her writing style is so alien to me, it’s a struggle. But her book sales are stratospheric, so there must be a lot of people out there who have no problem with her style. She wrote her first book years ago in Sydney while on a work visa out there, and didn’t write another book for twenty years. I know someone like that!

My Amazon ads are still drifting aimlessly, but I am beginning to make sense of some of it. I won’t be discouraged though. In fact, I’ve extended the ads for another month. It isn’t costing me any money because I’m not selling the book I’m advertising, but I am selling some of my other titles: just over thirty this month. I am now planning to launch another campaign for my latest book, No Time to Die. I’m confident I can get enough keywords that suit the genre, and I’ll be targeting Robert Galbraith in the first instance (J.K.Rowling) for the Private Investigator element.

I made another decision during the night as I lay wide awake next to my soundly sleeping wife after a short drama. I realised that my efforts to continue with my current WIP were like sowing seeds on to stony ground. I came to the conclusion that I needed to package my Marcus Blake thrillers (three now) in the way the majority of series authors do, and come up with a fourth novel. I would need to redo all the jackets and remedy the impact of the fonts, but there are plenty of examples on Amazon of those successful authors whose book jackets are literally all identical. It has to be my project for 2020, beginning as soon as I come up with an idea for the fourth “in the series”.

I’m involved in a book promotion over the next five days. Hasn’t cost me anything, but the last one I did with this group netted a dozen sales for the book, which was good. This time it’s for The Eagle’s Covenant. The price has been dropped to £0.99 for the duration of the promotion. The link to the thrillers available is https://storyoriginapp.com/to/L6ZLlIe. Why not have a look? You’ll see my jacket there alongside the sixteen other books. We have a combined reach of 41,000 subscribers, which is pretty good.

So, where to now? Tomorrow is our harvest festival at church. I took some grub in today after getting my flu jab. Monday is the hospital day and Tuesday will be chemo day. Once I’ve finished posting this blog, I’ll be doing the ironing and watching footie on the TV. Oh, one other thing: I gave nine hardback copies of my romance, Past Imperfect, to the lady who looked after Pat during the week for her book group. I passed those on to her earlier last week. She said she was surprised at the ‘quality’ of the prose, and then apologised because she didn’t mean she thought I wouldn’t be able to produce anything like that. She loved the book too. It’s always nice when you hear unsolicited comments like that. I just wish I could use them to sell more books. You never know though. Wish me luck!

Tolerance and Tuppence

Monday kind of started well; Pat seemed to be improving, although just a little. But it was a comfort to know she wasn’t dealing with chemo as well as the after-effects of a mini-stroke. This emboldened me to spend a little more time in the garden, clearing away a lot of stuff that was taking over. It left little time for creative work in front of my PC, but I am trying. We had a church house group meeting here on Tuesday. This is good for Pat’s stimulation: mostly women! Wednesday I took Pat over to the house of one of our church friends so she could spend some time with two more ladies having a natter in a beautiful sun-filled conservatory. All good for Pat’s mental recovery. We had a visit from our Pastor. He’s younger than our youngest son, but a smashing bloke, so that was good. And through all that we were getting photographs of our grandson, Sam, getting married to Taryn in America where they live. Naturally Pat and I would have been there, but Pat’s illness made that impossible. It was good to see lots of photos though on Facebook.

On the book front, I did manage a couple of lines of my pulp fiction thriller. I managed to write the incident on the bus that I needed to move our hero forward in the story. Now he’s off the bus and about to help one of the victims of the incident. Very Jack Reacher! I’m now about 2000 words into the story, so a long, long way to go.

My book sales still suck. The Amazon Ads School, of which I am a student, isn’t helping much. No doubt that’s down to me because I’m not really paying attention. I will soldier on for another week and then, reluctantly, scrap the ad and begin again. The annoying thing is that the book I’m advertising has a blurb written by Bryan Cohen, one of the top men in the business, and the jacket design by Stuart Bache, another top industry man. The only answer I can come up with is that my marketing skills, like my sales figures, also suck.

My number three son, John, phoned during the week to tell me he’d read my latest book, No Time to Die. Took him one day! He thoroughly enjoyed it (I would know if he was lying), but pointed out some typos and another observation he had to make about the page numbers. Fortunately I was able to correct all that in about ten minutes. I have uploaded the edited files and have ordered one copy, just to check. I made a small change to the jacket as well.

Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Show Live event, of which I spoke last week, has really taken off. So much so he has had to hire another venue having sold over 800 tickets for the event (he expected about 300). Members of the group are coming in from all over the world for this. Some of them are staying on for the London Book Fair which begins the day after. And one thing that Mark and his team do at each event they attend is to offer to buy the SPF members a pint at a local hostelry (this week it’s in Vancouver), and he has put out the same invite for next March. It now looks as though he will have to hire a venue just to get the people in so he can buy them a pint. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to see that it could become a big annual event if Mark and his team decide to run with it. They already have some top authors lined up for March, so it isn’t unreasonable to think it could become permanent.

And today I had to take our little Cockapoo, Tuppence, to the vet. Poor little girl has some kind of problem that the vet believes is pain in the hip joint. She had an injection (the dog, not the vet!) and is on tablets. No walkies then for a day or so. And I have a pain in my wallet; it cost me £65 for that consultation, and Tuppence didn’t even blush when I paid it. Now I have two sick girls to nurse at home.

But tonight I will at least be able to watch one of my favourite sporting events: it’s the British Speedway Grand Prix at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. It’s often billed as the biggest indoor sporting event in the world. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know I’ll enjoy it. Wish me luck!

Many hands make light work.

September 14^th. 2019

Monday began with a trip to the haematologist for Pat’s pre-chemo consultation. I was quite nervous about this because she had only just been discharged from hospital after her mini-stroke. The haematologist decided, after having a good look at the various scans, X-rays and blood tests, that it would be safer for Pat to have a break from the chemo. He was happy with the progress she has made so far, and saw no reason why he couldn’t give her a chance to get stronger. I was happy with that. It’s too early for me to say Pat is healing and getting her mind back, but a couple of days ago we went through the Jack & Jill nursery rhyme. I had to help her with each line. The following morning I asked her if she could remember it and she recited it without a problem. I was really excited for her because it gave an indication that her brain is healing. I need to get her a bit heavier though because she lost weight while she was in dock.

I’ve tried to squeeze some literary work in while coping with Pat and the jobs around the house and garden. I had a look at my pulp fiction WIP. I managed a few lines, but not enough to say I’m making brilliant progress. I’ve got my main character into Russia, he’s on a bus two thousand miles from Moscow and heading for the Siberian Peninsular. What he witnesses on the bus is the key to the next step in the story in which my character shows his remarkable guile, cunning and extreme fighting skills. Well, it is a pulp fiction thriller, so I must not let detail and facts get in the way of the action. Right? The character’s name, by the way, is Martin Quil, from a work of fiction I conjured up sixty years ago and resurrected in my pulp fiction thriller this year called Hunted. He’s a clever lad; has all the skills I can invent, and he speaks fluent colloquial Russian. Now, where could you find a hero like that? Only in Hunted — the Sequel. Ta Da!

My campaign on Amazon Ads sucks at the moment. Having put up three ads according to Bryan Cohen’s instructions, I have sold precisely none. The advice I have received is that the data with AMS can take up to six or seven days to filter through, I have to be patient and if nothing else happens, I have to increase my budget. All seems a bit too simple to me, which is probably why I’m getting nowhere, but I will stick with it; after all, I’ve paid Mr. Cohen for his expert advice. I had hoped that the new book jacket, which was designed by top man, Stuart Bache, would be enough to draw the clicks and opens like moths to a flame, but that doesn’t seem to be happening either.

Another small string to my bow (if that’s the right thing to say) is having my book, Hell’s Gate with Voracious Readers. I am picking up at least two subscribers a day which means new readers. The system allows me to have as many books on offer (free of course) to encourage readers to subscribe. Eventually, depending on how many ‘clicks’ I get, I will have to pay a small, monthly subscription. It’s voluntary, naturally, and I can pull out any time. This should help the organic growth and lead to more sales. Hope so.

Looking ahead (well ahead), the tickets for Mark Dawson’s SPS show next year was so over-subscribed that he has had to find another venue. Fortunately he has and the numbers expecting to attend will be over 700. It will be called SPS (Self-Publishing Show) Live. You don’t have to be a member of Mark’s group now because there’s enough room for everybody. It happens to be the day before the London Book Fair opens, so quite a few of the SPF crowd will be staying on for that too. If Pat is fully recovered by then, I might be tempted to stay over, but at the moment I suspect I’ll just take in the SPS event.

I managed to get some garden time in this morning and took the shears and hedge trimmer to much of the stuff that’s taking over. Pat would be horrified if she knew what was in my mind, but as the poor girl can’t do it, I have to make the decisions. Such power. Whatever next? Wish me luck.

Beavering away

September 7^th. 2019

Pat is out of hospital now; she came home on Wednesday. It was confirmed that she’d had a mini stroke; some kind of conflict with her tablets. Thankfully Pat has full use of her limbs and most of her faculties. Her responses are mostly mono-syllabic, but she can always grasp what is meant when questions are put to her. She has difficulty recalling much, but there are signs of improvement even though they are minimal. I am told, by people who have experienced this kind of thing, that recovery is usually 100%. I certainly hope so, but the poor girl has chemo to put up with as well. She begins her fourth round next Tuesday, provided the haematologist approves it. I remember one of my chemo sessions being postponed after a period of isolation.

This weekend was to have been a big one for us: our No.2 grandson is getting married in America next week. We would have gone but for what’s happened to Pat. Meanwhile two of our sons are going with their families, so for us the videos will be something to look forward to.

I finally managed to complete the first two hour video training session of Bryan Cohen’s excellent Amazon Ads School. I now have to do the homework which is to post three ads on Amazon and try to make sense of everything Bryan has told us. These ads, although meant to draw in some money, are more about learning and gaining some kind of traction among the Amazon readers and to eradicate all the unnecessary keywords that might prove to be useless. There are other pitfalls as well that need avoiding, but getting some ads out there is the only way to learn and find that light-bulb moment. And on the subject of getting ads out there: my sales this week have been practically zero — two copies, which means no-one is seeing me on the Amazon product pages because I’m not advertising. I’m hoping to start my campaign tomorrow.

I received the six author copies of my latest book, No Time to Die on Thursday, and posted five of them out to our four sons and one to a friend of ours in Lincoln. The cost of sending the book to Australia was just over £7 — more than the book’s worth I think. But I had to sign it for our Aussie boy. He probably won’t read it, but I live in hopes. Incidentally, the books were printed in Poland.

I did something yesterday I didn’t expect to do, and that was to start loosely plotting the sequel to my pulp fiction thriller, Hunted. It’s been beavering away in my head for a while now, and I’ve tried to ignore it because of looking after Pat and getting all the jobs done, not to mention spending hours up at the hospital. But the first concept, the opening preamble if you like, is down on paper. I’m well pleased with it too. Trouble is, I don’t know where to go from there yet. I guess I will.

I managed to get out and do a big shop today. Two friends of ours from church came in and sat with Pat. I was out for two and a half hours, spent a fortune and got everything on my list. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking forward to going to the shops and being allowed the time to get what I wanted as well as what was on the list. Perhaps in today’s diverse world, I should identify as a woman one day a week and enjoy shopping more often. No? No, I didn’t think so either. Whatever comes, I’ll soldier on.

Those of you who are in Mark Dawson’s SPF group will know that he has organised an SPF Live convention in London next March. Trouble is, there’s only room for 300 people, and he knows it will be well over-subscribed. The tickets go on sale at 2pm Monday. I can imagine people glued to their computers if they’re at work, hoping the boss doesn’t see them as they try to add their names to the list. I’ll be at the hospital with Pat for a mid-day appointment. If she doesn’t need any X-rays or scans that day, I could make it back in time for the 2pm deadline. Here’s hoping. Wish me luck.