May
2nd. 2020
This time last week, Pat was in hospital
and was discharged during the afternoon, which I thought was a bit quick. This
Wednesday she was taken back into hospital because the infection was still
raging through her body. Thankfully it is now under control and we are
expecting her to be discharged either today or tomorrow. She had a CT scan
yesterday which helped. At least her brain was clear; something I was worried
about because of her stroke last year. But she’s OK now. I phone her four times
a day because there are no visitors allowed and virtually nothing for her to do
in her single room. I can’t wait to have her back home.
Naturally,
Pat’s absence has given me plenty of time to work in the garden pulling up
weeds, filling hanging baskets and mowing the lawn. Yesterday afternoon, having
already done a bunch of weeding that morning, I decided to watch an SPF podcast.
It was Evan Gow of Story Origin, a book promotional group of which I am a
member. Naturally, I was keen to see Evan and what he had to tell us, but I fell
asleep and only woke when James Blatch was winding up the podcast with Mark
Dawson. I decided not to look at it again until later and forced myself to go
outside and carry on with the weeding.
My
latest read is Cold East by Alex Shaw. It isn’t too bad and basically
does “what it says on the tin”. Shaw is a competent writer, successful too, so
I can’t say he isn’t well read. But it’s a book that is written for a market.
And I think that is one of my failings; I don’t write for the market. I’ve
often wondered, although maybe not anymore, why my books are poor competition
for other thriller writers that inhabit the genres in which I write. I have no
doubts about my ability, never have, but other writers nail it consistently,
while I struggle to attract a firm readership. I think the answer lies in the
fact that I write by inspiration: I get an idea in my head, maybe from a news
item, or perhaps some occurrence in my life that triggers a story. I then
research the idea and write the story. This inevitably means I am writing for
myself and not the market I’m trying to crack. Is that a lesson learned for me?
Has to be, right? So what can I do about it? While I’ve been looking after Pat
(eighteen months now), I have struggled to put pen to paper, and now have no
inclination to write. The desire hasn’t left me, but the thought of preparing a
draft copy and all the research that’s necessary, just leaves me cold. But
there is also an underlying reason for that: by attempting to write to a market,
I cannot get enthusiastic about a project. It’s almost as if I’m prostituting
myself on the altar of market necessity, and that’s ruining whatever story I
try to come up with. So well done to Alex Shaw and all his contemporaries;
they’ve got it cracked.
I’ve
had a little run of success with my Facebook ads programme. I managed to sell
25 books in eleven days. When you consider my average organic sales are about
ten a month, that result could put me closer to sixty or seventy. Trouble is
that its costing me money. My royalties are slightly lower that my ad spend.
But that’s something I have to expect for a while; I simply need to learn more
and not fall asleep when I’m watching a training video.
No
news yet from Joffe Books. Wish me luck!
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