On The Up and Up.

The month of April started with a fraud alert from my bank and their decision to block my card, which meant a conversation with security; fortunately, not a robot, nor someone from a call centre halfway around the world. Once I’d established my bona fide and convinced the woman I needed my bank card unblocked, she ‘graciously’ acceded to my request. I promise you I remained calm (ish). Bring back the old days, please. 

Going through my diary is like walking along the beach with Tuppence, scrabbling around the garden on my knees doing battle with the weeds, scarifying the front lawn, and using modern miracles in cardboard boxes, promising me a lawn that would make the final in a Kew Gardens competition. But it’s all necessary, back-breaking work at times, and the only plus is that I get to speak to people who walk by and say hello. 

But it was not all work and no play for this lad; I spent a few days away (Tuppence came too). I had a long weekend in Norfolk, staying with my eldest son, Vincent, and his wife, Jackie. They like walking! So, we did a river walk in Norwich (probably my favourite city), watched a Peregrine Falcon and its mate high up on a nesting box on the spire of the cathedral — a good crowd puller too, and enjoyed a coffee sitting in the sunshine. We also managed Blickling Hall and Sheringham. I left Norfolk for Lincolnshire to visit my friend, Pauline, but popped in to see my big brother, Jim. He thinks I’m raving mad because I’m going to America in July to see our No. 5 great-grandson, Elliott (1st birthday). Jim can be a grumpy sod at times, but we’ve had a lot of laughs over the years. 

I started filling out a self-assessment tax return, but HMRC informed me I wouldn’t be able to complete it because they didn’t have all the necessary information to hand. I think they meant they were waiting for the Chancellor to make up her mind about how much more she wanted from us in taxes. 

I happen to be a lousy cook, so I thought rather than rely on ready meals all the time, I really should start learning. So, I downloaded the Mary Berry recipe for Lasagne, went to Tesco and bought all the ingredients, and then set about becoming another Mary Berry in the kitchen. No, it wasn’t a spectacular failure, which my home-cooked meals usually are. I made enough for six dinners and have since eaten them all. Marks out of ten? Five maybe, but I will go again. 

I went along to the Arun Scribes book club meeting in Littlehampton for their monthly mid-week get-together and enjoyed chatting to three people about books (what else?), always bearing in mind not to assume those people aren’t as advanced in their writing career as yours truly. It can be an eye opening experience as people reveal much about their lives and their writing, and shows what an eclectic bunch writers can be. 

I took a copy of my latest book, Shadow Over Paris, for them all to see, which is currently selling well. This brings me nicely on to the “problem” it has created for me. I think we’ve all heard the saying, “Be careful what you wish for”. Because the book has been well received, I’ve been asked if there is to be a sequel. The story is set in Paris in 1940, which means there’s a whole lot more that follows. But the problem is: I don’t write sequels. I never have. Sure, I’ve used the same character (Marcus Blake) in several books, but they have all been ‘Stand-alone’, not sequels. I published the book last November and it sold a few copies; marginally more than my usual average. I advertised it using Amazon Ads but saw no real progress. Then I advertised it on Facebook on the 22nd of March in UK and it literally took off. The ad finished after four weeks, so I advertised it in America, where it has exceeded the figures I achieved in UK. In April alone I sold 112 copies and notched up 80000 page reads. Those numbers may not be significant to some of you, but believe me, at my level, they are stratospheric. And I’m making a profit; not a lot, but it’s gratifying to know my efforts are paying off. For now! 

Which brings me to the sequel. How, after spending 15 months on SoP, and pouring all my ideas and effort into it, how can I possibly come up with a story that is different, but still the same? I have started on something, the working title is Beyond Midnight, and so far I’ve managed 9000 words. At my current rate it will take two years to complete, so I need to knuckle down and put words on paper. But I can’t do that without research, and that takes time. I do have some ideas knocking about, but I’ve never been a plotter; I’m what’s known as a ‘Pantser’. Yes, writing by the seat of my pants. But it’s what I do, so I will write and hope I can come up with something that is as good as SoP. Or even better. 

And just diverting for a while, I received a contact through my website from a woman in America who said how much she’d enjoyed my Emma Carney Romance, Dare to Dream. 

So there you have it: my grit, my graft and my gratitude for having the talent God gave me to put words on paper and bring a smile to most of my readers’ faces. In May, I’ll be looking forward to my trip to America and trying to add more compelling stuff to my sequel. Wish me luck.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Michael

 

 

 Blog post for April 1^st.            A 50/50 month 

As a Christian, I have faith that God will keep an eye on me when the going gets tough. But I think He took some time off at the beginning of the month and left me to flounder as I grappled with technology and near cardiac arrest (I’m joking about that). My Facebook account got hacked and my account was closed down after £400 had been paid out in error. It would be an understatement to say I was pee’d off and tearing my hair out — not that I have much. 

I had to call my bank and ask them to lift the block I’d put on Facebook. Simple request, eh? Have you ever had to deal with a call centre? I had to explain to the lady that I had no idea what she was saying because of her accent. Eventually, she passed me on to a chap who also had the same accent. It took almost thirty minutes to resolve the problem. It meant I could now open another FB account and post another Ad campaign. So, heart rate back to normal, and a smile on my face.

Until I decided it was time to change my Tesco Mobile phone. 

I went to the Tesco shop in Shripney and ordered a new phone with a contract extension. No problem — my phone would be delivered the following day. I took it in two days later for the changeover. The guy made a start and then told me it would take two and a half hours for the transfer to complete, which meant I had to stay within Wi-fi range of the shop. To say I wasn’t pleased would be another understatement. Why didn’t he tell me this before he started? 

By now, my birthday month was on a downward spiral. I ordered a slow cooker, thinking it might improve my cooking skills. I bought a small one (£15) and popped down to the new butcher in Pagham Parade for some lamb. I Googled the why’s and how’s for lamb stew and a slow cooker and set myself to become another Gordon Ramsey. Suffice to say I shouldn’t have bothered; the whole thing was a failure, and the cooker has ended up in what I call my Room 101. 

And if you think my month could not have gotten any worse, I picked up a speeding ticket in Chalcraft Lane where I always obey the speed limit (so I thought). Cost me £100. But there was light at the end of the tunnel, and God was stirring. It was my birthday on the 18^th (84), and over that weekend, I had visits from two of my boys, my grandson, Adam, and his partner, Agata, and plenty of cards and cake at my Church House Group meeting. 

So at last God was beginning to smile on me and giving me the nod of approval for my next foray into the world of technology and advertising. I decided to create a campaign for my WW2 story, Shadow Over Paris. What happened next is beyond belief. My book started selling and gathering Kindle page reads at, for me, a phenomenal rate. It reached number 10 in the top 20 of Historical French fiction, even leapfrogging Kate Mosse! Last night, the end of the month, it had notched up 42 orders and over 11000 page reads. And the trouble is: I don’t know what I’ve done to make this happen — my ads usually notch up a few sales, but nothing on this scale. The campaign is due to run until April 21^st, so I’m hoping it will stay strong until then when I’ll create another campaign. 

Another project I started on was to edit my short novel, Max and Emma. It’s the pure love story from my family saga, Past Imperfect, I got the rights back for that book from my American publisher, which I can republish after April 21^st. But I published Max and Emma and immediately unpublished it a couple of years ago so I had the paperback in my hand. Now I’m planning to put it out as a stand-alone Romance with a ‘spoiler alert’ inside to explain that it has been taken from the full-length novel. 

Meanwhile, I have two manuscripts with two separate publishers who will almost certainly turn me down. This is simply because of my age and the fact that my ‘career’ is behind me rather than ahead of me. It happens all the time, so I know what to expect. The two books have already been published, so I will have lost nothing. 

And despite all that has gone before me this month, I still had to walk the dog, do the washing and ironing, gardening, church, visit my Granddaughter, Gemma and her family in Brighton, go to a book club meeting in Littlehampton and grab 15 minutes in the armchair each afternoon until Tuppence wakes me up to remind me it’s time to share an apple (yes, she does, the little sod). But I mustn’t grumble; life’s okay, the sun is shining, and, thank God, we are not living in an earthquake zone. I’ll be back next month with more tales of… Whatever. Wish me luck!

                                                                                                                               Michael.

 

 

 A spanner in the works.

 

Writing a monthly blog shouldn’t be too difficult, and it’s not as if there was a deadline to meet other than a self-imposed one. My intentions were honest and sincere at the beginning of the year, but somehow, February came along and screwed up all those good intentions. I decided to revisit Facebook ads, something I hadn’t done for several months, with the intention of pushing my WW2 story, Shadow Over Paris, and capitalising on the strength of Facebook advertising. But the trouble came after I’d set up a short campaign — my account got hacked and I ended up losing it. Facebook closed it down because of a ‘Violation’ of their terms. Long story short: I had to block FB from taking money from my account until I could resolve the problem. It proved beyond impossible to do that; the recovery codes FB sent me to recover my account proved to be invalid. I Googled the question only to learn this was a common problem. I have since started a new account using a different email address but am now in the throes of rebuilding my ‘Friends’ list. 

My book sales were bouncing along at about one or two a day, and my Kindle page reads were building nicely, reaching almost 4000 during the month. I then got interested in a promotional advert for ‘Click-testing’, which, if it worked, could result in phenomenal book sales each month. The challenge was to accept that it would not be cheap — $30-$40 a day, and what promised to be a lot of work. I watched the promotional video; it was 30 minutes long and was encouraged by what and who I saw: people I’d met and others I was aware of. I was psyching myself up to bite the bullet when the Facebook fiasco started. Consequently, because the Click-testing strategy relies on FB ads, I had to give the idea up. However, I’m seriously considering diving into Click-testing but probably not until sometime into next month. 

I went to a book club meeting in Littlehampton where I met an incredibly talented and determined woman by the name of Sarah Jouault. Sarah has been competing in Ironman championships and triathlon events for twenty years. She is seventy and competed in the World Ironman Championship in New Zealand last year. Coincidentally, our Grandson, Jamie, who lives in Canada, competed in the same event. That made an immediate connection between me and Sarah. You can learn more about this extraordinary woman on her website https://jouault.uk. 

At the moment I am not writing. It’s an unusual situation for me, and one I don’t enjoy; I need to be writing. But I just can’t write anything without some kind of inspiration. I did think I would be writing a follow-up to my WW2 story, Shadow Over Paris, and even bought a couple of books to continue with the research, but unfortunately, I’ve lost the urge to write. I hope it won’t last long although I do have a project on the go.

Over three years ago my book, Past Imperfect was published by the Wild Rose Press in America. It was originally published by Robert Hale of London several years ago. The story is a family saga stretching over forty years with a modern love story paralleling the saga and finally merging in the end. I produced a paperback of the love story (not for publication) because I thought it would make a good novella. I asked WRP for the rights back, which they granted, and I will be able to publish the love story after April 21^st. Perhaps once that is out there, I might find the inspiration to write again. 

I am still advertising, but on Amazon, and although I am selling the occasional book, my page reads are building. So far this month (17 days), they have reached just over 4000. With luck, they could hit 5K by the end of the month. It’s my birthday tomorrow (I’ll be 84), so more book sales and page reads would put a beaming smile on my face. Wish me luck!