Nothing but a dreamer

November 26th. 2017 We’ve just returned from an overnight stay with our son, John and his wife, Bryony in Dorset. It’s good to get away for a while, spend some time with the family, couple of beers, walk the dogs. There’s no time to think about books, promotion, advertising and sales figures because those things will be there when you get home. There’s always the anticipation of what might have happened to the book sales while you’ve been away, and true to form in my case, very little has happened. I checked my BookBub advert (I have two) and find that they will need serious attention if things don’t pick up, but not today; there’s always tomorrow. The planned launch of the box-set hasn’t come off, and it looks like it’s going to fail before it gets started. The launch date and pre-launch push didn’t happen, it’s been delayed now until after Christmas, and cracks seem to be appearing in the overall commitment necessary to make it work. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but leaves me with the sense that involvement with other authors, for me anyway, is not the best way to go. So once this year is out of the way, I’ll stick to my own plans for promotion, marketing and writing. I don’t include the CHINDI group in this, because we have contact with each other by meeting up, doing book stalls and getting together from time to time. In fact, next Saturday, a lot of the group will be at a Chinese restaurant in Littlehampton for a Christmas bunfight. Should be good, and we’ll have plenty to talk about. I made a little progress on my WIP last week, and dug myself out of a hole I’d managed to get into. Making small gains in this writing business does help. One thing I do frequently is watch movies on Amazon Prime, hoping to pick up some ideas. Unfortunately I tend to watch a load of rubbish that passes for crime drama, but I did pick up a little nugget that I will be able to slip into my WIP. Some-time during the week I found myself thinking about music from my past. This was as a result of sitting in a waiting room where a couple of elderly ladies were talking about the youth of today and all that goes with it. My mind went back to when I had finished my second novel, Hell’s Gate, and imagined it on the big screen (it never happened of course). The novel is set in British East Africa in 1898, and was inspired by historical fact. One of my all-time favourite pieces of music at the time was The Dawn by Osibisa. I could see the whole thing on the big screen: my story and the compelling, African music. Ah well, what it is to be a dreamer, eh? Incidentally, you can get the book at

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RW1VTGO/?tag

and

https://www.books2read.com/u/4XGd9m

. I mentioned Hell’s Gate last week and the length of time it was taking to get the paperback file uploaded to CreateSpace. I thought I’d cracked it until I received an email from CS asking me for ‘Content Validation’ for the book. I sent them a photocopy of the rights authorisation from my publisher. Good thing I still had it on file. Once they have accepted that, I can look forward to getting the copy from Amazon UK, and then I can get on to do another, hands-on edit. And as we come to the end of November and look ahead to Christmas, I can see the social diary filling up with various dates for this and that. I’ve no idea what Santa will be bringing me for Christmas, but I hope it will be a ringing endorsement of my books, coupled with a blossoming advert campaign. Wish me luck!

Keeping different balls in the air

November 19th 2017 Much has happened this week, but not all to do with writing. I’ve made a little progress with my WIP, but have been distracted by other things. I continued looking at the BookBub ads training video by Adam Croft to help understand all the information BookBub provides with regard to the ad. I had two running, but it soon became clear that I had made the wrong choice of author to follow (including me), so I created a single ad, and am now following Mark Gimenez. It’s too early to tell how successful that will be, but early signs are not too promising. However, I must be patient. Another diversion was my decision to re-edit my book, Hell’s Gate: something I thought would not take too long. Needless to say it took up an enormous amount of time. It came about because I want to advertise this particular book on BookBub as a ‘Literary’ work of fiction on African, colonial history. I’ve always used the keyword ‘Action & Adventure’ for this book, but now I see it another way. It wasn’t until I started the process that I discovered I hadn’t released the paperback on CreateSpace, so that’s where it will be heading. I have it with Ingram Spark. I haven’t changed any of the text; this was simply a tidying-up exercise. Last Monday, our book group CHINDI had an on-line meeting. Using the website, ZOOM, we get fifty minutes free where we can chat and see each other on screen. One of our writers, Christopher Joyce, gave us an update on his book launch the previous Saturday. He has published an ‘Alien Cook Book’ to complement his Children’s books. You can find Chris’s books in our shop at www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop. There are lots of other good titles of all genres in the shop, many of them priced low for Christmas. Tomorrow, I am expecting the launch of my box set along with a bundle of other box sets in time for “Cyber Monday”. This is something the writer, Mike Continues, has put together with others. How successful this will be is anybody’s guess, but it can’t do no worse for my box set than it’s doing at present. The agreement is to run the promotion for six months. I live in hopes for that, but don’t expect much. When it kicks off, I’ll be sending out a newsletter to all my subscribers. Five weeks to go now to Christmas. We are out on Wednesday, shopping at Winchester. I doubt if we’ll get all the presents we need, but it will not be for the want of trying. No doubt we could do this on-line, which would save our feet. It’s something we could do at leisure, but there’s nothing like traipsing round the shops, armfuls of carrier bags, and getting home to realise you’ve forgotten that important present. So long as I don’t forget my wife, I’ll be OK. Wish me luck!

Forging ahead

November 11th. 2017. This is the point where I will be looking ahead with a renewed enthusiasm. I made some unexpected progress on my WIP, and I launched my first BookBub advert (two in fact). Having watched Adam Croft’s excellent video several times, I plunged in and launched two adverts. Using Adam’s advice, I advertised my thriller, The Devil’s Trinity with my name as the author to follow. The second ad., same book, was with Ty Patterson. I looked at the ‘also bought’ list on my author page to find a suitable author. The first one I chose gave me too big an audience, so I clicked through the various names until I found Ty Patterson’s name put me in the ‘Green Zone’. It means an audience reach of about 10K. This, apparently, is a sensible start. The ad. began yesterday at about 4pm. The second ad. will go today. Now comes the tricky part: I have to monitor my progress and tweak until I see an improvement. I will probably look at BookBub’s own top 100 author list to find a bunch of thriller writers who will give me a similar audience to Ty Patterson. I’ll also be going back over the videos. The unexpected progress on my WIP came by ignoring the writer’s block and jumping ahead to the latter part of the plot. I found myself writing quickly and enthusiastically, even extending the idea I had for the outcome. It means that I’ll have a beginning and an end with a word count of about 25000. Although it seems I still need to do a lot, like find another 50,000 words, it isn’t as daunting as it was a week ago. Getting back to the BookBub advert briefly, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Adam Croft in response to the comments I made in my blog last week. It put a smile on my face, and it was so nice to get a comment from someone who actually reads this. I was even more surprised to think that this best-selling author (over a million sales on Amazon) actually took the trouble to write and encourage me. Good for you, Adam. Christmas isn’t far away now, and the various sales pitches are springing up everywhere, no more so than our CHINDI group. We have opened our shop for Christmas specials, so why not pop in and see what’s on offer. We have a growing membership in our group with authors who have notched up awards in their writing career. There could be something there to suit everyone’s taste. www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop. I mentioned author cross promotions last week. Looking at my sales, I see no benefit, which means I’ll knock them on the head for a while. I am still committed to Paula Wynne’s BookHub Christmas promotion, but that is simply adding one of my books to the bundle she is giving away. http://bookhub.online/readers-news/win-a-book-bundle. So what now? With Christmas Day only six weeks away, it’s about writing out the Christmas cards, getting presents, arranging get-togethers etc. Our CHINDI group are meeting up for a Christmas meal next month. Although we meet up occasionally, and on-line daily, it’s good to get the chance to chat face to face. I’m looking forward to that. We have an on-line meeting on Monday where we’ll be able to see each other on our computer screens, but there’s nothing like the real thing. And something else I mustn’t forget: it’s Remembrance Day. There will be ceremonies all over UK and elsewhere in the world to remember those who fell during the terrible conflicts we’ve witnessed on this earth. I served in the Royal Air Force, and so did our four sons. Happily, none of us experienced the terror of real conflict. Mind you, one of our boys has a chest full of medals. He’s still serving but in the Royal Australian Air Force. He looks like a General in his best uniform. So tomorrow I’ll wear my Poppy with pride and hope the leaders of this world will see some sense. Some hope! Wish me luck!

Learning the hard way: understanding why.

4th. November 2107 When I read interviews or watch podcasts of writers who have successfully self-published, I admit to feeling a little envious of their success, and wonder if I’ll ever be able to achieve the kind of sales figures they enjoy. My wife asked me the other day if I get upset when I see what others have achieved doing what I’m doing, but I told her that it would be pointless getting upset; the fact is these people have worked hard to achieve their success, and that is the limiting factor in my case. I have watched two mega selling authors in the last week: Adam Croft and Hugh Howey. Both these writers knew how to do the hard yards and come up with a solid way to promote their work. I have watched others over the last few months, always looking to see if there was a shortcut maybe that I didn’t know about. But the truth is — its work, work, work. This brings me to a kind of late, 2017 resolution (procrastination got in the way): to try harder. I paid the royalties into my bank today — those I received as a result of the BookBub advert earlier in the year — and decided I would like to do that each month, and watch them increase; but how? Well, this week, Mark Dawson is releasing his latest advertising course for authors, which includes all the updated stuff on Facebook, Amazon Ads and BookBub. As a student of his, I get all this free, so I’m looking forward to dipping my toe in the water with BookBub advertising (not a ‘Featured Deal’). But I know that simply following what I’m told, without working at it, I’ll be wasting my time. So it’s up to me: must work harder. You will all get to know how I’m doing, but it could be a while before that happens. If I was a racehorse, you wouldn’t put your money on me, so I now have to see if I can’t make this old nag romp home first past the winning post. I made some progress with my WIP. I’m at the writer’s block stage. This is familiar territory to most writers. I’ll get through it of course, but at the moment I can’t see how. I sent a short extract of the WIP to my subscribers, wondering if I would get a reaction. I did — 21 of them unsubscribed! You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? I scrambled through a couple of cross promotions recently and came to the conclusion I’ve been coming to for a long time: they’re not worth it. Others might disagree, but I’ve seen no increase in my daily sales figures to convince me it’s all worth the effort. Tomorrow I will be on a book stall for a couple of hours at our local British Legion. Some members of our book group (Chindi), will be there at the one day Christmas Market trying to spread some literary cheer in the area. I probably won’t sell any books, but that isn’t always the case. It could turn out entirely different. And on the subject of trying to spread literary cheer, our book group, Chindi, are running a Christmas promotion on ALL our books in the run up to Christmas. Almost all genres will be on sale through our website at reduced prices. So why not pop along to www.facebook.com/pg/chindiauthors/shop and have a look at some of our bargains? I might sell some there too. Wish me luck!

Getting over life's little problems

28th October 2017 Well. I got my PC back from the shop, but had to phone them because it still didn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. Fortunately it was cleared up by the technician over the phone after having to take it back for another session with the techie guys. I was almost back in business, but had to get on with the cross promotion I had agreed to do. Although I thought I had reduced my book for the promotion, it turns out I hadn’t; but I didn’t find out about that until the author’s promoters contacted me. Embarrassing? Yes. But all is well now and the cross promo is running. I’ve only sold one book though so far, so it can’t be making much of an impact out there, can it? For those of you who may want to see which author I am promoting, click the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075R35B5J/ I got back to my WIP and am feeling a little more confident about where I’m going with it. Yesterday I typed about 1000 words, which is a lot for me because I often stop to research something that needs clarifying. But at least I’m making some kind of progress. Another kind of research I was engaged in was preparing my sermon for this Sunday evening at my church. Yes, we have to do research for that as well. I will put a link in my next blog should any of you out there wish to hear what I have to say. Yesterday I watched a video on Mark Dawson’s SPF group. It was a forty minute interview with Adam Croft; another student of Marks, who has sold over a million books on-line. He spoke about the poor sales of his stand-alone novels, and mentioned that the valued opinions out there believe you have to produce a ‘series’ of titles if you are to make a success of self-publishing. Well, he blew that theory out of the water by using BookBub advertising to advertise his ‘eighth’ book. As a result of that, his other books are selling: something they failed to do previously in any great number. I said last week that I would be looking at Amazon ads (AMS), but now I will give BB a go. I’m a member already, so I don’t have to apply to go on BB’s waiting list. This is not a “Featured Deal”, but is similar to FB ads and AMS. It’s worth looking into — for me anyway. Next month, our book group, Chindi, will be advertising great deals for their books coming up to Christmas. Have a look at https://www.facebook.com/chindiauthors. There are some great books there with generous discounts and genres to suit everyone in the family. Looking back over my week, health has figured largely in our lives. Fortunately for me and Pat, nothing too serious. Mind you, having injections in the eye, which my Pat is having, probably is serious. I had a couple of hospital visits: different hospitals, nothing to worry about either. And a friend of ours passed away over the weekend. Losing a loved one is sad news for anyone, but on Tuesday we held our church house group here, and the theme was: Celebrating Janet’s life. We had a lot of laughs and spent a couple of hours in tears of mirth instead of tears of sadness. Oh, and one of my fish died. That was sad. So, next week I begin with preaching at my local church, looking ahead to Christmas (shopping!), getting more pages added on to my WIP and maybe, just maybe, getting to grips with BookBub advertising. Wish me luck!

When Gremlins attack

October 21st. 2017 Just when you think things are running smoothly, a gremlin hops into your daily routine. My PC went belly-up on Tuesday: it wouldn’t boot up. Took it into the shop, got it back on Friday and now I can’t access the internet. I’ll be going back to the shop on Monday to have a “talk” with them. Obviously I’m not without a PC or the internet, but I have to use my laptop, which is not geared up like my main PC. These problems, when they come, always seem to pick the most inopportune moment. I am supposed to be preparing a Newsletter promotion for a fellow author. In return he will be posting about my book, A Dangerous Game. It means seven days of tweets, FB and social media, and now I have to come up with something satisfactory so I don’t fall short of the agreement I made. Another hurdle I have to cross is that my church has asked me to preach on Sunday week (October 29th). No big deal really, but the access I have on line to research the stuff I need is already part of my ‘Favourites’ on the main PC. So now I’ll have to go hunting via my laptop. On top of that, a very close friend of ours has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I had to give up two mornings this week to ferry a very distraught husband in to the hospital. Plus I was asked to sit in with him when the doctor delivered the sad news. His grief, and my friend’s condition, make my problems pall into insignificance. Naturally I have made no progress with my WIP, but it has never been too far from my mind. My foray into Facebook advertising was pretty disappointing too, but I’ll survive the trauma of handing Jeff Bezos (FB founder) my money for so little in return. I will do nothing now until next month because I reached my self-imposed budget limit. I’m thinking of having a look at Amazon ads. According to Mark Dawson, a prolific user of FB and Amazon, they offer a more direct way of directing your potential readers straight on to your Amazon product page. It makes sense: an FB ad asks someone to click a link to an Amazon product, whereas with Amazon Ads, the product appears and the click takes the reader to the place where they can purchase the book. Plus the fact that the product page contains so much more information about the author, the book, the also-boughts, the reviews, and a host of other stuff, which would cost a fortune to place on an FB ad. We took our dog down to the beach for her routine walk this afternoon, but had to turn back because the beach has been battered by the strong winds brought on by “Storm Brian”. I despair of the naming culture for hurricanes and storms etc. The name ‘Brian’ suggests a gentle nature. I have a couple of friends with that name, and neither of them is violent. Why don’t they pick names with connotations of strength and danger? Attila, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon, Brian? Spare me, please. So what happens next week? I might have a serviceable PC, and I might even have got back to my WIP, but whatever happens, as always: wish me luck!

Mystery upon mystery

15th. October 2017 We all like a mystery, right? Well, I was walking along the beach with my dog, Tuppence, the tide was out and just a couple of dog walkers around. I trod on what I thought was a plastic bottle, but when I looked again, it was more like a gun than a discarded piece of plastic. I picked it up. It was quite heavy. There were a couple of dials on it, and also some switches. Plus, a port that looked the same as the one on my phone. It was definitely something electronic. I wondered if it was some kind of signalling device; you know, a short wave transmitter. Perhaps there had been some illegal activity on the beach. Smugglers? I pulled out one of Tuppence’s poo bags and put the device inside, and looked forward to discovering what this mysterious object was. When I got home, I showed it to my wife, but she couldn’t help me out there. So, using my research skills, I went on to Google and began dialling in some of the letters and numbers that were barely discernible on the side of the object. And as I got closer to the truth, I began to wonder what planet I lived on. Am I so far out of it now that I couldn’t recognise an electronic cigarette? A vapour thingy? Ah! Then I thought about how life changes, pulling the rug from under your feet. The world and his dog would have known what it was. But I likened the reality to my Granny and her hearing trumpet. What would she have made of my modern hearing aids? When I smoked years ago it was a packet of cigarettes with twenty fags inside. I’ll just have to keep taking the tablets. Oh, and the vapour thingy has gone into the bin.

Yesterday I went along to Crawley library for their ‘Book Fest’. It was a first for the library, and they made a good show of it too. It was limited to twenty authors (all pre-booked). We had our own allotted space with a small, printed poster attached to the front of the table. I only sold one book: one of my religious books. It was only £1, which is practically the same as giving them away. My son and grandson came along for an hour. They live close by, so that was a bit of a bonus. It was good to meet other writers, many of whom only had one or two books to show. I think I made a mistake by taking too many book along, but it’s all part of the learning curve. I’ll have to remember that “Less is more” in future. I left two of my hardback titles behind for the library. They accept donated books. I don’t know what Facebook are up to, but they suddenly ‘disapproved’ one of my ads for “profanity”. The ad in question was one I ran through September and had been inactive for two weeks, and contained no profanities at all. I let them know in their ‘appeal’ box that they had made a mistake. So why is it that big companies can’t apologise? They sent me a response to say that my ad had been approved and I could view it etc., etc. The ad wasn’t even running! I’m still failing miserably with this advertising game, but I will persevere. Yesterday I had an ‘uptick’ (I like that word) in my sales, so perhaps I’m doing something right. My WIP moved on a notch, and I have managed to get to the fifth character that needs introducing. It’s still early days and I’ve only written about 4000 words. Just 76000 to go and at least eight or nine months maybe. We’ll see. Wish me luck!