Disingenuous freeloaders

I have to start this week’s blog with a little rant against the freebie again. I mentioned two readers last week who had won a copy of my ebook, The Eagle’s Covenant. A day or so after writing that piece, one of the ebooks was downloaded from Instafreebie. Three days ago a second was downloaded. This told me that the winners had picked up their prize. I didn’t end the giveaway there and then, knowing I had only given the free link to two people. Yesterday I discovered that the book had been downloaded four times. I ended the giveaway straight away. It suggests to me that one of those winners passed on the link to others, which is against the spirit of the free book idea; the link was not theirs to give away. So be it, but I will keep a closer eye on this practice in future.

I made some small inroad into my current WIP. I said in my last post that figuring out a back story was almost like writing a novel, but I bit the bullet and persevered. I was amused by a post I read today on an author forum where a question was posed on what is making us happy today. One writer was excited because she had book 4 being published, book 5 with her content editor, book 6 with another professional and book 4 (yes) being prepped for something else. I got exhausted just reading that. Where do these people get their ideas and stamina from? Must be my age because I can never see a novel taking less than a year to write.

I was once told by my London publisher that there are only about nine stories you can write, but many, many ways of telling them. My current effort is about a girl going missing. No, it isn’t Gone Girl, but simply another slant on a missing person. She is sixteen years old and the daughter of a notorious London crime boss. Sounds exciting? No, not yet, but it’s my job to make it so. How do I do that? If there’s a recipe book out there about writing the perfect plot, let me know please. Meanwhile I’ll struggle to come up with something to stretch between the beginning and the end.

My venture into Facebook advertising doesn’t look too promising at the moment. One of my ads achieved an audience relevance of eight, which is good, and the other ad was wilting fast. I tried a tweak and immediately lost the plot. So much for carefully following the good advice I found in Michael Cooper’s book. I will persevere and make every effort not to give Facebook too much of my money.

This time next week I will have spent four hours at the Crawley Library book fest trying to persuade people to by my paperback books and maybe even venture into my electronic pile and download some ebooks. But at least I will be meeting people who are there because they are book readers, and are interested in talking to some real live authors. After that I will be meeting my son for a spot of lunch, and that’s a bonus. Hopefully I’ll be able to brag about how many books I sold. Wish me luck!

Writing in a straitjacket

I finished setting up my Facebook advert using Michael Cooper’s advice. Some of you may wonder why I haven’t stuck with Mark Dawson. I wonder that myself sometimes, because so many authors on his forum seem to do so well with his course. I did double my subscribers list last year using Mark’s instructions, so, yes, it works.

However, with Michael Cooper’s approach, it opens up FB advertising in a different and unexpected way. For example, he insists you must never, never use your book jacket to advertise the book. I squirmed over this but he was insistent. And you can’t really argue with a guy who sells thousands of books a week and does this by some pretty forensic work on his adverts. To give you an idea of what I mean, you can see from the image what my ad will look like. Doesn’t make sense, right? But I have to go along with it for a while. If you can’t see the image, click this link: bit.ly/2yzwyqa. I have created two adverts: one for women over 35 in UK, and one for men. I’ll run both adverts for about three days and keep an eye on the metrics. If it fails, I’ll switch to USA, but I won’t hang on too long for results.

I began work on a new, Marcus Blake thriller during the week. I spent some time fleshing out a back story which will be revealed piece by piece as the plot develops. One of the problems I found was that by sketching out a short synopsis of characters, events and reasons why, I found I was literally developing a story on its own. I did think for a moment that I ought to go down that route, but then I remembered that this is supposed to be a Marcus Blake thriller, and that’s what sells — one character in a series of books. So I’ll stick to this literary straightjacket I’m in and hope for the best. I’m still a million miles away from coming up with a plot that’s convincing and “different”. Oh, and this is supposed to be a psychological thriller: something new for me.

My book sales have just about flat-lined, but once I begin the Facebook project, I’m hoping to see a definite change. I’ve hooked up with another author for a promotion, but these generally produce very little. It’s simply a case of trying and hoping. I received an e-mail from an author who ran a competition which included two ebooks from me. I was given the email addresses of the two ‘lucky’ winners, and duly sent them the link for their prize. Two days later and nothing has been downloaded from Instafreebie, and I have had no acknowledgement from them either.

I’m loathe to give away books now. Over the years I have given away about 50,000 books, which may have improved my readership, but it’s something you can’t quantify. I’m fast coming to the conclusion that it’s a waste of time and leads to very little in the way of author/reader connection. So, no more freebies unless I’m persuaded that something might come of it. Am I living in hopes? Maybe, but whatever I do, wish me luck!

Three in a bed

I should write comedy novels. All you have to do is hire a motorhome, take yourself, the wife and the dog away with you and let the research take care of itself. One thing we didn’t have in our possession was years of camping experience. Looking at the other happy campers we came across, I decided that their stoicism is what we need when it comes to defending the rights and principles of our glorious nation (Brexit!). They all smiled! I think they must have all been treated to a facelift at some time to make sure the smile remains fixed despite the weather and the conditions. And they all gave me the impression that they wouldn’t be beaten, whatever they came up against. The dog didn’t complain too much. She wasn’t too sure, and just to be on the safe side she decided our bed was much better than hers. So we ended up as three in the bed, cold, sleepless and wondering how, if ever, it could improve. We did manage though, and made the best of a “challenging” job. The end result was that we cut our holiday short by a day and got back to enjoy our comfortable bed, decent shower, cooked grub. Churchill once said, “Never give up”. I say, “Never again”.

Although I wasn’t able to devote my time to writing, I did manage to read a novel by Claire Francis (Dark Devotion). She made a name for herself by sailing round the world single handed. When she wrote her first thriller (Night Sky, I think), I read it and was surprised at how good she was. If there are any budding writers out there wanting to know how to craft a novel, they could learn a great deal from a master at work by reading one of her novels.

I thought about my WIP while I was away, and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I will not finish the book. For that reason I have set it aside and will think of something else to occupy my mind on the literary front. I will continue to promote and advertise, but with a measure of control that has been a little lacking recently. I intend using Facebook again, but not until I have finished Michael Cooper’s book on the subject. I’ll probably have to read it twice, because I need to ensure I come close to the advice he is giving out.

I kept my eye on my book sales too. I sold none over a period of five days, probably because the FB ads had finished. But yesterday I sold six. It’s amazing how such a small number can get you excited. I don’t expect too much now, until I start advertising again. I need to wait until next month because of my self-imposed budget limit. If I exceed that, I’ll be pouring good money down the drain. And my wife will divorce me. Probably keep the dog though.

Those of you who have read my bio on my author’s page will know I published a religious book based on my conversion to Christianity. I preached at different fellowships when we lived in Spain: something I never believed I would be capable of. Once we returned to England, I assumed my preaching would come to an end. But God moves in mysterious ways (so they say), and I have been asked to join the preaching team at my local church. We’ve been attending for about two years now, so it’s probably about enough time for people to get to know us. Some people might wonder how I can justify my position as a preacher and a thriller writer at the same time, but I feel no conflict. If you’re curious about my “other side”, why not have a look at my book, A Word in Your Ear (How God changed my retirement plans). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EA6LWUQ.

So what next? A small promotion for Hell’s Gate today — price reduction to £0.99. A cross promotion coming up during October, but before that, more reading on Facebook advertising. Let’s hope I get to grips with it. Wish me luck!