Work, work, work. And more work!

Busy week again, but nothing to do with working on my next novel; it’s all about promotion and marketing — the buzz words in the self-publishing game. Can’t do without it unfortunately. It is so time consuming too. During the week I added a few books to Instafreebie and Bookhub. For the Instafreebie site I had to use Calibre to convert to ePub. At first I wasn’t sure I was doing it right, but eventually it all came good and I now have five books uploaded. I have another four to go. I’m also uploading to Bookhub: something I need to do to take advantage of my Gold membership with that site. And at the same time I have been posting as part of a cross promotion with Paula Wynne who runs Bookhub. I will soon have some work to do for Paula Wynne as part of an agreement to work together. Whether any other writers are involved or not, I’ve no idea, but I would imagine there will be a few. With luck it could be a very productive period.

My sales have improved marginally now that the BookBub and ENT promotions have finished. I’m giving some thought to using Mailchimp for advertising on Facebook when I get ready to launch my next book. It’s something new they are pushing. It looks pretty straightforward, but not proven yet.

My Kindle Scout campaign is not making any headway: the results dribble along but I’m nowhere near the “Hot & Trending” level. If you haven’t voted for me yet, I would appreciate it if you would click the link and leave your mark.

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1EC59ZYJLQ07G.

Getting back to the cross promotion I’m doing with Bookhub: this is a free competition to win a bundle of thrillers. The competition runs from the 1st – 7th. February, so there is still time to enter before the closing date. Click the link: http://bit.ly/2kgf3IC Good luck!

My author group, CHINDI, are running an invitation to all Romance writers to participate in a Valentine’s day promotion. This is a first for us as we move into a new format for our group. This is a “toe in the water” attempt to build our fan base, and those Romance writers who take part. If you are interested in taking part as a writer, then have a look at the Chindi website at http://www.chindi-authors.co.uk.

On the domestic front I have been talking to SKY and BT. It’s because I have decided to move from the former to the latter. I’ll save myself about £40 a month, which I could use towards marketing. Wish me luck!

In the Mix

Bit of a bumpy week for me with regard to promotion and marketing. I had a Bookbub promotion, which failed to achieve the results I had hoped for. I have just about covered the cost of my investment, but on the bright side I have been able to reach more than 1000 new readers across the world. I can see the results showing up in India, Canada and Australia, which is like a small, but growing market for me.

The other kind of bumpy promotion is getting my head into gear with respect to a new venture: I have teamed up with author Paula Wynne and agreed to work on a project through her website in return for some valuable, online promotion for a year. This isn’t about just getting my books on a website, but becoming part of a successful writer’s team in the hope that it will open more doors for me. I find it difficult to put my writing head aside and dive into marketing. Paula asked for “savvy social media” partners. Savvy? Me? Well, I’m about to find out.

The other, developing side of the on-line presence is the new direction in which my author group, CHINDI, is going. After a board meeting (sounds important), the changes we thought would be beneficial were put to the members. So far the reaction has been good. The first change comes tomorrow evening when, instead of the usual, formal monthly meeting of the members, we’ll be having a social chat. Those of us who can make it will be meeting up at a restaurant in Chichester for a coffee and natter about what we are up to and how we see the group progressing. I’m hoping to be able to spend a bit of time with Helen Christmas and Christine Hammacot; two authors who will be with me for a talk/seminar during the Chichester Literary Festival. We’ll be talking about writing a crime/mystery novel: the whole aspect from creation to publication. Should be fun.

My Kindle Scout submission seems to be floundering. I spent the first week in the ‘Hot & Trending’ list, but now my ranking there has fallen away. It’s all about putting yourself about on-line and asking (begging) for votes. The problem is: where do you find those people who are not your usual followers? I paid for a small Fiverr.com advert in which the deal was three days of tweeting to something like 150,000 followers. Sounds impressive, but I do have my reservations about the impact Twitter has unless you’re a celebrity. As I’m talking about it, why not vote if you haven’t already done so? https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1EC59ZYJLQ07G.

Once the Kindle Scout submission has finished, I will publish the book and do a bit of advertising. I think by that statement it is clear that I don’t expect an Amazon offer to publish the book. Still got my fingers crossed though.

My promotion for The Devil’s Trinity at £/$0.99 is likely to run for another day or so, and then the price will go up. I’ll be pushing that too, but I think it has just about run its course.

I have received my first instruction from Paula and need to concentrate on what is expected of me, and in return experience the value of this kind of cross-promotion. Wish me luck!

Dates to Remember

There were a few dates I had to remember over the past week: my wife’s birthday, our 57th. wedding anniversary, my older brother’s birthday and my older sister’s birthday. Oh, and there was something else that happened: Donald Trump got sworn in as the 45th. United States President. He’s the only one of that lot who could write a book and guarantee it becoming a best-seller. He wouldn’t need any marketing, and promotion would be a cinch. How nice it would be if I could say that, but as all budding writers know: that isn’t the case.

The latest excitement to hit the author forums is “Cross-promotion”. It’s been brewing for a few months now. I’m planning to take advantage of it (if that’s the right word) and get stuck in to this new wave of book selling. But like all these monthly flavours that come along, I expect this to get swamped and bore readers to death eventually. That won’t stop me jumping on the bandwagon while it’s rolling though; hopefully I will get some good results from it.

My Kindle Scout campaign slumped for a few days. My book was “Hot” for a while, and then it kind of disappeared without trace. Now it’s hot again. I need to look around for more promotion opportunities that won’t break the bank and get more votes. And if you haven’t voted yet, please click the link for me and vote.

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1EC59ZYJLQ07G

I’ve been toying around with an idea for my next book. I tend to wait for inspiration before embarking on any new story, but sadly it isn’t happening yet. I still get amazed and a little envious of those writers who can knock out a novel in a few months. I’m a slow writer generally, and expect to take up to a year to complete a novel, but in this day and age of digital publishing, speed could be something of a bonus — except for one caveat: quality. I would probably lose any quality I might possess in my writing if I tried to complete a novel in less than four months, and that would be a bad thing.

Another event that took place during the week was our Chindi book group meeting, only with a slight difference: it was yours truly and two other writers, Christopher Joyce and Carol Thomas, meeting as directors of the group’s official company (CIC), to formulate a new structure and explore the way forward. We have also re-jigged the logo CHINDI to mean “Celebrating and helping independent writers”. The idea was to drop the parochial stance of the group and become more global. This is so we can reach out to other writers who want help and advice, and who are willing to offer the same in return for us already established within the group. We managed to come up with a ten point plan that hopefully will be challenging as well as rewarding for us all.

I dropped the price of The Devil’s Trinity (£0.99/$0.99) today in readiness for my Bookbub promotion on Wednesday. Wish me luck!