Frustration doesn't even cut it!

November ended possibly a little better than it started for me in terms of production rather than sales. When I published my latest crime thriller, A Song in the Night, I saw an immediate uptake in reaction to my Facebook ads and started seeing a constant increase in page reads. I also sold seven, plus a few of my other titles. Here we go, I thought: big Oak trees from little acorns grow. But it cost a lot of money for what I was getting, so I switched to Amazon ads and the bottom fell out of my book world. Nothing — zilch. I was getting no reaction, no page reads and, consequently, I wasn’t spending any money. But the annoying irony is that I started getting downloads for my WW2 story, Shadow of the Wolf, which I’d put on D2D as a free book. In a little over a month I have given away sixty two of those with no advertising.

My next plan was to launch two brand new, identical Amazon campaigns in UK and USA. After four days I have just almost 5000 impressions and three clicks. No-one is interested enough in the book jacket and blurb to even click and see what they think. So, the bonus is I’m still not spending any money, but I’m stagnating in the book market. I don’t know what the answer is yet, but as a side bet, I’ve purchased two Cyber Monday deals (it’s Thursday as I write this) on Kindle Book Review, who I’ve used in the past, for A Song in the Night, and The Devil’s Trinity. Incidentally, I sell more of the latter on D2D than all my other books — and that is with no advertising.

Beyond all that though, I’ve been busy. I used the NaNoWriMo month to complete a Romance; something I have never written as a standalone novel. But the difference is, it will be published under the pen name, Emma Carney. Why? You may ask. Well, it seems I can get no traction with my own name, and goodness knows I have been around a long time, so I thought, why not? Someone may like my love story enough to buy a copy. I’ve ordered a proof copy, which is due to arrive next week, so I expect, hope, to have it ready in time for publishing by Christmas.

My other life, that which fills most of my days and routines, continues in a fairly mundane pattern with occasional interruptions, happy ones of course, with family visits, phone calls, chats etc. The rain has tormented us on the south coast, reaching daily levels far in excess of previous records. We’ve had local flooding, but nothing like we have seen on the National and World news.

I began preparing for Christmas and wrote up all my Christmas cards. These, apart for a few, have been posted or delivered by hand. After that, I dragged the Christmas tree out of the loft and began decorating that. I’m not as creative in that department as I am in the book world, but I try.

Another diversion for me (and millions of other people) is the Football World Cup. I hope, like a good book, it has a happy ending for the English fans.

One other thing in passing. I was described as “Gifted” in the Financial Times years ago. Last night I watched the BBC documentary on Christine McVie; the singer, songwriter and keyboard player with the band, Fleetwood Mac, who passed away earlier this week. Now, she was “Gifted”.

What now for me? More attempts at reaching for the stars I suppose. I’ll be going to a book event in Arundel tomorrow. I know a few of the authors who will be there. It’s something I would have done before my lovely wife passed away, but not anymore. So, I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and a terrific New Year.

Stay safe.

Ups and Downs for October

A lot of stuff happened to me during the month of October: some good, some not so good. None of the downs were life threatening, nor were the ups come to that. I published my latest crime thriller, A Song in the Night, and ordered a proof copy. I couldn’t believe how many errors there were, considering I’d read through it twice before publishing, but such is the life of a writer. I edited again and uploaded the new manuscript. Once I was happy with it, I produced the eBook. And that’s were it went off the rails again. There were no table of contents (ToC) in the book, even though I included a ToC in the manuscript. Always have done and never had a problem. I contacted KDP Support and was advised that I needed a “Logical ToC”. It’s something new I guess, but why did KDP have to change something that worked fine? I did try to figure it out using KDP’s instructions and advice from Google, but I’m still scratching my head over that.

I decided to promote my latest book on Bargain Booksy, using a promotion company I’d watched on an SPF Podcast. Promises were made of course, but I sold nothing. I pointed this out on their Social Media platform and, surprise, surprise: I received an apology and my money back.

Next up was a threat of legal action from an American finance Company who keep the accounts for D2D, an aggregator I have used for about five years. It seems I used the wrong name for my tax return, so my account was suspended, fraud was hinted at and the threat of legal proceedings against me. And all my books were delisted. Fortunately, I posted a warning on the SPF Facebook Group and Mark Dawson, the administrator, contacted one of the D2D staff. I received an email from them. They didn’t even know this had happened. Eventually the error was corrected (by them) and all my books republished. Phew!

Then my banking app stopped working because HSBC were very excited to introduce a better way of accessing the online bank. It meant I was unable to view my account or even have control. I went into the bank here in Bognor and fortunately, the lady behind the glass took my phone off me and fifteen minutes later I was back in the new and “Exciting” world promised by the bank. Why do they do this? It all worked fine, so why change it?

Can you remember what you signed for three years ago? Me neither. I received an email from my Web provider, Wix, to let me know that they would be taking £300 out of my bank for my premium account. This would be for another three years. After a spell of apoplexy, I checked back through my Website editor and found that I had agreed to this in November 2019. It was only £2 per week. Nothing, eh? Until you forget and they want to lift £300 out of your bank. So, I grinned and put up with it.

So you see: all those ‘downs’ were not life threatening but did get me stirred up. Not something I need at my age. Oh, I forgot. Went to take Tuppence down the beach for the morning walk and found I had a flat tyre. I decided to take Tuppence round the village and change the tyre when I got back, but I couldn’t undo the nuts! Nothing I did would shift them, so I had to call Green Flag. A guy came out from the garage and five minutes later I was mobile again.

But on to some positives now. My latest book, A Song in the Night, is now available, but only on Kindle Unlimited. I thought I would give it try. In three weeks I have picked up almost 2000 page reads. That’s the equivalent of about four book sales. It’s an encouraging start, bolstered by advertising on Facebook of course. I have also sold ten copies so far (eBook and print), plus I have sold five other books; one of which was my box set. I’ve had the box set on KDP for about five years and only ever sold one copy I think. But it was a nice surprise to think, maybe, the interest in my latest book may have pointed readers to my website and my other titles.

Another ‘positive’ in a way was the decision I made to promote my Christian Narrative. I realised that as much as I like to see some benefit from advertising, it has always been my works of fiction (apart from My Pat, a love story) that I’ve promoted. I thought to myself that if I want God to open doors for me, I really ought to promote my Christian book: A Word in Your Ear (how God changed my retirement plans). So I now have ads for that on Amazon, but in the USA at the moment. Probably hoping to get some sales for that in the Bible Belt down south.

This month is NaNoWriMo for authors around the world. It’s for anybody really. It stands for National November Writers Month (I think). The idea is to produce 50,000 words in four weeks. Although it’s a peculiar kind of arrangement, the idea is to write 2000 words a day knowing that there are others alongside you, all over the world, doing the same thing. I actually did a thirty minute ‘sprint’ with three other authors on my laptop and about 50,000 in the SPF group on the first day. But I had to admit that I was already 36000 words ahead because I’d started a new project: writing a romance under a pseudonym. The word count for that currently stands at 46000. The first draft will be finished well before the end of the month, but I will be going back to the beginning and rewriting where I can. Eventually I hope to have the completed novel at 60,000 words when November comes to an end.

Wish me luck!

Coming Soon!

Last month was something of a revelation for me with regard to my word output, but not so much for my advertising skills. Looking back through my September blog, I see that I promoted The Eagle’s Covenant on Amazon and binned it. I went back to Amazon Ads, and using Janet Margo’s instructions, I rebuilt the campaign. Janet is an ex Amazon advertising exec and has joined Mark Dawson’s group to help update his Ads Course. Hey Ho! I thought; this should be good. I followed her advice to the letter, even submitting five separate ads and setting a budget across the five ads at £300 each (1500 total). This included a Lock screen ad, which is not usually useful for unknown authors like me. Janet warns about that, but her advice was to give it a try. So I did. Results since the 7th September? Zilch! Despite 37,500 impressions on Lock screen and 300 across the remaining adds. I got 77 clicks on Lock screen and 2 clicks on one other ad., but no sales. I spent just over $17. Says it all really, doesn’t it?

The resultant connection with The Book Typesetters and their design for my new book jacket has produced a brilliant cover. I’m so pleased with it that I just had to include a thumbnail image here. I’m waiting for a Proof copy before publishing it: something I hope to do as a pre-order for November 1st. I will go back to Amazon and Facebook to promote it but have promised myself to be a little more circumspect when framing my campaign.

As a result of changing my routine and creating more time to write, I have completed and published a short autobiography about the two years following the loss of my lovely Pat. I’ve called it What Happened After. It won’t be promoted; I simply felt compelled to write it and send copies to my family and friends. That was a 17000 word booklet.

But not stopping there, I gave some thought to writing a Police Procedural crime novel. I downloaded two crime novelists who I know a great deal about and read their work. It didn’t take me long to realise that police procedurals are literally all dialogue. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get out of that particular straitjacket. I often tell people who say they want to write a book, that they should “Write as you can, not as you can’t.” By not following my own advice, I fell at the first hurdle. Mind you, knowing me, I’ll probably try again, particularly as I have a great opening scene for a crime thriller.

However, still ignoring my own advice, I needed to do something having spent a lot of time finishing two books, so I started on a Romance. It’s just for fun really, and I will use a pen name. I’ve tried several names so far, but none of them seem to click. The one I’ve eventually settled on is Emma Carney. I’m not even sure I’ll use that one, but we’ll see. So far I have written 20,000 words. My daily target, which I had to trim because I wasn’t getting any work done in the house, was 2000 words a day. (I do get work done in the house of course!). My average so far is 1500 words a day. At this rate I’ll have another book available by Christmas.

I’m still planning to use TikTok as a platform for my work. I need to go through the course again, but I have posted videos there already, so I’m not a complete novice.. I’m waiting for my book to be available before I go daft and promote the hell out of it.

Other events during the month were lunch dates with my family and relatives. A trip to the Bognor Writers’ Group. That clashed with the England V. Germany game, but thankfully I was able to watch the recording. Dog walks, domestic duties, gardening (killing weeds really), running my church House Group, and trying to polish up my piano playing skills on my Clavinova. Life can be full, but underneath it all, it can be difficult too.

So what next for Michael Parker? Who knows? I might change course and become a painter, a musician, a dog walker. The world’s my oyster. Wish me luck!