Looking Good

September 2022. Looking Good.

The month of August was quite a busy month for me. Now that the jigsaw of my life was being put together slowly, I was able to get on with my latest book and I eventually finished it. I had to change my routines for this. I gave up buying a newspaper and consciously reduced the amount of time I spend sitting on my backside watching TV. I was surprised just how much writing I could accomplish, and how much time I had to deal with unexpected diversions.

I gave up some of my time to paint my neighbour, Jackie’s fence. My side needed doing (it’s a trellis fence), so when I knew Jackie planned to pay someone to do her side, I told her I would do it for nothing. She’s going to buy me dinner though. The start of that job was delayed because I was getting over Covid. Fortunately the weather was okay; the heatwave hadn’t arrived.

I was also fortunate enough to spend some time with two of my sons, Vincent and John, having lunch with their families at Port Solent. It has been years since I was there, but it was good. I also managed a lunch date with my sister-in-law, Carole and her husband, David.

I started another advertising campaign on Amazon, but my efforts have been abysmal. So much so that I binned the campaign after a couple of weeks. I have now started the Amazon Ads Course again (paid for it years ago) and hope I can enjoy more success with that. I also plan to go through the TikTok training. I am posting on TikTok, and my granddaughter, Sarah, has given me some pointers with posting on TikTok and Instagram without the latter rejecting the former. Something to do with TikTok’s watermark. I have read on my Facebook groups of amazingly spectacular results with TikTok, so I’m persuaded it’s the right way to go. Naturally I will continue with AMS.

Other aspects of my writing which are looking up is a project I’ve started and spent a little time on. There’s nothing to reveal about this because it hasn’t been completed yet. With regard to my novel, I have completed the editing and formatting of the manuscript but have engaged a professional book jacket designer to do the jacket for me. I did think about doing the jacket myself, but having come across this designer by chance, I decided to let him do the work. His prices were good: not as much as I paid for The Boy from Berlin. The irony is that I am currently redesigning my book jacket for A Covert War and using Photoshop to do it.

But the biggest part of my month, and a kind of welcome change, was to pick up my friend, Pauline, from her home in Lincolnshire and bring her down here for a week of travelling around, sightseeing, visiting family and enjoying what the countryside has to offer. Pat and I first met Pauline and her husband, Brian, in Spain twenty five years ago. We were great friends while they lived there and continued that friendship when we returned to England. Sadly, we are both on our own now. Brian died a couple of months after my lovely Pat. We chat each week on Facetime, and I have been up to Lincolnshire a couple of times, including bringing Pauline down here last year. Tempus Fugit.

Back in the book world again, I went to the Bognor Writers’ Club for their monthly meeting. It’s part of my attempts to make connections. I also popped into the bookshop in Bognor Regis where a local author, Peter Redford was holding a small event. I spent about fifteen minutes chatting with Peter and bought one of his books. I also left some of my books with the owner of the bookshop who has managed to sell a few of mine over the last few months.

I have also posted a new campaign on Amazon for The Eagle’s Covenant. The book happens to have the highest number of reviews in the UK and the USA, and the highest average star rating of 4.5 of all my titles. But the number of reviews is abysmal compared to most other popular thriller writers. Consequently I am using Janet Margo’s instructions in building a campaign as a ‘novice’, using Ad Groups and committing a big budget. Janet used to work at Amazon on the advertising panel, so she knows what she’s talking about. Naturally I have to look at what’s happening each day, otherwise I could be spending money pointlessly. I feel this could be my last chance at understanding AMS Ads and know how to negotiate the minefield out there in an effort to attract readers and book sales.

Looking back, it seems like I’m on the mend; but believe me, it’s hard without my Pat. I still miss her, and I’m sure she’s encouraged that I’m managing to put some meaning back into my life. Onward and upward hopefully.

Wish me luck!

A Welcome Change

(Blog post for August 2022)

The month of July has witnessed a definite change in the way in which I have started to turn my life around. The impact of the Writers Retreat in Ireland in June, together with the Self-Publishing Live show in London, has been the reason for this. I needed to find a way of changing my routine so I could devote more time to writing, marketing and promotion. The first thing I did was to stop buying a newspaper. It is amazing how much time can be wasted reading unwelcome news, pages of adverts and moaning about nothing worth reading in the papers these days.

The next thing was to stop watching so much TV and to spend more time writing. Once I had got used to this idea, I found myself sometimes writing in the evening with just the radio on. I do watch TV of course but try diligently to watch only particular programmes. Naturally, I still have to deal with normal routines: gardening, housework, walking the dog, going to church etc., and there are breaks when I am invited to share time with the family.

So what have I achieved to date? I made the decision to rewrite my current WIP after a one to one with my Publisher, Rhonda, in Ireland. It meant starting from the beginning of my 40,000 words and approaching it from a different angle. So far I have produced 50,000 words and have now worked out a sequence of events that will complete the story and bring me to my usual target of 80,000 words. If I continue at my current rate of progress, I could have the book ready by Christmas. We will see.

Promotion and marketing? Well, last month I told you how I sold about sixty-five books on Facebook using a David Gaughran video as a guide. I continued with that and sold another twenty-five books before the campaign faded away. I did another ad on FB, but achieved nothing with that, so I have switched to Amazon Ads. Not too sure about that though.

I have also run a FREE book campaign with Hello Books. That finished July 31st, and over the three days of the promo I have given away around seven hundred books. The title is Where the Wicked Dwell. The book will be free for a few more days on my Amazon Product page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WD8988W.

Alongside those efforts, I have submitted Hell’s Gate for a standard, short campaign, with Author Glow. I’ve no idea how that will go, but for me now, it is all about immersing myself in the book world and getting my ‘mojo’ back.

On the downside, the result of my two weeks away meant I ended up with Covid. Six days positive followed by what is often referred to as ‘Long Covid’. It was no fun and seriously curtailed my involvement in most things, although I did manage to write.

But beneath all the good and uplifting news, I still miss my lovely Pat. I am managing that; meanwhile the book world is like a metaphor for a crutch that supports me as I try to live my life as normally as I can. I will keep plugging away.

Wish me luck!

Finding my Mojo

July 2022 Blog

For those of you who wondered what happened to my June blog: I didn’t write one. Looking back, I know I was going downhill in my mind, thinking a great deal about Pat, and letting it affect my whole outlook. I guess it’s an element of the grieving process too. Another aspect of my convoluted mind was the upcoming June holiday and the need to shake off my mental chains and flee the marital home: twelve days away in the world of books, which is an environment in which I can survive without trauma. I came home today, June 30th, filled with a huge kaleidoscope of thoughts, imaginings, and revelations. And just a little daunted on what I hope to achieve if I can possibly change my daily routines.

The first eight days of my break were spent in Ireland at a small town called Headford in County Galway. It was a writers’ retreat organised by my American Publisher, The Wild Rose Press. It was a combination of daily workshops and touring in a private bus, which included not just old castles and ruined Abbeys, but also some Irish Craic and an hilarious night in Galway. And what made this so unique in some respects was that I was the only Englishman among thirteen American women. I was lucky to get a one-to-one with the CEO (pre-planned), and also an excellent one-to-one with their marketing guru, Samantha. Brilliant stuff.

I arrived back in London on Sunday ready for the Self-Publishing Live Show at the Southbank Centre. It was a two day conference with 700 authors attending. There was a party on the first evening with a band, which didn’t help too much because of my hearing, but I managed to chat with four other writers, and that helped break the ice. The presentations were really good, handled very professionally and packed with the kind of information that can only feed the imagination with what is possible if you are prepared to work at it. One thing that became very clear (to me anyway), was that the pandemic didn’t just blow the world apart, but it blew the book sales figures into the stratosphere. It didn’t help me though because that was the point where I gave up writing and promoting to nurse my wife. So in that respect I missed the bus. But I do know, because of my writing history and my product, I am sitting on a potential fortune. All I have to do is find the right shovel and learn how to dig it out. Now that I have spent twelve days inside the world of books and writers, I feel more inclined to pick up where I left off three years ago and see if I can make it happen.

Coming back to the ‘real’ world, I need to think about how I’ll be repositioning myself in terms of dealing with the normal, day to day things that we all have to deal with, and also to get my brain into gear; to get my ‘mojo’ back. One thing I will continue with is advertising. I started a Facebook ad campaign at the beginning of May, using David Gaughran excellent advice, and sold sixty five copies of my book A Dangerous Game. I also sold other titles on the D2D Aggregator where all my books are available. I allowed the advert to run again for June and have sold 25 copies. I expected it to tail away like that, but it has given me the inspiration to create another ad for another book to run through July. I will also think about running something with Amazon.

Perhaps I will find the right shovel. Wish me luck!