Adventures in Self-Publishing (5)
Hello, and welcome back once again to my blog about my writing journey so far. Thanks for taking a look. So what news does he have this time, you ask!
Sales of The Broken Doll have climbed a little since running a half price offer but it does feel as though there is a long way to go. As great as self-publishing is, it has opened the floodgates and the amount of competition out there is incredible with over 5 million ebooks being available on Amazon. It seems that the only way to get the book pushed higher in the rankings is to obtain more reviews, something I am finding very difficult to get. As of today, I still have 8 reviews on Amazon, there is one on GoodReads, one on Kobo. 9 out of the ten are 5 star which is fab.
I have been (slowly) plodding along with my sequel to The Broken Doll, currently almost on track and the first draft of Chapter 11 should be complete by the end of today. Keeping to my writing plan will mean that I have a release date in early August for this, although I have no idea on a title yet.
My mailing list is slowly growing and this seems like the best way to build an audience. I only send an email each fortnight with some updates and there are some exclusive giveaways in the pipeline as well. If you want to sign up then either send me an email first, to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com, or message me through this site, or any of my social media accounts.
I am yet to see if anything has been gained by running the giveaway on GoodReads which ended on April 30th. 229 people entered and I posted 3 signed paperbacks yesterday. I’m hoping that this will garner a couple more reviews at least (I sent a little note to this effect with the books.) It is encouraging to see that 97 people in the GoodReads community have marked The Broken Doll as ‘to-read’, potentially meaning that there are sales to come.
On the topics of both reviews and my email list, I have enrolled the ebook on Instafreebie, a site that I was not familiar with until a few days ago. This makes the book free to anyone who uses the site, available currently until the end of May. The benefit for myself is that, in order to get the free copy, they must subscribe to my mailing list. It seemed like a reasonable investment (I really don’t like giving my work away for nothing!) as it should, fingers crossed, help to build a list of readers that will be interested in future works. If you would like your free ebook then please do visit https://www.instafreebie.com/free/C4PUj and, who knows, maybe it will lead to some of those ever-elusive reviews!
You may remember from my previous blogs that I had set up a page on Patreon, whereby people can subscribe for exclusive material. Subscriptions start at just $1 a month (about 80p) and give you access to short stories which are not available anywhere else! The first short story available on there at the moment is Dream Catcher, as short horror tale. A second short horror, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, was uploaded on May 1st. I have now had a play about with the rewards on offer, having looked about at some other writer’s pages. So, in order to shamelessly plug the page, here is what you can get;
$1 a month gets you access to a short story each month. (These are exclusive to Patreon and cannot be found anywhere else)
$5 a month gets you the previous reward PLUS a free ebook of The Broken Doll
$10 a month gets you the rewards for $5 PLUS exclusive access to rough drafts of my works in progress
(And if you’re feeling super generous!) $25 a month gets you all of the above PLUS a signed paperback to treasure for all time
I’d be hugely appreciative if you felt able to pledge even just a little to the page, and would love to hear any feedback on the stories so far. www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
I think that is all for this time, feel free to get in touch if you have any comments or questions, it’s good to connect!
Peter
Sales of The Broken Doll have climbed a little since running a half price offer but it does feel as though there is a long way to go. As great as self-publishing is, it has opened the floodgates and the amount of competition out there is incredible with over 5 million ebooks being available on Amazon. It seems that the only way to get the book pushed higher in the rankings is to obtain more reviews, something I am finding very difficult to get. As of today, I still have 8 reviews on Amazon, there is one on GoodReads, one on Kobo. 9 out of the ten are 5 star which is fab.
I have been (slowly) plodding along with my sequel to The Broken Doll, currently almost on track and the first draft of Chapter 11 should be complete by the end of today. Keeping to my writing plan will mean that I have a release date in early August for this, although I have no idea on a title yet.
My mailing list is slowly growing and this seems like the best way to build an audience. I only send an email each fortnight with some updates and there are some exclusive giveaways in the pipeline as well. If you want to sign up then either send me an email first, to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com, or message me through this site, or any of my social media accounts.
I am yet to see if anything has been gained by running the giveaway on GoodReads which ended on April 30th. 229 people entered and I posted 3 signed paperbacks yesterday. I’m hoping that this will garner a couple more reviews at least (I sent a little note to this effect with the books.) It is encouraging to see that 97 people in the GoodReads community have marked The Broken Doll as ‘to-read’, potentially meaning that there are sales to come.
On the topics of both reviews and my email list, I have enrolled the ebook on Instafreebie, a site that I was not familiar with until a few days ago. This makes the book free to anyone who uses the site, available currently until the end of May. The benefit for myself is that, in order to get the free copy, they must subscribe to my mailing list. It seemed like a reasonable investment (I really don’t like giving my work away for nothing!) as it should, fingers crossed, help to build a list of readers that will be interested in future works. If you would like your free ebook then please do visit https://www.instafreebie.com/free/C4PUj and, who knows, maybe it will lead to some of those ever-elusive reviews!
You may remember from my previous blogs that I had set up a page on Patreon, whereby people can subscribe for exclusive material. Subscriptions start at just $1 a month (about 80p) and give you access to short stories which are not available anywhere else! The first short story available on there at the moment is Dream Catcher, as short horror tale. A second short horror, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, was uploaded on May 1st. I have now had a play about with the rewards on offer, having looked about at some other writer’s pages. So, in order to shamelessly plug the page, here is what you can get;
$1 a month gets you access to a short story each month. (These are exclusive to Patreon and cannot be found anywhere else)
$5 a month gets you the previous reward PLUS a free ebook of The Broken Doll
$10 a month gets you the rewards for $5 PLUS exclusive access to rough drafts of my works in progress
(And if you’re feeling super generous!) $25 a month gets you all of the above PLUS a signed paperback to treasure for all time
I’d be hugely appreciative if you felt able to pledge even just a little to the page, and would love to hear any feedback on the stories so far. www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
I think that is all for this time, feel free to get in touch if you have any comments or questions, it’s good to connect!
Peter
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