Make the most of everything …
I always said 2020 was going to be my year. That is the books either made their break, or fizzled out. The news is: I think it’s going to be a year like every other, where I get through, sell some books and wake up in 2021. Why do I say that? Well I told you about of Black Bulls and White Horse (of which, I am currently 6/20 chapters through a final edit) and how I’ve sent it to three other opportunities who will not come back to me before the end of November, a month, which if I remember, is very close to the end of the year.
The Sam Green series continue to sell, with the numbers up a bit to, say, 50 a month. But the extra books in the series are not, as you might think, commensurately increasing sales. It’s a modest increase and you still can’t count on it and you never know what’s going to happen next. But, in light of 2020 being my year, I have advertised The Innocence of Trust via Facebook, something I’ve not tried for four years. Advertising via FB can be very surgical, but it’s also very arcane. It took me two attempts to get £30 of advertising (last of the big spenders) right … and, so far they tell me 14 people have clicked on the link to Amazon. And, you’ve guessed it, no sales. I know this because I chose to market in the US … and there have been no US sales.
So what? Well, next weekend I’m going to try the same spend (still last of the big spenders), this time using Amazon marketing and see if I have any luck. If nothing happens, I’ll offer the book for free the following weekend … which I now will mean about 300 copies leave the shelves. That, in turn, might attract some further interest, we’ll see. Of course I still have Unsuspecting Hero‘s audio book to get out there, and I’d have hoped that would be done by Christmas. So there are still some opportunities.
But my problem is, I’m just about to kick off with book seven. And when that’s starts, there is no room for anything else; certainly no room for any deep thoughts about marketing etc. 2020 may, alas, not be my year.
[image error]mmm. Hope the grandson’s a boy …
What else have we been up to? We left Mary’s on Friday, spent yesterday getting our lives together, popped up to Jen and James for lunch today and, between times, I’ve been running and editing. We have some more admin to do tomorrow, including getting our poop in a sock for South Korea (we aim to fly at the beginning of the second week of October; Bex is due at the end of the month and we will have to self-isolate in a government facility fot two weeks on arrival) as well as prepping Doris for about four weeks away somewhere up north … but not Scotland. It’ll be Christmas before you know it.
And that’s the danger. I know this year has been crazy, but another Christmas is another year – and neither of us are getting any younger. So, deep breath, notwithstanding this shitty disease, the prospect of impoverishment from Brexit and the constant fear that we are being governed by an inept and uncaring bunch of self-interested wasters, we must continue to make the most of what we have.
So there. Make the most of everything you have, It’s an order.
