What a busy week!

The Audiobook is Live!

It’s out now and sales are strong, although the reporting system is very slow, only updating ever 1-3 days. Here’s the details I released yesterday.

The audiobook is available to buy around the world on Audible, Amazon and through iTunes. I’ve tried a few times to figure out the royalties, but it varies so much I’ll have to wait until the first confirmed numbers come in, then I’ll share the details.

I get 25 promotional credits for Audible.co.uk which I’m trying to decide how to use them. I set up a giveaway yesterday, details in the above link and I will be using some for audiobook reviewers, when I can find them!

New Mailing List

Which brings me nicely to my next news. I’ve finally set up a mailing list via Mailchimp. It was super easy to set up the landing page and a pop up on my page for In The End. I’m not sure if I’m also going to add it to my blog posts as it may get annoying, especially for those frequent visitors.

The mailing list will be used for announcements, special offers and release news for my novels and short fiction etc. I will of course be continuing to blog but the content will be separate to the mailing, which is more commercially focused.

Here’s the link if you want to sign up. Remember if you’re in the UK then you could win a copy of my audiobook. For everyone else I will be running cross-territory promotions in the near future.

Signing Events

Still on a high from the success of last Saturday, I’ve already agreed and provided Reading WHSmith with six A4 posters to put around the store, at the entrances and at the till. I’ve submitted a story to the local paper and a local ‘What’s On’ website.

I’ve also been contacted by a retired WHSmith store manager following my After Action Report for Uxbridge, along with praise for the amount of preparation work I put in, he gave me some great advice which I hope to put into action next week. Details to follow after the event.

I have also confirmed another signing event for my home town, Slough, Berkshire, on 30th March. I’ll put out a full announcement once it’s live on the WHSmith website. I’m going to take another look at my schedule for April and see if I can target a few more stores in a slightly wider area.

My Books are in a Bookstore!

After a tip from someone I met at the signing event, I spoke with the manager of the bookshop and we agreed terms (33 1/3%) and I hand-delivered two books plus a load of bookmarks and my book business cards. They’re on sale or return so we’ll have to see what happens. I asked him for an interview for my blog but he wasn’t interested. The shop is a little ‘retro’ shall we say, but there were actually customers in the store so watch this space…

Before The End Progress

The third edit is going well. This time wrapping up the last of the grammar issues that I can spot and filling in any little gaps in the plots and closing off questions I know are not answered later on, like what happened to the manacles around her ankles that were there a scene ago? By the end of next week I hope to have it off to the development editor for feedback.

Before The End Release

I’m getting a better idea of my strategy for release of Before The End. A summary of which is below:

• Put a companion Novella (Non-fiction & fiction combo) on sale as paperback and kindle with Amazon but given away free as ebook to people who sign up to my mailing list
• Facebook ads driving people to sign up to the mailing list and get the free book
• Free book drives sales to IN THE END (Free book has first 10 chapters in)
• IN THE END drives sales to BEFORE THE END
• Withdraw IN THE END from Kindle Select. Advice from ALLi is to distribute wide if you have more than one novel.
• Distribute on all possible channels using as many aggregators as possible, such as Smashwords. Plus publish through Ingram Spark
• Advertise on Amazon.co.uk as I will have enough products to achieve the UK advertising account

As soon as BEFORE THE END is off to the dev. editor, all my focus will be on producing the novella, plus other BEFORE THE END prep such as the cover etc. Then I will prepare and research for wide distribution. Lots more to learn, so there’s be lots to share on the blog.

I think that’s all the news for this week, there’s been enough I think! Remember to sign up to my mailing list if you want to get all my news and to stand a chance of winning a copy of the audiobook.