This week in what seems like a post-publishing lull, I’ve been trying out different free advertising copy and images on social media, writing the next in my IN THE END series and preparing for the Christmas events season.
SALES & MARKETING
I think Amazon is broken…
Or people are not quite ready to make the leap into my books yet…
I’m holding back my judgement for now and keeping my chin up. Luckily I’m a very optimistic person.
Still, marketing is hard. I have good copy, great images, in my opinion, and a receptive audience of genre readers, however sales have stagnated. In the last three months before release I sold over 100 copies of IN THE END, albeit at 99p/99c. That should have been over 100 hundred readers for BEFORE THE END.
Maybe they’re just slow readers….
But although it may sound like I’m down hearted, I still am up beat that although short-term sales are poor, or very poor, or downright terrible, I have a longer term plan which will be my best shot to make a sustainable income from my books. And so I continue to write and get my next seven books ready for release.
Social Media
This week I’ve been hunting down Instagram accounts for horror genre reviewers and liking some great posts. I have a few follows back so it will be interesting to see if anyone wants to review my indie books once they has seen some of my content.
On my journey I found a service on an account called LinkTree. This may be another service I’m late to, but as the name says (it’s a free service and paid options are available) which if you click the link it guides you to a menu of your other links. I set up the service yesterday and you can try it out below.
All my social media has now been updated and we’ll see if it gets any results, or at least helps along the way.
BEFORE THE END
Despite what I’ve said, I’m very pleased with the reviews coming in so far for the book. I’m up to five great reviews on Amazon (across US & UK) and a total of five on Goodreads. It’s a solid base to build on!
In related news, Audiobook production is going well and it’s looking like if the wind blows in the right direction I may have a release before Christmas.
AFTER THE END
The dirty draft is coming along nicely, with flashes of inspiration flying into my head at the right time to guide the detail of the story. Some of the draft is very poor and needs loads of fleshing out, but I’m so keen to get the bulk of the framework in place I’m skipping over it and forging on. I am going to have to go back over the last ten chapters today as I’ve just realised somehow I managed to leave out Shadow, the MC’s dog, from the action. Doh! But it’s an easy fix.
Fate’s Ambition
The proofing is slow, but that’s because it’s not my priority right now. I’m dipping in and out when I get a few quiet minutes here and there. I announced the blurb and cover to my mailing list yesterday and asked for ARC readers to come forward. I have at least three of the BTE ARC readers (5 stars all round) that are interested in FA.
In a undetermined number of weeks, I have in mind between one and three, I will be releasing all the details on my blog and website, plus announcing the pre-order date, which should be around 2 months before release.
OPERATION DAWN WOLF
The cover proof came in the post last week and I’m overjoyed about how it has come out. The inside is great too, with the formatting and redactions I think it has great atmosphere. The MS is not yet back from the copy-editor so there may be some changes to make but I wanted to make sure the cover came out as expected.
Events
Saturday marks the start of the next season of events and I’m kicking it off in Zombie town! Yes you heard it right, I will be in Staines-upon-Thames (UK) with authors Suzanne Rogerson and Laura Laakso freezing ourselves to the bone for the cause of the independent author on Saturday 23rd November. We’ll be on site for most of the day, or as long as people are buying the books.
It will be my first stall with two books in the series and there will be an offer available for buying both books! In next week’s blog I’ll hopefully tell you of some amazing results…..!
That’s it for me. Next week I’ll be back with an author interview and an update on the progress of making something of my author career!
Comments and questions welcomed as always!
GJ Stevens 
Gareth, I just had a look at these books on Amazon – they’re not listed as a series. If you make them so, Amazon will automatically suggest the next one when people have read the one before. Also, it makes it easier for readers to see the series, on Amazon. If you don’t know how to do this, ask me; you have my email, I think.
I don’t know how long it was between the publication of the first and 2nd, but one thing I did was write books #1 and #2 of my series before publishing #1 – so that #1 would still be fresh in people’s minds. Also, my series sold more once it was complete.
Your first step should be to list them as a series; next , put #1 on free for a week or so, or even make it permanently free, which you can do by price matching between sites. Alot of series writers do this. I can’t, because I’m KDP Select, but I make Tipping Point (my #1) free once every few months. Because #1 has not sold for ages (which I can tell by its rankings), #2 will not be recommended to anyone by Amazon. So you need to get those downloads going – the best way is with a free promotion.
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Awesome Terry. I’ve read up a bit more on this, checked the series information in the KDP fields is correct, plus added the series name and book number to the product description. I’ve also emailed KDP support to make sure there are no other issues. I’ve emailed you as well for belt and braces! Once this is all set up correctly I will think about putting number one for free for a trial period. Thanks for the advice!
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