Personal Update

Nothing much has changed, other than it’s a new season in Fortnite (my main way to get all three of the kids together in one room). I’m still quite happy perched on the end of my dining room table working away at my day job when I’m not writing, but hopefully in the coming weeks we’ll be moving back to the office and we get part of our house back.

SALES & MARKETING

Marketing for the IN THE END is ticking over nicely with the sales coming in and averaging around a 75% gross profit. I still want to find a way how to upscale this but for the moment that can wait until the series is completed.

Last week I turned off the ads for the Carrie Harris books as I was just losing money, because although I was getting a good signup to the mailing list, no one was buying the follow up. I think there’s an issue with giving away free stuff, no one is in a hurry to read it as it holds less value to them that if they paid money.

I had a sudden change of mind earlier that I would pull OPERATION DAWN WOLF off as free and add it into Kindle Unlimited, however I can’t really just do that because the call to action in a load of my books is promoting it and with Kindle Unlimited it has to be exclusive.

Instead I have now reinstated the campaign to just sell LESSON LEARNED direct and then sign ups may come from the offer of ODW at the front of the book and at the back. The issue with that is that it is listed as Book 2. I’ll see what happens in the coming days.

Another option would be to take LESSON LEARNED out of KU (in 3 months time) and then give that away for free on my mailing list and put ODW on full sale. There are lots of options still, including when I complete the novella for the series, I offer that for free as a mailing list magnet…

Work In Progress

The cover for AFTER THE END is complete! I love it. James took my brief and brought it beautifully to life. I can’t wait to show you it. I will probably reveal it to my mailing list this weekend then the following week to social media and here. I put a graphic together this morning showing all three covers in a line and it gives me goosebumps. Watch this space!

With AFTER THE END in beta read, I’ve been making progress on the novella for the series. I’ve written the dirty draft which comes out at about 15,000 words and I hope to build that up to 20,000 words in the edit which I’ve already started. The novella centres around a situation referenced in BEFORE THE END which is the true start of the outbreak and leads to the story in the novels.

I’ve been playing with some names and have come up with a few, here’s the list so far. I have a favourite but I’d love to know what you think!

• Beginning of the End
• In the Beginning 
• The End
• The Beginning

Last week I revealed I’d begun the process of auditioning for the audiobook for OPERATION DAWN WOLF. I’ve had three auditions so far but none of them are right, so I’ve trawled through all the narrator profiles on the ACX and other sites and have three great sounding narrators who I’ve invited to audition.

If you’re an audiobook fan and want to listen to my Zompoc series, IN THE END, for free then I still have audiobook promo codes to give away. Just drop me a line through the contact link (or leave a comment).

Online Zombie Convention

A few weeks ago I mentioned I had some awesome news and now I’m finally able to reveal this in public. In the middle of August this year a whole heap of us Zompoc authors will be hosting an online convention for fans of Zombie fiction. It’s a whole weekend spanning international timezones, of panels, interviews, discussions all across Zoom and Facebook. We’re busy putting together the FREE event and also every attendee will get an awesome programme including loads of short stories from the authors.

It’s early days yet and I’ll reveal more as time goes on, but it’s a great chance for me to find a wider audience for my books.

That’s about all this week. Next week I’ll be back hopefully with a reveal of the cover for AFTER THE END. Comments and questions welcomed as always!