With the countdown to the end of lockdown in the UK started, I’m remaining optimistic that 2021 will be great year. The timetable has meant that it is very likely that the first two author events (end of March and early April) will be cancelled but the beginning of May event should be on.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Capital Action – All but the booklet have now been released and the delivery of the large order is due next week. Then I just have to find a home for them for the next couple of months. I’ve also bought little A5 plastic sleeves for them to sit inside. It not only protects the booklets but it brings the covers to life and allows me to pop in some of my promotional material too.

Beginning of the End – The proof booklet is back and it looks amazing. I’m so pleased. I like it more than CAPITAL ACTION because of the colours. I’m in the process of doing a final read-through and then I’ll get the formatting and production of the various versions done over the weekend, hopefully. I’ll then release it for free to my mailing list and kick off the marketing campaign.

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After The End Audio – Production is in full swing and I think I’m just over halfway through the approval process.

From The Dead – Apart from the odd chapter here and there I’ve made little progress this week.

New PA Series – I had a day ofd so I managed to smash out 5,000 words on Tuesday for book one. The story is developing nicely and I’ve switched to a kind of detailed outlining mode as I’m keen to get the plot down on the page as the ideas are coming thick and fast. In some places I will need to go back and fill in the detail, the word count tripling in those chapters where I have just put the bones of ideas. I have 34,000 on the page, so thats just over a third of book done. However, I think I’m somewhere near to two thirds of the way through the journey to the conclusion. I’m still very much enjoying the journey on this one.

SALES AND MARKETING

I’m seeing a gradual decline on the background sales based on my AMS ads, but I’m not worried as now with the novellas finished I can start the new campaigns.

As of Sunday I started the adverts on Facebook to giveaway CAPITAL ACTION via my mailing list. I started with six adverts and two versions of copy (the full blurb and a shortened version). After four days it became apparent one particular ad image with a shortened blurb was the stand out winner. I turned the other ads off and concentrated on the winner. The results so far have not blown me away, around 40 sign-ups at a cost of £80. That’s £2 per sign up. If they become readers of my other books then great, but I doubt enough will to make it profitable.

The 40 sign-ups had a conversion rate of just under 10%. So 10% of those who clicked the ad and went through to the sign-up page actually signed up and got the book. I could try and work on improving the conversion, but I think most of these are just people don’t want to join a mailing list. The positive news is that if I switched this to purely a campaign to get the book from Amazon for free, then I would have had around 500 downloads and then let the book do the conversion to sales of the other two. This is something I am seriously considering. I won’t however make a decision on this until the weekend, at least.

After getting inspiration whilst thinking about the campaign on a run, I added two more ads into the campaign as a test. One is for purchasing the book from Amazon and other is for purchasing from Amazon but also with a comment at the end of the ad to say that they can get the book for free by subscribing on my website.

No matter the results of this campaign, I still plan to repeat the same process on BEGINNING OF THE END as my ads are more mature for the IN THE END series and I think I will have more success.

Here’s the winning ad. Check last week’s post to see the ones it competed against.

Once I have the booklets all ready I plan to start some giveaways so I can get reviews. This will also help me if I decide to send my campaign respondents to the Amazon pages.

I think that’s about it this week. Hopefully lots of decent progress coming in the next.

Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.