PERSONAL UPDATE

What is there to update? Well, we had a third lockdown party at the weekend, this time for my eldest daughter’s seventeenth birthday. It was a great evening that obviously would have been made better by more people. Oh the parties when we get out of this are going to be amazing!

WORK PROGRESS

Capital Action Audiobook – This is now in production and I wait to hear back from the narrator with progress soon.

After The End Audiobook – Since submitting to Audible with the new amendments they haven’t yet come back to me with any issues, so it sounds like this is proceeding well.

From The Dead – I’ll print this out this weekend and start what I hope to be the final read-through before it goes to initial manuscript review.

Purple Rain Series – I’ve decided to give this series a working title just so that I can refer to it properly. The first novel in the series is proceeding well. I have 27,000 words at second draft quality and I will soon hit the parts where I have only outlined. I’m very pleased with the progress I’ve made so far.

In The End Standalone Novel – Last week I mentioned thoughts about producing a standalone novel set in the same world as my first series. Well I’ve now concreted the idea. I’ve chosen to write this novel both because it makes very good commercial sense as it extends a series I know is selling, plus I’ve come up with what I think is a really great concept. I’m not saying too much more other than it will be based in a single location and cover a small community of people following how they are effected by events recorded in the first books. Over last weekend and various evenings, I’ve put together a 2,500 word outline. I’m so excited about this idea that I even had a fleeting consideration to shelve the Purple Rain series in favour of this novel. However, I’ve decided to keep the first book of Purple Rain as the priority.

SALES AND MARKETING

With my new focus on my mailing list, I’ve sent out the new format emails and the response has been positive, with an open rate of 65%. The last mail-out included the top three requests from my survey along with my response to the survey results. I gave some detail about future projects and offered free copies of the audiobooks I have free codes for. I also gave out the link to my web shop so people could but signed books.

I plan to send another email this week which will include the first chapter of LESSON LEARNED.

Agent Carrie Harris Series – I just can’t seem to find the magic formula for selling this series. So far last week I tried a simple FB campaign for sales but it didn’t hit the targets I needed to make it sustainable. I tried using the book again as a magnet to my mailing list, testing some alternatives on the ad and landing page, but that didn’t pull people in either. I’ve now made Capital Action permafree to use as a lead in to the series. I knew this was likely when I wrote the book, but it’s kind of my last option. I’ve adapted the FB campaign with a tailored ad and I’ll search out some marketing emailers which allow novellas, a lot of them don’t. Let’s hope this has some impact.

In The End Series – The campaign is still making a small profit (around 20% above the marketing costs) and I’m now attempting to scale the success. In hope I don’t force the campaign into learning mode (which happens when you make any major change to the campaign), I’m incrementing the budget by 10% per week. It may have not been the best time as it looks like the profit is coming down due to it being the end of the month. However, I will forge on. I need to know if I can use this strategy to get to £500 plus in profit per month.

Free Shipping and Other Special Offers – I found out this week that I can offer discounts and coupons for my web shop. This means I can offer discount codes for percentages off, or free delivery, or buy one get one half price. I’m going to use this system both to offer free shipping offers periodically, BOGOF offers for my subscribers and to offer free shipping when someone spends over threshold. I really want to make something of the web shop, so this could really help. I could even use it at events to give to people who may want to buy my later books if they enjoy they one they bought at the event. It would mean printing more business cards with the codes on, I already seem to have hundreds. 🙂

FREE MONEY

After a fellow author mentioned registering for the ALCS (Author’s Licensing & Collecting Service), I did so. After adding each book to the listing in December, I received my first payment today. The statement shows I have been issued with a payment of £46.28.

When authors have their works reproduced in articles etc, but haven’t registered with ALCS, the royalty money is shared amongst each of the members. For the first year you register you pay a lifetime membership fee of £36, so I will receive the balance. Next year I will get the entire payment. If you’re a published author then you really should be registering your books, unless you don’t like money for doing nothing.

Event Listing

With events coming up soon, I’ve taken the opportunity to list out what the current picture of my events look like.

April

• Cranleigh Craft Fair – 10/04/2021 (Expecting to be cancelled or rescheduled)

• Marlborough Craft Fair – 17/04/2021

May

• Guildford Craft Fair – 08/05/2021

June

• Wokingham Craft Fair –  19/06/2021

• Wokingham Spring Market – 26 to 27/06/2021

July 

• Henley Craft Fair – 10/07/2021 (Rescheduled from March)

September

• Witney Craft Fair – 18/09/2021

October

• Henley Craft Fair – 16/10/2021

November

• Wokingham Christmas Fair –  TBC

December

• Guildford Craft Fair – 3/12/2021

I think that’s about all I need to cram into this week. Catch you next Friday!