HENLEY ON THAMES EVENT

Last Saturday I was in the lovely town of Henley on Thames which is famous mainly for its regatta. As always, I met a variety of interesting people and despite a slow start, it was a pretty profitable day. Not only did I sell plenty of IN THE END novels, I also sold a good amount of OPERATION DAWN WOLF books. The event got me very excited for when the new covers of the Carrie Harris series come out.

I didn’t sell much merch, only two stickers, but I think that was more because how I was presenting them. I need to come up with a better way other than how I had them resting on the table. Next time I will bring coat hangers in the hope that I can perch them on a wall behind.

I checked the events I have listed for next year and I spotted that I don’t have Henley on there, so I’ve put an enquiry into the organiser in hope I can still get a slot.

I gave away lots of novellas, being very free with them and not really giving people a chance to pay for them as I wanted them to try my writing. Despite the next event in November being cancelled, again because it is being used as a vaccination centre, I’ve still got 4 days of events coming up before Christmas. Here goes another big order of books so I’m ready!

FAN CLUB

I’ve been busy creating more designs for T-shirts and merch in my spare time, or for fun than anything else, and because of the previous reaction from the members, I decided to give away a t-shirt to someone in my fan club.

To enter the draw the members need to look at the range in the store and tell me which one they would like to win. This does two things for me. Firstly it exposes them to the range better than if I just kept spamming the group with photos, plus it tells me which is the most popular, information I can use later down the line when I target future promotions.

The Ops Centre is growing slow but steady. I’m trying to market the group by interviewing authors from the genre. I’ve posted one so far and have another in the offing.

The value of all of this effort will only be assessed for its worth when I see how the sales fair on my next release.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The Gemini Assignment – The third full Agent Carrie Harris novel is still out for editing but we’re getting to the time where it could be delivered any day. Very exciting. I’ve decided on the blurb and that is off to the cover designer. The latest word on the covers is that they’re due to be worked on soon and the whole project will be back with me and completed for the middle of December. This means that it won’t be the covers holding back the release of the book.

Purple Rain Series – Book 1 – I’m currently 63,000 words completed out of 99,000 in this major round of editing, so just over two thirds through. There are a few scenes coming up which I’ve already decided need major change so progress might slow up a bit. There have also been a few jokes about the series title related to the singer formerly known as Prince, so that’s going to have to change when the novel is completed.

Marketing & Promotion

I’m still running AMS ads in the US and UK and I’m unable to properly access the benefit yet, other than to say it’s cost me around £200 to date and my total sales are consistent with when I wasn’t advertising. However I’m open minded and will likely give it at least another month of tweaking before I make a decision as to a future advertising direction.

That’s it for this week. Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.