THE GEMINI ASSIGNMENT IS OUT TODAY

At long last TGA is out today and at least three of my ARC Angels have posted great reviews. I received my author copies on Wednesday and it’s such an awesome feeling seeing your hard work and imagination in the print. The pre-ordered signed copies have now gone out and I have plenty in stock for competitions, new orders and the events season when it comes back around.

If you want to grab yourself a copy then you can here:

Visit Amazon for ebook and paperback:

UK: https://amzn.to/3GjfN5v

US: https://amzn.to/3lI7tEu

Or, my web store for signed copies:

https://gj-stevens.square.site

The audiobook production has been delayed as my narrator is unwell, but hopefully it will only put it a couple of week behind schedule.

Events

It’s a week since my last event of the year which was in the Guildford Guild Hall. Being right on the high street, the location was great, but as I went into the venue my heart sank. It seemed so narrow and tiny compared to the other venues I’d been to, plus I was tucked down the end, my table squeezed in between a jewellery stand and an artist with some amazing paintings. This didn’t help with my already low exceptions of my first event on a Friday.

I was wrong. I was so very wrong. Within an hour I’d not only had plenty of interest from the public but I’d also sold a book to the stall holder next to me and four to the woman from the council who was supervising the event. By 2pm I’d reached my break even point and it just didn’t stop. By 4pm I’d sold all of my OPERATION DAWN WOLF books, including two of with the original covers.

In total I sold 27 books and that made the event the single most successful day I’ve had so far. I sold at least one copy of every book, with OPW and IN THE END being the bestsellers. I also sold two sets of the IN THE END series.

This was also the longest event, running from ten until five but they might has well have closed the doors for the last hour as there was hardly any footfall. If only I was there on the Saturday and I think I would have had even more success.

The event filled me with confidence about the new covers for the Carrie Harris series but also showed me what a really great event could be like, although I’d had a few that nearly got to that level before. It was an awesome way to end the season on.

Since then I’ve been spending time thinking how I can make things even better for next year and I’m planning to go to many more events and to new places as well. I’ve got some great ideas for new supporting materials which I hope will help, but I’ll leave telling you about then for another time.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The Purple Rain Series – Book 1 – I have around 10,000 words to revise until the end of this revision run and I’m still hoping to get it done by Christmas.

EXTRA INCOME

I’d heard about the Amazon Affiliate programme before but I hadn’t really explored it before. For one reason or another I decided to take a look the other day. The programme is much like any other affiliate scheme whereby you direct traffic to the seller and if they make a sale on the back of the referral, you get a payment.

I’ve signed up for both the UK and US programme, offering my books under the scheme. This means instead of promoting my books with the native links or the booklinker universal links, I use specially generated affiliate links which have my id encoded into them so Amazon know I am the referrer. You can use their own link shortening service to make the link palatable to use. Below are examples of the links for the US and UK markets.

UK: https://amzn.to/3rx90kG

US: https://amzn.to/3EqIOM1

For each book I sell via the links I get around 5% more than if I didn’t use the links. When margins are already tight, this can have a decent effect. They give you a dashboard which lets you see when the links are clicked and when people purchase via the links. I’ve already had three sales and made around 30p.

After three sales you get checked out by Amazon to see if you’re complying with their terms, so now we’ll have to see if you’re allowed to be an affiliate for your own books. They check out your website too, so perhaps they’re even reading this!

MAILERLITE

I’m slowly working through building my platform over at my chosen alternative to MailChimp. I’m taking my time as I’m also redesigning all of the signup and landing pages, trying to make everything common to the new marketing materials I’m putting together for next year. It’s looking pretty sweet so far, even if I do say so myself.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION

The IN THE END series is still selling, albeit slowly, with page reads down to barely a couple of books a day, but I’m hoping things will pick up as the AMS ads continue. I’m just about breaking even at the moment, so at least that’s a positive.

The Carrie Harris series is doing nothing online despite the UK AMS ads. I’m still tuning the keywords I’m using and I’ve added some more yesterday, but the ads are hardly being presented. I need to do more research. I could also switch them on the US to see if they work better there, but as this is a bigger market the money would be spent so much more quickly and without sales, if I don’t get the keywords right. I keep telling myself to be patient.

I’m trying to find more books that are like the Carrie Harris series to help me with targeting, the first of which I’m listening to is Maestra and you can check it out here.

UK: https://amzn.to/31Ly4th

US: https://amzn.to/31DFf7l

That’s about it for me now. Questions and comments always welcomed.