EVENTS

With this post being later than usual having attended an event at Salisbury today, it takes my total to three events since I last posted. Last Saturday saw me upstairs in Guildford Guildhall and I was a little worried that being upstairs would hamper sales compared to being downstairs, however on arrival, a fellow stall holder next to me assured me that they had strong sales the day before.

The day started a little slow but the footfall was very high and my position meant that everyone had to pass by my stall. There was many a time when there were so many people buying one after the other that I was worried I wasn’t counting sales. This is a great problem to have and because I count my stock before and after, it’s of no real concern, but I like to have a good idea of my running total.

Most of my books sold very well, including the book page holders.

Having been to the Guildford event a few times already, I came across quite a few people who had bought and enjoyed my books, with some getting the next in the series.

The long day ended with the breaking of the sales record I’d only just smashed the last time I was at that event three weeks earlier. The three figure profit left me with a bounce in my step as I trundled my decidedly light load back to the car!

The next event was Wednesday night and the organisers couldn’t have chosen a colder date! Based on past performance in the previous years I knew it wouldn’t be a great day for sales but I surprised myself with making the cost of the table then the same amount again. That said, both myself and Suzanne, who I shared the stall with, agreed that we wouldn’t be doing it next year. For me it’s just not worth the hassle when I could get much stronger sales at an indoor event!

Salisbury today didn’t disappoint and only just missed the three figure profit level I’d love to get used to. I was close, with one person buying six books, both series, as a Christmas present for their adult daughter.

Tomorrow sees me at Henley on Saturday for the last event of the year, which has performed well previously so I hope that success is repeated.

WORK IN PROGRESS

With episode ten available in print and episode eight available on Kindle and KU, I’m working on getting as much of an outline, or draft, for episodes 11 to 14 as possible. Having had a day and a half of my annual leave this week available for me to write, I’ve made good progress on this, but time constraints mean when I pick up writing again on Monday, I’m going to have to go back to getting 11 up to scratch and ready for release. However with the work I’ve recently completed my confidence is growing that I will be able to fill the story comfortably into 15 episodes.

It’s amazing how I really have to be very careful with time allocation when I write on days off my day job as it’s so easy to lose time to pointless research or distractions. I ended up having to decide a time that I would write again no matter what else I was doing. This seemed to work quite well and I managed to get through five chapters (when I would normally only draft one per day) in five sittings.

NEXT PROJECTS

With the end in sight for Stopping Power season one I’m seriously thinking about what my next project should be. My current list of serious contenders is as follows:

• Their Right to Vengeance – The follow on from Fate’s Ambition. This is written but needs an overhaul from a self-editing perspective. I started this process some time back but I have a long way to go. Commercially I will also need to do the same to the third and final (so far) book which is in a similar state before I can really push it. Fate’s Ambition sales are slow online, but when I push it at in-person events I get quite a few sales, however I always feel a tinge of guilt that the second and third books have no release date!
• My Publishing Journey (Working Title) – The book – This is the book version of this blog and will mainly be for the in-person market, but I think it will be fun to write and pretty straight forward.
• Agent Carrie Harris Novel / Novella / Short Story – I have a concept for a new ACH adventure that is sitting in the wings that I want to explore to see how large it will be. If it becomes a novel then it should sell well and be in line with my current marketing effort, although it is not zombie so sales will be stronger in person. A novella or short story would also have a natural place in my offering.

Books that are not likely to be next:

• IN THE END – Book 4 – This book is outlined and I think it will get strong sales with my existing fan base, however the thought of writing it doesn’t excite me.
• Weather Apocalypse Series – Book 1 – Despite having spent 18 months working on this project, I haven’t got the motivation to work on it again, for the time being. I don’t consider it wasted effort as I will pick it up at some point, I just have other things that excite me more!

That’s it for today. Next week I will report on the last two events of the year. Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.