I’ve been so busy over the last couple of weeks I plain forgot to put my thoughts down in a blog post last week, so here we have two weeks in one go.

EVENTS

I’ve had three events since the last post. Abingdon. Salisbury. Thame.

Abingdon can only be described as epic. Although it started with a tyre puncture ten minutes before I arrived at the venue to set up but ended with forty-five books sold and a record profit that blew the last top event in 2022 out of the water. In addition I sold more copies of SHATTERED DESTINY for dispatch when the book releases, and I can attribute a load of online sales to the event as well.

I ended up doing so well I ran out of stock for FATE’S AMBITION and sold so many other books that I quickly had to order more.

This was the first event I got to use Square’s new system for taking payments without the card reader, and I’m pleased to say it worked very well. It’s much more convenient and quicker than using the reader and I only had to grab the reader twice since I’ve been using it.

Salisbury last Friday was okay. It was the lowest I’ve had in that location. If it was anywhere else it would have also been below average, but it was a Friday. Thame on the other, a Saturday, was great. FATE’S AMBITION was the star of the show, as it always is now and it did a decent turn.

Over the last few events I’ve had lots of compliments from shoppers who’ve read my books and have bought the next in the series. There really is no better feeling.

This Friday I’m in Guildford, with low ambitions, and on Saturday I have the last event of the year and it will be in Witney. I’ve been to Witney twice before and have always done well. Let’s wait and see.

Once the events are over for the year, I will do a review of what I’m going to change for next season and I have a few business cards to restock on, plus I need to make a decision as to whether I carry my dyslexia friendly versions or not as I have sold my last author copy. They are a great talking point on the stall but they have a low profit margin and would tie up a lot of capital in the stock.

WORK IN PROGRESS

My time travelling sci-fi adventure / comedy (that’s not funny yet) is coming along nicely. The draft is just of 20,000 words and I’m on the first editing / rewriting pass. The story is quite strong in my mind but I need to consolidate and make decisions on certain aspects. It comes along with the usual angst at this stage as to whether anyone will want to read it and if it’s good enough.

The secret project I’m also working on sits at around 3,500 words and I’ve mostly been working on that when I feel like it, and outside of my normal writing time.

There is no sign of SHATTERED DESTINY back from the editor yet but it’s not due yet. The cover is ready to go and I will just need to get the paperback sized once I know the page numbers. The cover designers have said that I can go back to them at any time for changes like that.

MARKETING & PROMOTION

I’ve been plodding along with Amazon advertising as well as undertaking the ads course, and I’m nearly at the end. I have mixed feelings about it now. As I’ve said before, it’s not a silver bullet to sales, and I cannot get any traction on Agent Carrie Harris or James Fisher books at all. I am getting some sales through on the zombie books, along with an uplift in page reads, but page reads and the majority of sales don’t show up in the dashboard, so it’s very difficult to tune the ads.

However I’m sticking with it for now, and using the skills and ideas from the course, so we’ll see how it goes. It does make me wonder whether changing my covers for the zombie series will have any impact. I am considering it, however it would be about £800 to get the covers changed and then I have to change all of my event promo material and my website etc. It’s certainly not something I can do overnight without knowing it’s what’s holding me back.

I have sought feedback from my zombie group and they’re pretty firm in the camp that the covers are fine. I guess I will leave this one rumbling along for a little while.

That’s it for this week. Next week I will cover my last two events of the year along with the usual stuff!