I’ve decided one of the next key things I’m going to try is writing shorter books, starting with the sci-fi book I’m currently working on.

Shorter books are quicker to write, cheaper to edit and have a lower production cost, so should overall make the most profit. As they’re quicker to write it means that I can release more of them, and so I keep my fan base in touch and it gives me more opportunity to market. They’re also cheaper to produce audiobooks for. I had an insight into this when I released individual episodes of STOPPING POWER.

The only potential downsides are perhaps a diminished feeling of value from the reader and they will earn less money in KU. This could make it a useful test for selling the books wide, plus the sci-fi genre is less niche, which I think will help. Of course the books need to work well in the shorter form, rather than just cutting off the story at a certain point. If they really don’t work commercially in the short form I can just combine them.

I think this will only work for a series and I’ve seen many examples of when this works. Previously I have let the book write itself when it comes to the length, but I’ll try and let the length guide the story more. I think that a length of around 50,000 words is the target. For my current writing that means a little over doubling what I already have.

WORK IN PROGRESS

My Science fiction time travelling book is coming along very nicely. With this current editing pass I’m weaving in many details which I think make the story and characters come alive. This is all helping to diminish my concerns about the project. I’m roughly halfway through the current editing pass, then it will just be a technical review and a pass through ProWritingAid. Once done I will be sending it off to some alpha readers to get their opinion.

If you’re interested in becoming an alpha reader for the story just drop me a comment, or otherwise contact me.

If the story goes down well I think I might query a few agents, whilst not holding my hopes too much.

One of the characters in the story is a dwarf, a human with dwarfism to be clear, and I’m mindful that I refer to them correctly and don’t be disrespectful. I will be making this point with my editor and the alpha readers to gauge their opinion on how I handle it.

MARKETING & PROMOTION

I continue to advertise IN THE END on Amazon with mixed results, but I’m still trying some things out. With the current ads I’m getting a few sales, well at least one every day now Christmas has past, but page reads are right down. I really need more time to evaluate the results and see how much the normal January lull has affected things.

I’ve also decided to do some more email marketing with third party lists. I’ve signed up with two email promotion services for books at a cost of around $50. I’m running a 99p/99c promotion next week for the campaigns and have the emails scheduled for two different dates in order that I can assess the results. I’ll send out to my mailing list too just to maximise things. With the large numbers of reviews for the first book, I look forward to seeing how this works. I also am interested to see if they price promotion helps with sales via my Amazon ads.

I think that’s about if for this week. More of the same next week, including preliminary results for the campaigns.