EVENTS

Last week I was in Chichester and came away with an average profit, which I’m very happy with. Like last week, the flow of the footfall was pretty steady across the day which meant it didn’t drag, but nonetheless I had time to think about new marketing ideas.

The sales were overwhelmingly of FATE’S AMBITION so I’ve already had to order loads more books! My house is bursting with them already.

I’ve decided to produce a new bookmark to advertise both the FATE’S AMBITION series and LOST AMONGT THE STARS. I still have around half of the last ordered volume for IN THE END and the Agent Carrie Harris series (around 750) and so I will give them out alternately, or specific ones to those who identify what sort of books they like. I put the basic designs together in a matter of moments as both sets of covers lend themselves very well to be used for this purpose. I now need to come up with text for the FATE’S AMBITION series, and a blurb, elevator pitch and the ad copy for the new science fiction series.

I’ve received a sample from the book printing company and it’s of excellent quality. I immediatetly thought about getting CAPITAL ACTION and BEGINNING OF THE END, my novellas, reprinted but the cost of the first batch includes a £100 setup fee, and then the copies on the second order are around £2, but as it’s a low volume seller that @ £1.99 now, it might become an even lower volume seller at a higher price. If I push the novellas on my stall, they might pull the focus off the full price, and more profitable, books. Plus at some point I plan to put the smaller novels in to a paperback collection for those people who want to try each of my series and this might make the novellas redundant as individual releases.

I decided to speak with the book printing company about the initial setup fee and they straight away offered a 75% discount, so it might still be an option.

LOST AMONGST THE STARS

The blurb is coming along nicely. I put the basics down very quickly and now I’m spending five minutes here and there refining it. A week or so and it will be finished.

I’m still struggling with the idea about whether to put LATS out to literary agents / independent publishers so I decided to put my thoughts down in a matrix!

	Publish Myself	Unsuccessfully Querying Agents / Indie Publishers	Successfully Publishing through an Agent / Indie Publisher
Pros	– Full control of the MS – Immediately able to sell copies – Full control of the series – High profit margin for author copies	– Short term optimism that it might be successful – Still retain full control of the MS and the series – High profit margin for author copies	– Audiobook costs covered – Upfront payment – Kudos of being a traditionally published author – Chance of it being a hit
Cons	– Audiobook costs (I’m getting it edited either way) – Editing costs of the rest of the series – Significantly less chance of it being a mainstream hit 	– Delaying the book to market by 3 months (It would end up with a release date of Q4 2024)	– If it’s a flop then I’ve lost the rights to the book (or have to buy them back) – Author copies achieve less profit – Very low chance of this happening (I’m not sold on my work being good enough for the mainstream) – Still have to do my own marketing but for a lower return, unless the publisher unlocks more avenues for marketing (other than their own channels) – If it’s a flop then I can’t sell the second and subsequent books I want to write in the series

Based on the above, for the moment I’ve pretty much talked myself out of shopping it around!

WORK IN PROGRESS

The second book in the sci-fi series is practically writing itself and I’m running along the simple outline I put together. It’s a rough draft as usual, but I’m already hitting almost 14,000 words, which is almost a quarter to the target.

MARKETING & PROMOTION

Amazon Ads are going well, but I’m once again addicted to my KDP sales page and for the last week it barely updates through the day and brings down my mood, then when I wake up in the morning I’ve got a healthy, or even great, sales figures (apart from last night). My self control is shot when it comes to checking it.

A+ Content Fate’s Ambition – This is another task I need to work on and it’s something I enjoy, so I’ll get around to it when I get a few moments. Outside of my events this series is only scraping by and only on Kindle Unlimited. I need to do another promotion and give away copies of the first book as the key is getting lots more reviews. I will think about doing this in June.

It’s been a busy post as it’s very busy times, but I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks now as I’ll be on holiday, and other than checking my ads, I plan on taking a break from everything author related. Lets see how that goes! Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.