For those of you that have followed me from the start in 2018, can you really believe I’m now the author of sixteen books?

Last week I released my sixteenth novel (although every time I say that I have to go back through them in my head to make sure I’ve counted correctly.) I’ve got the James Fisher crime trilogy (3), the Agent Carrie Harris spin off spy thriller trilogy (6), then the books that started my publishing journey, the IN THE END trilogy (9). Plus Stopping Power (10), a series I want to continue some time, four Parallel Worlds novels (14) and my two non-fiction books (16).

Good, I was right and I haven’t even counted the five shorter stories, (three shorts and two novellas).

WORK IN PROGRESS

The fifth book in the LOST AMONGST THE STARS / Parallel Worlds series is coming along nicely and already stands at 70,000 words. I’m not sure if it’s going to be another two parter or just a longer novel. If it hits around 120,000 or more then it’s two books, otherwise it’s a long novel.

I’ve only discovered the main framework of the story at this late point so rather than carrying on writing I’ve jumped back to the beginning to revise what I’ve got so far so everything is better formed as I write the remaining chapters.

SALES & MARKETING

In marketing news, I’ve been trying out Facebook ads again. Originally I was testing if the 50 or so reviews for my sci-fi series is enough social proof for advertising this way. I’ll jump to the punchline. It’s not. The ads weren’t a success, although they also weren’t a total flop. I have however stopped them.

Running ads for the first time in a year put me in the mood to try advertising the IN THE END series again, the only series I’ve every had success at adverting this way. It’s been over a month now and I’m still in profit.

In addition to the online sales I also had a guy come up to me at a recent event. He immediately recognised the books from Facebook and quickly snapped up the entire series! He also said that’s he runs a craft beer pub and will be talking to his brewer about making a zombie themed beer using my books as inspiration. I have no idea what will come of it, but anything like this is great for exposure.

When the FB ads didn’t work for the sci-fi series I instead decided to run a free promotion on the first book in the series with one of the leading email list providers for authors. The results reinforced why I’d made the right choice to write a long series.

The free book offer on Amazon ran for 5 days and the third party email newsletter went out once. On the day of the newsletter I had 501 downloads. The free book promotion was also organically picked up by another provider, which I’d never had before. On the second day and the day the second promo went out, I had 289 downloads. Over the next two days I had another 100 downloads.

On the back of the promotion I achieved 7 sales of the next three books at a gross profit of £6 per set. I have had a few hundred page reads but nothing too noticeable. These book purchases have paid for promotion costs and any future follow on sales will be profit, plus I hope to get at least a few reviews.

OTHER STUFF

The presentation I’m giving based around YOUR BOOK WON’T SELL ITSELF is less than a month away and I’m not nervous as long as I forget I’m doing it! I’ve been practicing loads and I think I’m ready, but only time will tell. After the first few slides I should be okay. It is after all my favourite subject to talk about.

I can’t believe people are actually paying for tickets to come and see me talk. I assume at least the tickets are selling!

I recently found out that Amazon now offer a new paper stock for paperbacks. It’s called Groundwood paper and it’s a lightweight low carbon paper than gives more of a traditionally published book feel. It not only makes the book lighter, it also allows the book to fold open more easily, like a trad paperback. The main benefit however is a 5% decrease in printing cost and lower shipping fees for author books.

There is a secondary benefit as well to me as I accidentally produced my last two sci-fi books in white paper when the first two were cream. After publishing you’re not able to change this without unpublishing and republishing the books, which is messy and leaves a legacy on your storefront. However, because of this Groundwood paper change you can now update from the previous options to Groundwood paper and that solves the issue.

It should be noted that the change may mean updating the paperback cover, but I didn’t need to do this for the two series I’ve so far updated. I’m interested to see what they look and how they feel but I haven’t ordered author copies yet as I’m overflowing with stock.

That’s it for this latest update. I’ll hit you up again as soon as I have something interesting to say and comments / suggestions are welcomed as always.