Actually we’re at the end of week 2 in 2019 now, but that is for another day (tomorrow!). This week has had lots of interesting bits: a shot of external editing for Mr. Ruin, my own editing of King Ruin, and the International Bookbub. External editing I wanted fresh eyes on Mr. Ruin, which I’ve been editing off and on for months (years). All the same plot movements are there, the same characters and concepts, but it took a lot of work to really bring them to the surface – cutting through purple patches, cutting repetition, explaining concepts the first …
Finally built the new shed!!
After blogging about it plenty of times, starting at 9am and finishing around 5:30pm, today I built my new shed! Man, that is a long time – and it is not even finished! First up was emptying the old shed, tearing it down, moving it out of the way, cleaning up the old brushwood I’d stuffed behind it two summers ago, cleaning up all the rocks I exhumed three years back, sweeping the concrete plate, then beginning the build. I got all that done maybe by 10am, within an hour. Until 12 I put on the new base, figured out …
International bookbub day!
Today The Saint’s Rise is having it’s International Bookbub! It’s too early to talk about results – but the FB campaign reached a high of 8 copies sold already today, so that’s a nice starting point. Here’s the copy BB used: They call the Rot a black lava, which it’s not, but it doesn’t really matter because I suppose it could be. Otherwise it’s pretty nice. Maybe I’ll use it, or the structure of it, for future ads! Also Sen is a boy at the start, a teenager later on, but probably ‘man’ converts better with this audience…
1 day before International bookbub – Marketing Report
My Facebook ad for The Saint’s Rise continues to deliver, though the price of clicks has increased. I was getting them for less than 20p, now it’s closer to 25p. Tomorrow is the Bookbub, and I think I’ll just switch the FB ads off for the day – then maybe turn them back on in the aftermath, to try and maintain rank. On the 7th, 8th and 9th I spent 32 pounds on FB ads. I switched off the Bookbub ads as I got nothing. On those days I sold 15 copies of The Saint’s Rise on Amazon uk and …
3 days before International Bookbub – marketing report
My ad on Facebook continues to perform pretty nicely, in the last 4 days since ads started it has sold 8 copies on amazon, half of those at the full 4.99 price, half at 99p, and 4 copies through iTunes, half at full price, half at 99p. So I’ve made about 20 pounds, for an outlay of 40 (at 10 a day). A 100% loss of 20 pounds. So why so chipper? These are better results than I’ve ever really had with a Facebook promo before, and my goal here is not to make momey (yet), it’s to juice the …
Fantastic oral hygiene
2 days back I went to the dentist for the first time in maybe 4 years, since leaving Tokyo, and she was very pleased with my excellent level of oral hygiene. How nice. She was also rather taken with my gold fillings – we don’t do gold here in the UK anymore, but it’s the main filling material in Japan. In other news I’ve finally ordered our new shed, I damaged my shoulder yesterday doing bench-presses, Facebook Ad efficacy is down (zero sales yesterday), and I’m enjoying The ABC Murders on the BBC. Back to work tomorrow!
Discussion with two-time Doomsday cult survivor Claire Ashman
Yesterday I spoke with author and speaker Claire Ashman, a victor (not victim) of two Australian cults which sucked up most of her life, from her childhood to the age of 36 when she finally escaped with her 9 kids. It was a fascinating, eye-opening discussion for me, and a brilliant step in my research journey to better understand cults, sects, and NRMs (New Religious Movements – which Claire explained). I’m grateful both to Claire for being so generous with her time and her life story, as well as to my good friend Rob Nugen, who introduced us. The introduction …
New ads for The Saint’s Rise
With my International Bookbub on The Saint’s Rise coming up in 6 days (Jan 10), I’ve started up a couple of new ads focused on the UK market (my biggest market after the US) to try and juice the ranking ahead of time. Here’s the FaceBook ad: I’ve never tried putting all retailers links in the body of the ad before, or leading with the major audiobook headline. I also rewrote the story summary – before it was primarily about the bizarre world, but now: All Sen’s young life he’s been hunted – by the pitiless King and his nightmare …
Taking care of business…
The last few days were meant to be dedicated to editing the Mr. Ruin books, but instead I have used them for taking care of fairly dull New Year business: Renewing my driving license (still not finished, machines at the Post Office were busted) Researching remortgage rates – coming up in a few months Researching a car to buy! This is quite exciting. We are mostly sold on a Dacia Duster. 15k all in, SUV, high driving position, looks pretty cool. Setting up The Saint’s Rise Bookbub price of 99c around the world on all vendors (except in the US) …
Writing Year in Review 2018
2018 has been a stellar, benchmark writing year for me on all kinds of fronts – sales, series completion, partnership with a trad publisher, trying on a new genre, working on my craft, networking, and reworking old material. In at the end deep end: Sales $12,200 for the year, counting only Amazon (where most of the money has been). That’s actually quite a surprise to me. It’s a pretty good chunk of change. $1000 per month. We can write off a few thousand off that on promotions, cover art, etc… but still – my best ever: 2017 – $7,600 2016 …