Downloads still hanging around at 5-6k, tomorrow is the last day.
I am knackered after final day of this intensive course- resits, last-minute marking, boat party, then dinner for 4 hours.
Enormous fun, and ready for bed! More detIls tomorrow. Here’s a photo of me and the other teachers in the boat partying in the Thames (80 students behind the camera).
I’m the guy.
Free downloads seem to have really dropped off today. After getting 3000 yesterday and peaking at 62 in the overall free chart, The Lost only added a few hundred more today.
Free seems to ever decreasing returns. This may be true for everyone or just for me- but unless things take an upturn, I’ll have to think hard if there’s a better way to get the word out.
So far, 3200 Lost and 2200 Last. It’s still a ways off the modest (I thought) goal of 5k. If either results in a good post-free bounce though, or more good reviews, I’ll be happy.
Other news
Went to see 7 brides for 7 brothers again tonight! Open air theater, and again it rained! Not rained off though, we all just endured.
Great fun dancing, some good songs, really terrible gender politics but at least the man apologized at the end (for encouraging his brothers to kidnap 6 women).
Had fish and chips at the cafe by the theater in Regents Park, here it is.
And a panorama of the interior.
Home by 11. Not too bad. Tomorrow is the last day of the intensive, then move into our house and 2 weeks off!
So far In my double free promo I have shipped:
1500 free The Last
1600 free The Lost
It is not what I hoped, but there’s still plenty of time left in today, and 3 more free days to come.
I might hit my modest targets of 5000 free each.
But, I suppose the appeal of free has faded. 1 year ago, with a far smaller platform, I promoted Mr. Ruins and King Ruin back to back like I’ve done now, and they got 5000 each with less reviews, less money spent on ads, and less marketing effort generally.
A year before that my short story collections shipped 8000 each, with hardly any promotion cost, no reviews, and no platform.
Maybe three reasons explain this:
1- People’s kindles are full. They gorged on freebies that they would never be able to read more of, in the first blush of free. They don’t need more.
2. Kindle Unlimited- the subscription service that allows a large number of book downloads, basically free. The big readers who went for free before now no longer need to scour free lists to read cheaply.
3. There’s way more writers doing free promotions. Both books are now at around 150 overall free in the store- at the height of a promo featuring all the best B-grade promo sites.
Who’s above me? The A-graders, obviously, any B-graders with more appealing books, plus any A-graders with permafree still sticky after a Bookbub promo a while back.
It’s hard to crack the top 100.
A year and a bit ago I hit the Hot New Releases list with Ignifer’s Rise after giving some 6000 free away. I haven’t hit it since.
All this is to say- nothing is set in stone. Now I’m blogging. I’ll try to fb and tweet more too. Marketing is be constant.
Other news
Marking marking marking!
Today was discussions, and grading, then data-entry of grades. Pizza was laid on course conveyors Martin and Jim, which was cool.
Tomorrow we try open air theater again, en masse. Friday is boat party on Thames and awards ceremony.
Here is one of SY’s arts. Care to make a bid?
It was inspired by 3000 year old art on an Egyptian sarcophagus lid in the British museum.
This is how you go to heaven in style. Maybe now it would be strapped to a Ferrari roof. Or a Cessna private plane. For Donald Trump it would be a jumbo jet with his name all over it.
The first day of promotion for The Last is winding down here in the UK and right in the thick of things in the U.S., with around 1000 free downloads to date.
I’m hoping that will at least double by the end of business today, then keep on ticking over for a few days after, to hit 5000+ by Saturday.
A few extra promotion sites picked The Last up, including the fairly heavyweight Book Gorilla, and a service called Book Scream. That’s great, thank you.
I’ve been the tweeting the link all day, because why not, what can it hurt- and even started bugging celebrities (not A-list) to tweet my book link.
Geoff Lloyd off absolute radio, and Jon Ronson off the Guardian Guide column. Those tweets are like seeds now, burrowing in their brains. Hopefully they’ll tweet me massively shortly.
Tomorrow The Lost gets its push. Will the double promo result in a new influx of readers? I hope so!
Other news
Tonight is one of those odd moments where I feel I’m putting my head above the parapet and seeing the big picture.
Socializing! For all this year really I’ve been head down on work and writing, work and writing. A year has gone by since I came to London!
I joined a number of writers groups, then stopped being bothered. I will probably start my own group. I will BE more social, and take ADVANTAGE of all lovely London has to offer.
Here is a picture of my lift/elevator at work-
It is so cute. Me too! There are four lifts, 1-4, and now when I push the call button I hope it is this one.
We’re old friends now.
The Lost has 5 reviews on Amazon US and 3 on UK, with 7 on Goodreads. This is fantastic- probably the fastest review response I’ve had yet- all with very valuable thoughts shared- thank you again!
Hopefully more will roll in by the FREE promo that starts tomorrow.
I’ll post highlight bits in the next day or so.
Reminder– both The Last and The Lost will be free tomorrow, Tuesday 18!!
Concerning the 3rd book in the series: The L*st, or TL3 as I call it, I’m having lots of thoughts. There’s so many stories I want to tell, many of them back- and middle- story, but also of course a crackling array of forward story, leading into TL 4-6…
Exciting, basically. So much to cram in.
Other news
Today the pre-sessional intensive I’m teaching on got intense, with timed writings for the students, marking for us, double marking, data entry and etc…
All my students passed the 1500 word essay! Actually one might have failed 🙁
Go home! Watch tv! Lift weights! Hit refresh on Amazon sales page to see if I’ve made my millions yet! (Won’t do that, I only check once a day…)
Here is a picture of some of the antique chairs SY bought for our dining room. They are Bentwood, a nice brand. We have 12 of them! Getting shipped out a week today!
Some reviews have started to come in for The Lost- thank you Rob, Pam, Chris, Dom, Katy and Scott- as well as to all those working them up or getting ready to post.
Thank you! Perhaps because of this fast influx, I’ve just heard from the best promo site on my lineup, ENT, that they’re going to run both books on 18 and 19 just as I hoped.
Yeah!
In the world of book promos there is Bookbub (who have not run me yet despite many applications), The Midlist (likewise), then ENT.
Thank you ENT! The book goes free in two days- I’m very hopeful each one will result in 5000+ free downloads, raising visibility, raising the game.
Other news
Today SY and I went to see the new Pixar film ‘Inside Out’, and loved it. It is like Toy Story in many ways, but in my view better, as the original Toy Story never did too much for me.
It explores the life of the mind in a way we may never have seen before, but we can immediately grasp. This is how personalities are made, each linked to a core memory and guided by a key emotion, yes of course!
One day (soon) we will make virtual maps of people’s minds using a system much like this. It’s all programming, and while it’s all incredibly complex- I do believe the movie models the basic simplicity of it very accurately.
The short feature before it- LAVA – was also super sweet and moving. In the faith, hope and sadness it evokes it made me think of The Lost. One reviewer said the book was very sad.
Yes I think so. It is very sad, but I hope not depressing. It’s cathartic sad, is my aim, with spikes of wild joy.
Here’s some pictures of Enfield town where we went shopping for plates.
Getting my ducks in a row. Are these ducks?
I have spent much of the day reeling in my lines, checking my bait, and hoping some gorgeous shiny fish will slip over the bow.
I’m talking about reviews. I’m also talking about my combined social media (FB and twit) plus my mailing list. That’s maybe 500 + 600 + 350.
How many of those actually read what I write, maybe 20%? I hope it’s that high. Engagement is tricky, and I have been notoriously absent on most media for lets be honest, ever.
20 delicious souls took on the role of beta reading The Lost for review. Thank you! I hope these souls have enjoyed it. To kick off with 20 reviews on promo day (Tuesday aug 18- both zombie books free!!) would be awesome.
And my numbers are rising. My earliest books of short stories are still languishing at around 10 reviews, despite being out for years. But- I don’t push them, so they are bait deep deep underwater.
I hope recent upsurge is a sign of increasing quality in my output. Also, maybe, in my marketing skills. Passive marketing like good covers and blurbs are key- I’m definitely better at that. In the zombie blurbs I don’t tell the plot (the steak) but try to focus on the excitement and challenge (the sizzle).
My covers now are dynamic. They feature people! In motion! Not one of my other 9 books could say that.
Pending a vast influx of sales cash ( 🙂 ) I will redo all covers of the Ruins War. They are so old and flat looking, right?
Angle away! Reel it in, old man, catch your Moby Dick and slap it on the belly then on the dinner table.
Other news
Today I jogged 7km at 5 minute pace per kn, which is pretty fast for me. SY is off in Brighton with her K-girl friends, eating fish and chips and admiring the white cliffs, while I angle and put off doing my marking.
13 students, each with 1500 word essays. That is at least 10,000 words to mark. Maybe it’s even more!?
I have done 3, which is 25%! But actually I’ve only done 2 :(. One of them was already marked by the course runner.
It counts!
Here are pictures of a cathedral with no roof, in Coventry. I went there a month back for a conference. This place got shredded by German bombs in ww2. Now there’s hardly anything left.
It’s sad, really. That loss haunts the place still.
On the right is the new build version. It’s nicely done, really.
Repairing the undercroft at left.
Stairway to nowhere.
I’m still in the middle of my Zombie Ocean series, with potentially 4 books left to go in the arc I’ve planned so far, but I’m thinking what I’ll do next, possibly after book 3, and I’m thinking- SUPERHERO.
Then I draw a bit of a blank. I feel like I want to write this, though I haven’t got a clear idea yet. To get ideas, I surf Amazon bestseller lists, make lists of what I like about the genre and my favorite books/movies, list up cool plot ideas/characters.
What I’ve got so far is simple.
I want to write something like Kickass. Kickass in turn is like Batman, but poor and a bit weak. The key is, neither of them has actual superpowers. This interests me most. They are regular people who decide to become vigilantes, with a public persona. There are fascinating character choices and impacts down this path.
It is immensely isolating. It’s clear to me I gravitate towards characters making choices in isolation. Real shit happens, I guess, from those kinds of moments.
Then I think, if you strip the pageantry back from the superhero- ie no cape and mask, then you end up with Jack Reacher and similar characters. A-team stuff. I want to write a Jack Reacher-like series too. So, hmm…
I consider actual superheroes like Marvel. This may theoretically interest me, though not totally straight. I like the idea of a society packed full of superheroes, and then something extra. Superheroes getting murdered? That’s the opening plot of Watchmen, I know. The main character is the only person without super powers? Yeah. I’m not interested though in an X-men kind of world, just doesn’t intrigue me. Perhaps it is too thoroughly done already, in X-men, Heroes, etc…
I’ll keep my thinking cap on. In the mean time, I’ll be starting work on Zombie Ocean 3, tentatively titled THE L_ST. That middle vowel is not set yet….
Probably it will be an ‘i’.
AND- The Lost soft-launches tomorrow! I’ll send out emails to beta-readers requesting reviews on Amazon. Hopefully the snowball of sales will start rolling all by itself.
Other news
Today I did some great teaching. The students have been writing very vague argumentative essays. No detail, repeating the title multiple time via paraphrase, just moving stuff around. We drilled down into it, using examples I provided. Really workshop-like, exactly how I want to be teaching.
THEN- me, other teachers, SY, and about 40 students went to Regent’s Park in central London to watch an open-air production of 7 Brides for 7 Brothers. In the rain!
Do you know the story of this play? I read the outline on Wikipedia. SPOILERS. A guy goes to town and judges the local ladies in a cattle-call, picks one, and marries her. How sweet. He takes her home where she cooks and cleans for him and his 6 brothers. His 6 brothers want wives, so they come to town, make a play for 6 more ladies but they’ve got suitors already, so they have a scrap, burn down a barn, win, get exiled from town, and in return kidnap the 6 ladies.
Yeah, that is how it done…? They lock these 6 women in a barn, where they get Stockholm Syndrome and come to love the brothers, everyone gets married, hooray!
The first 15 minutes were good, sprightly, tongue-in-cheek fun. Then the rain kicked up a notch. The play was halted. 15 minutes later, it was canceled 🙁 We didn’t even get to the kidnapping…
Well well, SY and I will go back at a later time. Keep your ticket stubs!!
Scant minutes before the rain.
Me and SY
I stumbled upon this website- http://tvtropes.org/ – which is crammed full of a seemingly endless parade of tropes used in storytelling. I’ve been clicking through it and just learning and learning- they have names for all the tropes out there, many of them extremely creative, as well as examples of each from books, Tv, movies, comics, etc..
I feel like this should be standard material for writers to know. I’ve read countless books on plot, story, craft etc, but none that I going through tropes, basically all the possible plot shapes/twists/events, in such an encyclopedic manner. I go through it thinking -‘Oh yeah, the villain in my book is a ‘Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds,’ and ‘Oh yeah, I’ve used a ‘beta-test baddie’ before, and they did that in LOST too? We’ll hang a lampshade on me…
Woobie= a sympathetic bad guy, like the bad guy in God of Ruin
Beta-test baddie= a prototype version who gets replaced because he/she’s flawed, like Ultron in Avengers or Data’s brother Lore
Hang a lampshade= writer’s trick to defang a plot hole by referring to it directly, then moving on.
Go check the site out and get lost down the rabbit hole. It is endlessly self-referential, with its own language of ‘technical terms’.
Other news
Yesterday I watched episode 2 of the Chinese School, a fascinating experiment on the BBC, where 5 Chinese teachers come and teach Chinese style in a UK school. 50 students in a class, largely rote memorization and copying and passive listening, 12 hours a day.
Wow. The British kids are out of control, understandably. It looks like cruel and unusual punishment. But the Chinese teachers are really sincere- so I have sympathy for everyone.
In these lessons there is no carrot and no stick. No carrot of interesting, interactive material or teaching style, and no stick of the wider Chinese culture, which only rewards high performance in such classes, and punishes failure with not having food to eat (they have no social welfare system).
Fascinating stuff- been discussing it with my Chinese students. Yup, they really went through that. UK uni is massively different, I think. Many really struggle to make a clear, logical argument in essay form. They did it differently in China.
Here is a picture of me in an empty London cinema. People here file out immediately. In Japan they stay til the credits are done.
The Lost, 2nd book in the zombie ocean series, comes out this Saturday, and I’ve set up a free promotion to signal boost both it and the first book, The Last.
The last time I promoted The Last I shipped 5000+ copies, which led to a big boost in sales with almost 1000 sold at full price- $2.99. That was my best promotion yet, paying for itself, the cost of the cover, and some of this promo too.
Here’s the new promo plan:
Aug 18 The Last
Ereader news today- $25
Kindle nation daily- $30
Bknights- $10
Kindle books and tips- $25
That adds up to $90. These promo services Facebook post, tweet, email and blog your book to their audiences. Apparently they make lots of money off us authors. But- they offer a shot at visibility, and these selected sites have served me well in the past.
Aug 19 The Lost
The same as above, plus:
Freebooksy- $70
That totals $160 for The Lost, and $250 in total. It starts to be real money. Wish me luck, and I’ll post results here.
Other news
Here is a picture of my mom’s cat in my mom’s garden-
Her name is Paris, and she likes hunting frogs. She basically squashes them when she pounces. She also likes taking walks with us up and down the street, to the delight of neighbors.
