Showing posts with label Breaking Bad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Breaking Bad. Show all posts
Monday, 30 September 2013
What's your time management like?
Afternoon gang, Generally mine is ace. But lately, because of work, the dog etc, it's been bloody awful. Which got me to thinking about my fellow authors. Between work, kids, pets, family etc, how on earth does anyone find time to write? And how much time do you actually find? Because I might well have a spare hour tonight but it won't be productive because I'll be knackered from work and walking the dog etc. That said, things are progessing. The wife has finished the draft of the new book. Devoured it to be fair. Feedback was very positive. There's a few bits to work on which I'll attack ASAP depending on mood and then it'll be available to buy. Wooo! Apologies for the lack of paragraphs etc, I'm on a browser that doesn't support Blogger so I'm doing this via HTML which isnt one of my strengths. Other news? Final Breaking Bad tonight. Can't wait for that. Liverpool second in the league! Madness. Won't last. Sales a little slow this month after a flurry a couple of weeks ago so any last minute September sales much appreciated. Spread the word. Until next time...
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
How effective is your advertising?
Evening gang,
In my case the answer to this question is "not very". But I'm still learning.
Regular readers will know that last week I bought some pay per click advertising on Goodreads. Since the 21st June the ads have been viewed 13,000 times. That's right, 13,000! Easy maths tells us that's about 1300 views each and every day on average. Now imagine if just 1% of those views turned into sales. That would be 130 copies of the Jazz cafe sold in just 10 days.
Doesn't sound hard does it. Except so far the views are not translating into sales. This, it seems, is the trick. So I've just tweaked the advert and will leave it until the weekend to see if anything changes. As it's pay per click it's costing me nothing to have it sat there being seen and I can edit it as much as I like, when I like. Probability suggests that if I stick at it I'll stumble across the magic formula eventually and the sales will come. Once that happens I'll buy adverts for my other books too.
As I've mentioned to friends recently and to my long suffering wife, it's time to make a change. I'm becoming one of those people who simply complains about his lot in life. God knows my lot is much better than most. I've got a very cushy job at the moment, we have plenty of money, big house, ace puppy called Ralph, it's all good. Except I want to do something else. So I'm finally doing something about it.
Buying the ads is the first small step to push the book sales. The new book will be ready soon and I am considering paying for a launch campaign to kick start it. In other news I also viewed a property last week to buy as an investment. If that works out, I might buy another.
The end goal? Regular readers know the answer. Less time at work. More time writing. It's all about making enough to pay the bills.
Anyway, I've got editing to do, quick half hour and then an episode of Breaking Bad before bed.
Carry on.
In my case the answer to this question is "not very". But I'm still learning.
Regular readers will know that last week I bought some pay per click advertising on Goodreads. Since the 21st June the ads have been viewed 13,000 times. That's right, 13,000! Easy maths tells us that's about 1300 views each and every day on average. Now imagine if just 1% of those views turned into sales. That would be 130 copies of the Jazz cafe sold in just 10 days.
Doesn't sound hard does it. Except so far the views are not translating into sales. This, it seems, is the trick. So I've just tweaked the advert and will leave it until the weekend to see if anything changes. As it's pay per click it's costing me nothing to have it sat there being seen and I can edit it as much as I like, when I like. Probability suggests that if I stick at it I'll stumble across the magic formula eventually and the sales will come. Once that happens I'll buy adverts for my other books too.
As I've mentioned to friends recently and to my long suffering wife, it's time to make a change. I'm becoming one of those people who simply complains about his lot in life. God knows my lot is much better than most. I've got a very cushy job at the moment, we have plenty of money, big house, ace puppy called Ralph, it's all good. Except I want to do something else. So I'm finally doing something about it.
Buying the ads is the first small step to push the book sales. The new book will be ready soon and I am considering paying for a launch campaign to kick start it. In other news I also viewed a property last week to buy as an investment. If that works out, I might buy another.
The end goal? Regular readers know the answer. Less time at work. More time writing. It's all about making enough to pay the bills.
Anyway, I've got editing to do, quick half hour and then an episode of Breaking Bad before bed.
Carry on.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Do you listen to music while you work?
Evening kids,
How's things? You will have noticed my blogging activity has increased. Benefits of being off work right there.
Anyway, I've spent a very productive evening listening to The Man Who by Travis and currently I'm halfway through Odds and Sods by The Who. The dog - Ralph - is asleep next to me on the couch and I've got the first 105 pages of the new novel in much better shape.
I do find that I focus better when I have music on. It has to be at quite a low volume, background almost, and then I sort of know it's there but I can concentrate on what I'm doing in a way that I struggle to do when the room is completely silent.
Quick update on the new novel then. I've tweaked a couple of characters, their relationship to each other actually, so that key scenes make a lot more sense now. The aim of this draft - the second - is just to make sure the plot holds together and to spot any glaring errors. Then I'll do a third draft where I pretty it all up, sort the formatting, grammar, lob some colour on it all I suppose.
But I'm pretty happy with it so far. However I've been known to do some pretty major rewrites at this stage before so we shall see. In a fun twist, the novel is set in and around Morecambe, specifically the Winter Gardens. Guess where the wife is tonight? Yep, Winter Gardens watching a colleague and a friend in a performance of Beauty and the Beast. I was going to go but then we got Ralph. I have to admit I'm pretty happy to be here rather than there.
Anyway, that's it for now. As ever my late evening plans are to watch more Breaking Bad on Netflix and drink ale.
How's things? You will have noticed my blogging activity has increased. Benefits of being off work right there.
Anyway, I've spent a very productive evening listening to The Man Who by Travis and currently I'm halfway through Odds and Sods by The Who. The dog - Ralph - is asleep next to me on the couch and I've got the first 105 pages of the new novel in much better shape.
I do find that I focus better when I have music on. It has to be at quite a low volume, background almost, and then I sort of know it's there but I can concentrate on what I'm doing in a way that I struggle to do when the room is completely silent.
Quick update on the new novel then. I've tweaked a couple of characters, their relationship to each other actually, so that key scenes make a lot more sense now. The aim of this draft - the second - is just to make sure the plot holds together and to spot any glaring errors. Then I'll do a third draft where I pretty it all up, sort the formatting, grammar, lob some colour on it all I suppose.
But I'm pretty happy with it so far. However I've been known to do some pretty major rewrites at this stage before so we shall see. In a fun twist, the novel is set in and around Morecambe, specifically the Winter Gardens. Guess where the wife is tonight? Yep, Winter Gardens watching a colleague and a friend in a performance of Beauty and the Beast. I was going to go but then we got Ralph. I have to admit I'm pretty happy to be here rather than there.
Anyway, that's it for now. As ever my late evening plans are to watch more Breaking Bad on Netflix and drink ale.
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