Evening,
If you read this blog, or follow me on FB and Twitter you'll know my dog Ralph was hurt today. He's lost part of his right ear and is spending the night at the vets. The wife is beside herself and we're both missing him being here. But he's lucky because we can afford the bills and the time to look after him.
Plenty of dogs, and other animals, aren't so lucky. So for the next 7 days (at least) I'm donating all proceeds from my book sales to two charities local to where I live. Their websites are:
http://www.wolfwood.co.uk/
http://www.animalcare-lancaster.co.uk/
I do this for no other reason than I'm worried about my dog and this will make me feel better. If you'd rather not play along then just have a look at a dog charity near you and donate to them, simple as.
Either way, just so folk don't misinterpret this, I'm not going to post about it again. Either way, I'll donate what there is in the pot, and if it goes well I might just keep doing it. Whatever, have a look at the websites, your next dog might be on there waiting for you.
Ta
Showing posts with label pointer puppy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pointer puppy. Show all posts
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Monday, 8 July 2013
Pay per click advertising - the story so far
Evening gang,
Cracking weather we're having isn't it? We had a full weekend in the garden, folk round, lunch outside, pub for tea, the whole nine yards. The British Lions battered the Australians, Andy Murray only went and won bloody Wimbledon and the Ashes starts in a few days. Life is good.
And then there's my ongoing pay per click advertising experiment on Goodreads. Regular readers will know I tweaked the wording a little and I am now getting clicks. But it's not translating into sales. Not the end of the world by any stretch because the advert traffic is vast but essentially I am paying for being seen rather than for sales.
It's a learning curve certainly and not a very expensive one. But it is something I want to crack because I think the sales potential is there.
In other news Ralph is growing rapidly and learning fast. He's a tiny bit off his game today because he tangled with an 8 month old boxer yesterday which knocked him around a bit in a playful way. But he wasn't scared which bodes well for when he's bigger.
The day job continues to twist and turn. It very much looks like I'm going to be slotted into the gang at HQ in sunny Blackpool if I want it. But the money isn't ideal compared to what I earn now so unless that gets sorted I might well find myself back in my old job and that is not a good thing. Made me shiver a bit just typing it. Anyway, time will tell.
The estate agent continues to be a pain about the house I'm trying to buy. Just accept my offer and let us get on with it!!! The bank are on board and, interestingly, the bank said this happens a lot. They are happy to lend but the agents make it hard yet the banks take all the stick. Again, we shall see but if it's not sorted this week I reckon I'll be looking elsewhere.
Right, that's it. Editing on the new novel continues, but slower than I'd like. It'll be worth waiting for though. About a hundred pages away from a draft and then I'll point the wife at it, assuming I can tear her away from the hound.
Carry on.
Cracking weather we're having isn't it? We had a full weekend in the garden, folk round, lunch outside, pub for tea, the whole nine yards. The British Lions battered the Australians, Andy Murray only went and won bloody Wimbledon and the Ashes starts in a few days. Life is good.
And then there's my ongoing pay per click advertising experiment on Goodreads. Regular readers will know I tweaked the wording a little and I am now getting clicks. But it's not translating into sales. Not the end of the world by any stretch because the advert traffic is vast but essentially I am paying for being seen rather than for sales.
It's a learning curve certainly and not a very expensive one. But it is something I want to crack because I think the sales potential is there.
In other news Ralph is growing rapidly and learning fast. He's a tiny bit off his game today because he tangled with an 8 month old boxer yesterday which knocked him around a bit in a playful way. But he wasn't scared which bodes well for when he's bigger.
The day job continues to twist and turn. It very much looks like I'm going to be slotted into the gang at HQ in sunny Blackpool if I want it. But the money isn't ideal compared to what I earn now so unless that gets sorted I might well find myself back in my old job and that is not a good thing. Made me shiver a bit just typing it. Anyway, time will tell.
The estate agent continues to be a pain about the house I'm trying to buy. Just accept my offer and let us get on with it!!! The bank are on board and, interestingly, the bank said this happens a lot. They are happy to lend but the agents make it hard yet the banks take all the stick. Again, we shall see but if it's not sorted this week I reckon I'll be looking elsewhere.
Right, that's it. Editing on the new novel continues, but slower than I'd like. It'll be worth waiting for though. About a hundred pages away from a draft and then I'll point the wife at it, assuming I can tear her away from the hound.
Carry on.
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.
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Puppy!
Morning gang,
After several years of pondering, months of research, weeks of emails and driving up and down the country, we have at long last picked a puppy. Ralph, the newest member of our gang, will be joining the band in two weeks and I anticipate him being the coolest dog in the world. Future blog posts may feature him and he might well appear in future novels. My family retriever, Dennis, features in a previous book, I think it's The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe.
In other news I haven't made much progress with editing the sequel to the Jazz Cafe partly because of work, partly because of dog related travel and partly because I'm idle. But I'm also pondering the next book as well which is proving to be quite the distraction. The good news is I've got half of June off work so things will progress.
Finally, on the 9th March, I emailed a submission to Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann and have so far received no response at all. I find this really disappointing. I know every agent will say they are busy etc but there should be an element of professionalism. I follow Carole Blake on Twitter and all her advice is about how the submission is a business contact, it should be professional. Surely some sort of acknowledgement would be professional? I'm going to email Juliet today to remind her I exist and highlight the timescale.
Right, that's me done. I'm going to spend the day adding usic to my swanky digital home network cloud thingy and browse the internet for dog related paraphenalia.
After several years of pondering, months of research, weeks of emails and driving up and down the country, we have at long last picked a puppy. Ralph, the newest member of our gang, will be joining the band in two weeks and I anticipate him being the coolest dog in the world. Future blog posts may feature him and he might well appear in future novels. My family retriever, Dennis, features in a previous book, I think it's The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe.
In other news I haven't made much progress with editing the sequel to the Jazz Cafe partly because of work, partly because of dog related travel and partly because I'm idle. But I'm also pondering the next book as well which is proving to be quite the distraction. The good news is I've got half of June off work so things will progress.
Finally, on the 9th March, I emailed a submission to Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann and have so far received no response at all. I find this really disappointing. I know every agent will say they are busy etc but there should be an element of professionalism. I follow Carole Blake on Twitter and all her advice is about how the submission is a business contact, it should be professional. Surely some sort of acknowledgement would be professional? I'm going to email Juliet today to remind her I exist and highlight the timescale.
Right, that's me done. I'm going to spend the day adding usic to my swanky digital home network cloud thingy and browse the internet for dog related paraphenalia.
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