Chasing the dream

Hi folks,

So, things are progressing, sort of. I'm still not making any money but lots and lots of people have downloaded my books.

After the success of my short story promo with The Storyteller (still at number five on Amazon UK as of this minute) I decided to do a free promo with Playground Cool, the full length debut. It went a bit berserk and shifted about a 1000 copies in 36 hours. Needless to say, all good. I've ended the promo now to see if it translates into any real sales as with the short story.

I've been posting quite a bit on Goodreads and the folk there have been pretty supportive with a few folk saying they've got a copy and the moderators even posting links to my book on Amazon. Top work!

I've not heard back from BANG yet about the completed manuscript I sent but fingers are still crossed. Yesterday I emailed three agents and today posted (old school) extracts and letters etc of the latest effort just because I crave rejection letters. If they do reject me I'll fire off some more just to show how keen I am.

Finally, I'm building up to joining Facebook. Pain in the arse really because I hardly have time to write this blog, post on writing forums and go to work without having to find time for Facebook. But as the wife keeps reminding me, if I become successful I won't have to work in a warehouse anymore. Thank Christ for that.

Anyway, so far I've shifted somewhere around 1400 books, mostly from free downloads. But it's 1400 folk who had never heard of me before November, so it's hard to be negative.

Until next time...

Manuscript Sent to Publisher

Evening all,

Just a quick post to say, following on from a request from Bang Publishing, I have sent a completed manuscript this evening for their consideration.

I will keep you informed as to their response but it's all very exciting.

Results of the Amazon KDP Free Giveaway

So there we have it. My 48 hour (nearly) free giveaway of my short story - The Storyteller - has ended and I have to say the results surprised me a bit. Based on what I'd read on various forums I expected to shift a few dozen, maybe a hundred. As of an hour ago I had "sold" 556 copies! The majority of these are in America (about 380) with the rest being from the UK apart from 3 in Germany (a real surprise).

It was very satisfying to see the bestseller charts during this period as I was number 1 in my category in the UK and number 2 in the US. Sadly, within an hour of the promo ending I fell back down to 70.

But it's largely positive. I've learned that clearly a lot of folk subscribe to the free Kindle books feed and that most of these people aren't going to risk 86p of their money on a book by an author they don't know. Also, I haven't had any reviews and the promo had zero impact on sales of my full length novel.

I have no clue how to address this for the future, other than to keep doing what I've been doing and hope it picks up. But 556 people now know who I am and own a copy of my work. Two days ago, that wasn't the case so, for that reason if no other, it's been well worth it.

KDP free promo

Evening readers,

Forgive any errors, I'm typing this on the wife's Blackberry.

Yesterday I posted a Smashwords coupon for a free download of my short story. That has so far not translated into any sales. However, I did the same via Amazon KDP last night and this has already led to almost 300 downloads - in less than 24 hours.

So thanks to those that have now got a copy of my book. It is proving useful in terms of guaging where sales are likely to come from.

Free Short Story!!

Evening folks,

As of now my short story, The Storyteller, is available as a free download until the 4th of February. To get it trot to Smashwords and enter this code at the checkout:

GZ24V

If you like it please leave a review and spread the word.

Thanks

Goodreads

Afternoon gang,

Quick post this one as I'm at work - but it's lunchtime. I've joined Goodreads and it turns out it's actually rather good. If you're not familiar it's essentially a community for book lovers where you can recommend, review, exchange, promote and discuss books of any sort, genre, format etc, as well as list your own favourites.

The link is in this post so go and have a look, after you've bought my books of course!

Thanks

Happy New Year

Hello everyone,

First of all I hope everyone had a fun New Years Eve and I wish everyone a happy and successful 2012.

I've edited 74 pages of The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe with a view to sending it off to Bang by the end of this week, assuming I'm happy with it.

Aside from that I've done a couple of press releases which seems to have a very positive impact on traffic to the blog and on sales. Also, I'm planning an assault on the top ten at YouWriteOn in an attempt to do well in their January Next Big Author Competition. I'll keep you up to speed on that as the month progresses.

But for now, thanks for bothering to look.