Never a dull moment

 Wondering this morning why Amazon has suddenly dropped off the Marketplace statistics on my KDP reports. The US always used to be the major player but as of this month it has fallen way behind. 

This has led me to checking as far as I can but I cannot see a reason for it. Unless it is because I charged a dollar more for my books? Would that do it?

Now that I am not writing - The Earl's Protection has been on sale for 12 days now - I have time to look at all these things. I really should have another go with Mailerlite and see if email lists really work or not. I have the feeling they may be just annoying to most people but the experts insist it is the way to go. Unless one chooses to go with a business venture that promises to "do it all for you - and sell thousands of titles!" There are a lot of them about on Facebook and Instagram these days. I also should look at TikTok, which so far has remained a mystery to me. Never a dull moment when you are a KDP author!

The gateway is Prudhoe Castle, built in early medieval days and still standing above the river Tyne in Northumberland

Time for a re-think, PR wise

There is such a lot of old clutter on Amazon if you care to look - because Amazon continue to offer old paperbacks for sale and there's nothing authors can do about it if the rights  belong to a publishing company - even though the company has gone forever. Old covers, old editions proliferate, plus reviews. Hopefully, most people look only for the new stuff and don't see all the dross!

While wishing everyone a Happy Christmas, I am thinking of updating my books and bringing titles together where I can. For example: I have 4 books that I uploaded to KDP as I finished writing them  -  several years apart. They should really be brought together as one complete package. I called it the Scots Queen Series but really the hero, and the thread throughout the four books is, Matho. I aim to PR them under this sort of banner now:

THE MATHO SPIRSTON SAGA

Love, loyalty, and survival across the Borders of England, Scotland, and France.

From the blazing borderlands of Tudor England to the storm-lashed castles of Scotland and the treacherous courts of France, one man’s courage is tested against impossible odds.

Matho Spirston begins as a humble guard, but fate thrusts him into the heart of history—caught between kings and queens, ambition and betrayal, love and loss. Whether aiding a doomed romance, stealing a queen for England, or carrying secret letters across war-torn Europe, Matho must fight not only for survival but for the chance to protect those he loves.

This sweeping saga blends romance, adventure, and political intrigue in the turbulent mid-sixteenth century. Perfect for fans of historical fiction who crave daring heroes, feisty heroines, and the perilous dance of duty and desire.

Start with Fair Border Bride, the gripping prequel, and follow Matho through Abduction, The Queen’s Courier, and Queen’s Letters for a journey you won’t forget.

Where did TikTok go?

 

TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese-owned ByteDance, was directed to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner by January 19 or be banned in the U.S. After ByteDance failed to meet the deadline, TikTok vanished for Americans.

After his inauguration on Monday, Trump gave TikTok 75 days to seek a new solution. The app remains operational in the U.S. for the time being, but if TikTok can disappear so quickly, what’s to stop it from happening again?

No one knows what’s next for any platform. The best advice is Diversify. Start a YouTube channel they say, Invest in Instagram Reels. Launch a Substack newsletter. 

Seems a self-pubbed author needs to be or hire a PR expert these days . Also required is an intuitive knowledge of how to use the new programs. I find it difficult to use the few platforms I do know and wish they were all as simple as Facebook.

Technology Rules

 My current aim is to make a landing page.

A week ago, I wasn't sure what such a thing might be. 

To be honest I'm not exactly sure now and it seems devilishly difficult. But I shall keep trying. To be honest, I need something to concentrate on since Perla left us this week. I now have a house full of dog baskets and beds, but no dog and it is a year on the 12th since Tim left me. Plus which we have a funeral for a family member on 10th.

A landing page is supposedly what I need to get people to join my email list. I tried last year with Mailchimp and managed the first newsletter but could not get the instructions correct to send out a second or third letter. To my shame, I gave up. But now I am trying again with Mailerlite in the hope - faint, I admit - that it will prove easier.

Wish me luck. If anyone has any advice don't hesitate - tell me!

NaNoWriMo, I believe.

It is November.

 Lots of people are tapping away at their computer to take part in the Write a Novel in a Month competition. I think it results in a drop in posts on social media, and a drop in stats on my blog. Everybody else's blog too, I suspect. (I wonder if this makes it a bad month to bring out a new novel?)

I have never tried to do the 50,000 words in a month and I don't think I ever shall. For me it would require so much editing afterwards that it would be more time consuming than usual.

Now that I have finished Viking Bride  - and I have - both Kindle,  published on 27th of this month and - cross my fingers and hope the  proof looks all right when it arrives - the paperback, which might be a week or so later, I can take a deep breath and look around me.

I must do some PR work. It is so easy to forget, but it must be done. Otherwise no one knows I exist, and even less do they know my books exist. So in between dodging the rain during this miserable, flooded-fields November and washing Tim's paws every time we come back from a walk, I shall be busy exploring new ways of getting myself known. It has been a quiet month, with DH in Australia; just me and Tim.

A few days ago I was lucky enough to be featured as a guest on Mary Anne Yarde's blog -

https://maryanneyarde.blogspot.com/ 
and the result was so good I decided to copy and paste the whole thing here. The website is a vast one, with loads of book chatter and information. Do check it out!

TUESDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2019

Historical Fiction author, Jen Black, is talking about the inspiration behind her fabulous series — The Scottish Queen #MaryQueenofScots #HistoricalFiction @JenBlackNCL

Historical Fiction author, Jen Black, is talking about the inspiration behind her fabulous series — The Scottish Queen



Mary, Queen of Scots: "Mary in captivity,"by Nicholas Hilliard, c.1578

I always wanted to write and the stories that interested me always seem to be set in the past. Even at age eleven I was an avid Mary Queen of Scots fan and later I supported – and still do - Richard III.
I didn’t have the confidence to attempt writing until I was thirty and even then, I kept it very much a secret enterprise. It was hard work with a typewriter and Snopak!
My favourite author will always be Dorothy Dunnett, and it was reading her rather austere conception of Marie de Guise that set me researching and thinking about the character. Dunnett’s conception was a very good one, but I began to think of a softer, warmer personality and she slowly grew in my mind. Matho was a minor character in Fair Border Bride and several people told me how much they liked him and why didn’t I write about him?
So, I did. I brought the two characters together in this trilogy. The everyday facts are as close to history as I can get them for everything but the relationship between the Dowager and Matho, because Matho is entirely fictional. I hope Marie had an Englishman who helped her but I doubt it!


The SCOTTISH QUEEN trilogy is filled with action, romance, loyalty and betrayal; set against the turbulent English-Scottish wars of the 1540s, complex characters surround the infant queen of Scotland. Powerful lords fight for their own survival and Englishman Matho Spirston becomes entangled in the plots that surround the valiant Dowager Queen struggling alone to save her daughter’s crown.


Abduction of the Scots Queen
(Scottish Queen trilogy Book 1)



Encouraged by Henry VIII’s promised reward, Matho and Harry set out to abduct the infant Scots Queen and bring her to England even though Matho thinks they have as much chance of success as a "duckling chased by a fox.” Others pursue the same quest – namely Meg Douglas, King Henry's headstrong niece, who flatters Matho into helping her and at the same time snares the interest of Lord Lennox, who alternately woos her and the Dowager Queen. The adventures that follow are swift paced and full of twists and turns.

Amazon UK • Amazon US

Queen's Courier
(The Scottish Queen Trilogy Book 2)



Against a background of political intrigue and Tudor violence, love is not easy to find or sustain. The Queen Dowager repudiates it, Lord Lennox balances Meg’s attributes against those of the Dowager and the lures of Henry Tudor. Matho Spirston falls for Scots lass Phoebe, the English invasion of Edinburgh brings disaster, Meg nurses her guilty secret and Lennox makes his choice.

Amazon UK • Amazon US

The Queen's Letters
(The Scottish Queen Trilogy Book 3)



Grief-stricken, Matho puts his life in danger when he volunteers to deliver the Dowager Queen's letters to France. Dodging assassins, befriending teenager Jehan and saddled with the Dowager’s illegitimate, outspoken niece, danger intensifies when he sets out to unmask a powerful enemy and the hangman threatens once more. Meg achieves her dearest wish, but finds it is not all as she imagined.
Amazon UK • Amazon US

Excerpt

From The Queen’s Letters

May 25th 1544, Dieppe
Matho landed feet first, fell onto his backside with a thud that snapped his jaws together and slid toward another drop. A voice called out nearby as he fell over the edge of the roof, dropped into something wet and smelly, and re-bounded onto the hard, cold cobblestoned yard. Pain sprang up in his shoulder as if someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. Snatching a short, swift breath he knew from the stink that he had landed on what the Aydon farmers would have called the muck heap.
The voice came closer; French phrases that meant nothing to him. Making careful movements with one hand jammed against his shoulder, he rolled to his knees. The satchel containing the Dowager’s letters hung askew, and the strap dug into his neck.
“Monsieur! Monsieur!” A brisk volley of rapid French followed. The stable lad, his torch held high, loomed up beside him.
“Help me up,” Matho croaked. His newly learned French had deserted him.
A warm hand helped him to his feet. Matho, bent like an old man and none too steady on his feet, stood in the inn yard and gazed open-mouthed at the thirty-foot drop he had survived; then the rosy glow that lit the sky above the building caught his attention. Sparks flew up against the indigo sky and the hollow roar of the flames grew louder as a portion of the roof gave way.
He half-turned, lost his balance and grabbed the lad’s arm to stop himself falling. “D’ye speak English?”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“My French is not good.” He took a deep breath to steady his heart, still going at a gallop.
“Many English arrive in Dieppe. They speak no French.” The youth’s tone was either an accusation, or dismissive; most probably both.
Matho rubbed a hand across his face. “Aye, well. There’s no call for it back home. What’s yer name?”
“Jehan Bourdain.”
“Help me get my horse, Jehan? The whole lot is going to be burning soon.” He gestured to the smoke and flames stretching high above the roof of the inn and decided against helping douse the fire. The layout of the place was unknown to him, his French had deserted him and his back pained him every time he moved a certain way. In his present condition, he would hinder more than help.
Still gripping the flaming torch, Jehan disappeared into the stable.
“Is there not a lantern you can use, lad?” Matho called, stumbling after him. “You’ll set the stable afire with that thing.” He spied a horn lantern on the window ledge, reached for it and grimaced as a pain, like a hot wire, ran through his back.
Since Jehan was busy saddling his horse, Matho lit the fat candle inside the lantern and doused the torch in a bucket of water.
“Are there other horses here?” he called, breathing in the warm, musty smell of horses, hay and oats.
Muffled by wooden partitioning, Jehan’s voice drifted back to him. “One horse only. The Scotsman took the other before the fire broke out.”
“Well, my advice would be to get yourself and the other horse well away from here before it burns down.”
“I cannot leave. I have nowhere to go.”
“Go home.”
“This is home.” Jehan led Matho’s horse, saddled and bridled, out into the yard.
“The inn belongs to your parents?”
“My parents are dead. I work here, and sleep with the horses.”
Matho grunted. There was no need to ask how the parents had died. The sweating sickness had taken half a village not far from Corbridge last winter, and Phemie’s aunt in Edinburgh much more recently. Such things were commonplace, but unlucky for the lad. “Well, get as far away from the fire as you can.”
Sparks whirled dangerously close on eddies of hot wind, and the roar of the flames grew louder. Harried figures hurled bucket after bucket of water into the building, yet the fire glow captured one window after another. A man staggered out, coughing, and sagged to his knees in the middle of the yard. Four men followed him, a bundled shape carried between them.
“Hurry, lad. Let’s be away from here. And get the other horse. We can’t leave it to burn.”
He checked his pack was tied behind the saddle, soothed his horse and limped across the yard with the tense, trembling animal nudging his back in its hurry to be away from danger. Jehan followed with a sturdy chestnut on a lead rope which he thrust toward Matho.
“I get the saddle.”
Before Matho could complain, the lad raced back into the stable and reappeared with a saddle clutched in his arms, a bridle and a large bag slung over one shoulder. Grinning, he speedily tacked up the horse. “Now we go, yes?”
A roar rent the air, and fierce light lit their faces. The horses snorted and skittered sideways.

“Christ, the roof’s fallen in.” Matho stared at the doomed inn, hardly aware that Jehan had mounted his horse. “And the straw’s alight,” he said with resignation, watching a spark land in the straw bale by the stable door. A shy, tentative flame sprang into life. “Come on, let’s get away from here.”


Jen Black


Jen lives in the lovely Tyne valley between Hexham and Newcastle in north east England, a stone’s throw from the Roman Wall and with a castle that dates from the 1100’s round the corner. Writing and photography are her main interests and walking her Dalmatian Tim twice a day keeps her fit. She has a degree in English Language & Literature and managed academic libraries for a living. Her father’s family have been traced back to the 1700’s on the Welsh and English border—a place she has never been, but her maternal grandfather worked in Skye, and there is one Scottish great-grandmother in the family tree, so if ever there’s time, perhaps there’s more to learn on that score.


Connect with Jen: Website • Facebook • Twitter.

Posted by Mary Anne Yarde at 07:00

Labels: #MaryQueenofScots #HistoricalFiction #Inspiration #Historical #Scotland

5 comments:


Jen Black12 February 2019 at 11:42

Great to finally see it up, MaryAnne!

ReplyDelete


Penny Hampson12 February 2019 at 17:18

Your books sound exciting, Jen, set as they are in such turbulent times. Will be going on my TBR list.Reply



Mark Noce13 February 2019 at 00:34

An intriguing historical figure for sure, but she scares me a little too ;)Reply



Jen Black13 February 2019 at 15:28

Let me know how you get on with them, Penny.....Scares you why, Mark?

ReplyDelete



Mary Anne Yarde13 February 2019 at 17:29

Great except, Jen and a lovely post!Reply

See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx

The mysterious art of guest blogging

I have never “guest blogged” anywhere, but they say it is one of the best ways to promote a book. So I’ve been reading around the topic and here are some hints and tips I must remember.

Most important is to think about where your readers are likely to be? Genre is all-important. You’ll reach a lot more romance readers at “Romance University” or “Romance Divas” than general purpose blogs. Look for blogs of authors in your genre with a good reader following.

Use your protagonist’s hobbies, interests, or profession.

Location can provide opportunities. If your book is set in a particular place, reach out to travel blogs about the area of your setting. People planning holidays buy more fiction than people arguing about grammar.

The only way to tell if a blog attracts people who really might be interested in your book is to visit and read the posts. Read the comments, too. Leave comments on posts you enjoy. The best place to start querying is a blog you read regularly because you genuinely like it and have an interest in the topics it addresses.

Read the Guidelines and follow them. Write with proper paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization and spelling. Be businesslike, concise, respectful, and don’t lie. A blog query should start with a sentence explaining why you want a spot on that particular blog.

Pitches need not be elaborate. Give possible topics with a few sentences after each about your angle and why you’re qualified to write about it. Ie How to Market Books on Snapchat. I’ve boosted my sales by 25% with this method. I’ll provide a step-by-step how-to.

There’s nothing wrong if your blog has a small following. A powerful reason for guest blogging is to extend your online following. If you’ve been a guest of a big, popular writing blog like The Book Designer, Jane Friedman, Writers on the Storm, Fiction University, Romance University, etc. that’s a big plus, too.

Don’t simply offer another blogger a same material. You can offer to write on the same subject, but don’t simply offer a cut-and-paste.

If you have a time window, giveaways, contests, etc, and you want this post to be part of a blog tour, be sure to mention it.

Make sure you will be available in that time window to respond to comments.  That way you'll make connections and sell books, so if you’re not available, you’re losing sales.

The most helpful piece I read on guest blogging was by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) January 20, 2019 and there’s a lot more than my sparse jottings on her blog for those who are interested in guest blogging.

To ad, or not to ad?

Publication Day for The Queen's Letters.

I have sent it on its way and it will have to make its own way in the world. Yet in a way I feel bereft; it has been with me for so long, I'm not sure I know what to do without it!

My list of jobs to be done is whittling down item by item. My car tax is renewed, Mailchimp Newsletter sent out - though I cheated on that and asked my other half to do it before I flew into a temper and bashed the pc. The software is not easy to use  and of course I use it so rarely that what I learned the first time, I'd forgotten when I came back to it. I have given my other half the title of Mailchimp Manager and maybe he'll do them in future. I write the copy, but he does all the tecchie stuff.

I've been pushing tweets and Facebook posts in the last fortnight and I'm starting to think about using all the ad services there are around these days. According to Mark Dawson, advertising guru,  we should bypass KDP ads, free or not, because Amazon Advantage is far superior. I thought as a first foray I would try KDP Free ads, and set one up for 3 days starting tomorrow. I've no idea what, if anything, will happen, but I shall be watching!

Contemplating Ads

Finally I feel better. A tummy bug laid me low

 and it has taken 7 days for it to start, develop 

and finally disappear. I hope it is not going to 

make a reappearance any time soon. It was a 

struggle, but I still managed to get the final 

version of Book 3 of the trilogy to Amazon before the deadline on Monday night. Publication Day will be Friday 23rd November. Between now and then I shall be promoting. I may even try an ad. Gulp!

Maybe a little reading around will be appropriate before I plunge in. I'm told you can start at as little as 3 dollars a day and spend as much as you want. 3 dollars doesn't seem much at all, does it? How much good can that paltry sum do? Will there be any result at all? There's only one way to find out.

The Marketing Headache

Let's face it, marketing is a headache for most indie writers. We're just not geared for it. This is the one time when I really bemoan the fact that I'm not published by one of the big publishing houses, because then they would have a department that took care of marketing. Naturally, not all authors get the same kind of marketing push, but any push at all would be better than the way I'm doing it!

So, I'm re-evaluating how I do (when I get around to it, that is) my marketing. I've relied on Facebook, but FB has changed so much that it ain't working any more. The yahoo groups I used to use seem moribund now and I'm not sure if there are  equivalents hiding in the undergrowth. It seems that authors mostly tallk to other authors via FB, which is good but I'm not sure that authors are into buying books in quantities.

While I'm on the run-up to perfecting my soon to be released book, I shall be scouting the blogs of successful authors to see what they recommend. More than authors on FB these days I see people who want to sell or teach me how to make a million sales in a week. It must surely be the new industry of IT! I followed Mark Dawson for a while, but his course is far too expensive for me to consider, plus which there are an awful lot of words to wade through before you get to anything useful or sensible. I wonder how many takers they have? Will everyone suddenly be using new and different techniques for selling online? I watch with interest.

PR, promotion, call it what you will

Nearing completion on my wip, so my thoughts are turning to the inevitable PR exercise that accompanies any new book.
It is about time I got to grips with Mailchimp again, so maybe that should be first on my list. Then I'm considering pre-ordering on Amazon to see if that stirs any interest, but I need to get a little nearer completion before I upload the details.
Then there are the posts that have to go out until one feels that one's head is as solid as the desk at which I work each day.
Reading some of the literature on the internet about marketing strategies and plans makes me feel tired before I have begun. It takes as much time as writing the book! Old ways of spreading the word seem to have changed. I no long see any yahoo groups coming up on my feed and presume they have mostly succumbed to falling usage and given up the ghost. So what has replaced them? The Snapchats and Instagrams and the other boards I know nothing about? Perhaps.

I have a blog, I use Facebook and Twitter, but to be honest I mostly talk to other authors, and that is not what I need right now. Methinks I need to widen my scope and veer towards readers. With this in mind I have joined Goodreads for the third time and hope  to make some headway in understanding how to use it. The site is not the easiest to understand.

There are other options to consider. Paid advertising, of course, which is probably linked to the winnowing down of Facebook contacts that seems to be going on. Blog tours, sending out arcs to get reviews, and a host of other things. Authors are running to keep up with all the tasks they need to perform...

It is always about this point that I wish, really, really wish, that I was attached to a big publishing company who have professionals to do this sort of thing. How nice to be able to swap ideas about what will work and what will not; what will sell and what is last year's golden child.

Newsletters

Memories of France

Trying something new at the moment. The internet seems inundated at the moment with “experts” telling us aspiring authors how to sell more books. I followed Mark Dawson’s posts but decided I could not justify spending roughly £600 on an online course even if the information I learned would jump up my sales by x percent. Cynic that I am, I thought that if everyone followed his advice, then every indie author in the land would be earning thousands every day. Now that just isn’t going to be true, is it?

Seems to me that if it works for one or two authors, that’s great, but don’t expect the same result for everyone who tries the same methods. However – takes deep breath – there is some logic in what he says, so I am cautiously dipping my toe in the pool of newsletters. Sent out an exploratory e-mail to everyone I know whose email address I have on hand. You would think I’d have more than I collected together, but in my naïve days I didn’t keep back-ups and through a PC crash and my natural instinct for paper-tidiness and throwing away anything old (I inherited that trait from my mother; she was a devil for throwing things out. I lost several favourite books that way.) I have only a small number. In a way that is good, for I can build up slowly. It would be soul-destroying to discover that half of the emails were “dead links” or that people didn’t want to know me or my newsletter.

So the introductory has gone out, with no rude replies so far. Now I am exploring Mailchimp on advice from family and friends who all seem to think it is great. It probably is, once I’ve worked my way through it, but right now, it seems so complex it is making my brain ache.

Metadata

For a long time after I first self-published, I had no idea what Metadata might be.  Then one day I fell across something on the internet that made me feel I had to find out more about this strange sounding word. 

That is when I discovered that Metadata is the information that makes your book searchable. Or put it another way – potential readers can find your book by the Metadata you provide - such as the author name, the category, price, ISBN and title. Enhanced metadata include author bios, blurbs, review quotes and more.

If you are an indie author you will have to list Metadata at every place you publish your book – Nook, Kobo, Amazon etc. Like me, you may not have realised this is what you were doing!

It was about this time that I ran into another puzzle. What was SEO all about? It stands for search engine optimization and guess what? Metadata is the information that search engines look for when someone searches for a book. The advice was to create metadata that fitted my book and matched my target audience. Author name etc was not a problem, I could supply that sort of factual info with ease, but Keywords and Categories proved a different thing altogether. 

My next problem was which Keywords and Categories to choose. Sounds simple, but I’m not sure I’ve got it quite right even now. In my next post I shall run through some of the good advice I’ve discovered.

Writing Blurbs part 2

My research on writing blurbs has gleaned the following hints and tips which I include here to help me when next I come to write a blurb :

To put it simply, start with a situation, introduce a problem and promise a twist. So easy! Show the mood of the story  if you can (and you should be able to do that!) Don't make a romance sound like a thriller - unless it is a thriller with a romance element!

Your first sentence may be the only one read by a potential reader, so aim for the biggest impact in that first sentence. 

Keep it short for the same reason.Make an impact with 100 words - 150 maximum. Also remember that short sentences grab attention. Try using white spacing to separate thoughts, break up blocks of text. 

Introduce your characters by name and characterization: ie actor Steel Collins, murderer Joan Pellow. The trick is to make what you say memorable and stir the readers' curiosity

Add the place and time of your story ie "From his floating island home in medieval France, the wizard....”

Once you have a blurb, print it out to look at in a different format. View it on your phone, ipad, etc etc.

Plan to take your time with it. Begin with a short summary. Write your first version. Read and trim. Try different versions; do at least five and see how they strike you when you look back at your work a few days later. If you start writing your blurb before you finish writing your book, you will have plenty of time for adjustments to the blurb! So start early in the writing process.

The pic of Perigeaux has nothing to do with writing blurbs, but reminds me of a lovely hot day in France - I need it on the wet, dank, miserable rainy day!

A new beginning, or An overhaul

If you are like me, you write a profile biog to Facebook or Twitter and promptly forget about it. The same goes for book blurbs on my blog, not to mention cover photos that ought to have been updated. Something I read on Facebook yesterday jabbed at my (guilty) conscience and partly because it was New Year's Day, I looked at some of the old information about myself and my books and quickly decided it needed up- dating.

It is such a quiet time of year now that the festivities are over and guests have gone on to other countries that it is a good time to reconsider how I present myself. Unfortunately while I have gained in writing experience over the last decade, and learned various ways of attempting PR, I have also gained a few more lines and wrinkles than I used to have, so I am not so keen on putting up new photographs of myself unless I go for the misty, half veiled approach - which might work!

They (those pundits who know so much about these things) keep telling me that paper books are on the rise again, and certainly my e-book sales have slowed this year. It is hard to get a definitive view of what is really happening with so many conflicting reports from journalists and the various publishing and book bodies out there. I often wish I had started  writing a lot earlier than I did, but I can't change that. I enjoy what I do, so I'll keep on doing it,and try to be a little more pro-active with my PR stuff. I'm fit and healthy as we embark on 2018 and the only thing that gets between me and my writing is the time I spend with my husband and my dog. Oh, and Facebook. And Twitter. And probably a few other things I've forgotten....

Re-tweet groups

Intrigued by a group new to me, I joined and found they re-tweet everyone's posts, which means every post goes to everyone's followers. Great, I thought, more exposure and it probably is. But there is a downside, as I soon found out after only two days. 

Some of the authors I don't know, and consequently I don't know their books, so how do I know what I'm sending out? I don't want to spend time checking everyone's titles but then I don't want to discover down the line that I've retweeted and liked something that will not be appreciated.

Plus which I've noticed already that many of the people are authors I know. A lot of our followers are the same, too. The poor followers must be inundated by tweets about books! So all in all it is probably a good idea, but to be used *sensitively.* Otherwise no one will want to know me. (It certainly did not boost either my sales or my KENP stats over the last two days.)

Starting to dream of holidays in the sun, though to be fair it is warm enough here. Still, a change of surroundings will be welcome. Looks like I'll be taking my re-editing with me. It is turning into more of a re-write and Alba Is Mine (was Banners of Alba) stands at 107k word count now. That's 40k words gone! and mostly every one of them through smartening up the writing rather than cutting out chunks of story.

Holidays

Still no proof copy from Amazon, which is a little worrying. Soon I'll have forgotten what I was doing and have to start all over again. I don't understand why it is taking so long, because Postal services are pretty good these days.

In one of our odd weather quirks we had a miserable grey day yesterday. The air was full of moisture, yet I came home dry; but the grass in the fields was covered in water droplets and I had wet feet. Tim and I did not see another soul in all our 7,879 steps.  (Yes, I've got a new pedometer. Since I got it on the 16th, I've done 78,132 steps - and one day I forgot to record the total. It tells me that 5,000 steps equals 2.2 miles, so that must work out at roughly 15.5 miles. Wow. No wonder I'm hungry all the time!) Now today we are back to brilliant blue sky and sunshine. Tim and I have done our walk - 4677 steps or 2.1 miles and we didn't see anyone again. School holidays certainly make a difference to how people organise their lives. In term time the ladies tell me they get the kids off to school and then walk the dogs.

I'm picking up the pace with PR once more, so I apologise to all my friends who seem to see nothing but my book promotions. While I was in France I did none and it certainly had an effect on my sales and KENP. I also missed responding to people who wanted friendship on Facebook, for I found a whole batch of people who had contacted me while I was away. I guess six weeks is a long time. I befriended them all this morning!

Cover Reveal ~ Queen's Courier

I've lost count of how many times I've said this - I'm almost at the end of the final edits on Queen's Courier - but I really mean it this time. I am reading at a snail's pace and finding things to correct, which makes it worth while. This is the final read through via the Online Previewer and the cover is already loaded, won't change and so I'll put it here today.

I've been looking back over the year's KENP stats (since July 2015) and I'm happy to say that they are definitely going up. The month just closed was the highest figure I've had, and it is mostly due to The Gybford Affair. Strange to think that it sat with MuseItUp for a year or two and attracted very few readers. I think the combination of pretty but irrelevant cover pic plus a high price did the trick, but it could also have been because I did very little PR work on it. So once I get Q'sC off my hands  (ie published,) I'll concentrate on PR and see if it has any results.

It is interesting to see how the stats go in waves. A book will be read for two or three months and then there'll be a gap when it is not read at all, then off it will go again. I can only assume it is when promotion works. Maybe those alerts Amazon send out - yes, they advertise my books to me, which always amuses me - maybe they do a lot more good than I know.

What every aspiring writer needs

Sitting here in my study-cum-bedroom, I'm torn about what to do next. Go straight to re-editing my wip? Do some promo work?  (I badly need to do this). Make an effort to join Instagram and those other  new social media sites I keep hearing about? Finally organise a website rather than rely on a blog to do the work? Send out a submission on the wip? (The first ten chapters are re-edited and clean and given the waiting times these days....) Meet friends for coffee? Get an early lunch and walk the dog for an hour or two? Naturally this list absolutely ignores the housework I could be doing....

The one thing an author really needs is an assistant, hopefully one who is media savvy and can double as a PR person. What heaven that must be. An editor who actually wants to talk about  the wip and make intelligent suggestions on how to improve it would be great too, but sadly self-published authors often work alone. 

There are times when I get in such a muddle about what I need to do next that I throw the whole thing up in the air (metaphorically speaking) and whisk the dog out into the sunshine and forget about writing. There's a huge temptation to do that today.....

Puzzling PR

Like a book, I suppose the first words of a blog post need to catch the attention of passing readers. Is it the words, or the picture that grabs attention?  Who knows? Different things for different folks.

Today I decided I need to be more professional in my approach to promoting books. So I'm exploring the dizzy world of graphic artists, with a view to (gulp!) purchasing a cover picture. When I have time I intend to do a few courses on learning more about doing covers, but for now I'll see what a bought cover can do for me.

Promotion has not been high on my agenda for ages, and though it might not be the only one, it is probably one reason why sales are going down. (Personally I blame Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, but that's something I cannot prove!) When I went back and visited a lot of my old haunts, I found that the state of yahoo groups has changed while I haven't been looking. Some have changed their slant and no longer take selling posts, others just seem to have dropped way down in popularity, others have vanished or gone into limbo. Some are still there, but I get the feeling that they're struggling.

It's a puzzle. Something must have taken their place, but I don't know what it might be. Paid advertising? Possibly. Other social media have sprung up recently and though I recognise the names, I've never joined or even looked to see what they offer. Perhaps it is time I rectified that. Some research is required.

While I do this research, my work on the second draft of Matho's Story is coming along nicely. I have a working title at last - The QUEEN'S COURIER, and only fifty pages to go before I reach the end for the second time. I've taken out a chunk of the middle section, diverted the story line to a better trail, and wrote one whole new chapter as well as cutting and pasting three others, juggling placements and characters as necessary. The result is pleasing - definitely a job worth doing. I finished a chapter this morning, and these were the last lines I wrote today:

When her shoulders rounded in dejection, Matho saw something inexpressibly tender and youthful in the gentle curve of her spine.

‘No,’ she said in a tired voice. ‘She wouldna want to be moved.’ She left his knee and bent over the cauldron. Dipping a wooden ladle, she filled a bowl and brought it to him. ‘Eat. Ah didna make it to waste it.’