Don’t mute the messenger

Tags

communication, Gregory Hardiman, marketing, newsletter, research, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Susan Grossey, website, writing

I appreciate that this may have passed you by – mainly because it’s all still in my head rather than actually happening – but now that I am giving being a professional author a go, I am revamping my communications with readers.  I have a very minimal Facebook and Twitter presence for Sam Plank (nothing yet for Gregory Hardiman), and then I have this blog and my monthly research updates.  And there’s my website for me as an author, which covers my fiction and non-fiction writing.  My husband has kindly volunteered (that’s not a euphemism – he genuinely did) to update my website, which is looking a bit tired; like everything, websites have their fashions, and my rather static, page-driven one is now the website equivalent of the Ford Granada.  So I’ll leave that to him, and weigh in with praise/complaints/biscuits as required.  But my job now is to think about my more proactive engagement with readers.

This blog has always been ad hoc – in other words, I make a post when I feel I have something to say.  But again, this seems to be a bit passé: looking at the output of other, much more successful authors, the trend these days is for regular newsletters sent to subscribers.  Some of you will already receive my monthly research updates, and I am wondering whether to unite the two – in other words, to send out a monthly newsletter that contains some background research information as well as other updates on (for instance) how my current book is going and who has agreed to play Sam in the Sunday evening drama commissioned by the BBC (well, an author can dream…).  So the blog would cease, and only newsletter subscribers would hear actively from me.  (Signing up to the newsletter would of course be free.)

And so I wondered whether you had any views on the subject.  To make life simpler I have put together a few questions – but you are more than welcome to go off piste and ignore them completeley.  Here goes:

1. Would you be interested in receiving a monthly newsletter from me, which would focus on my historical crime writing (i.e. both the completed Sam series and the new Gregory series, and whatever comes after that)?
2. Looking at possible content, are you interested in:
   • The research that I do behind the writing – my current monthly update has only 46 people signed up, so perhaps it’s not as popular as I think
   • My progress on my current book
   • The writing process
   • The self-publishing process
   • Me as an individual and not just as an author – some writers share their holiday photos and pet photos, for instance
   • Anything else?
3. It is likely that I will work out how to sell my own books – in e-formats only – via my new website.  Would you prefer to buy this way (for about the same price as on Amazon, but with a larger percentage of the sale price going to me)?  And would the promise of special subscriber discounts interest you?

I think that will do for now.  As you can see, what I am trying to do is gauge whether this is the right approach, and – if it is – what would tempt you to become a newsletter subscriber.  Thank you so much for any thoughts.

Digesting download data

Tags

Best Book Monkey, Bookangel, Fatal Forgery, Freebooksy, marketing, permafree, promotion, review, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

I know you’ve all been on tenterhooks to hear the latest about permafree Sam and his progress.  As you may remember, I paid for a 24-hour Freebooksy promo slot, and during that 24-hour period there were 1,232 downloads of “Fatal Forgery”.  I think we can attribute all of those to the Freebooksy promo.

Flushed with success, I also applied for a free promo slot on the Best Book Monkey website, and that’s currently live.  It started on 9 July, and I think it just sits there until they feel that interest has waned.  You can see the Best Book Monkey listing here.

And – going a bit mad now – I also submitted “Fatal Forgery” for a five-day promo slot on the Bookangel website, and that’s now running until 14 July.  You can see the Bookangel listing here (a bit peculiar that all the punctuation in the description has been replaced with question marks, but hey ho – it’s a free promo).

So what’s the result of all this mad promotion?  Let’s ignore the 1,232 that we’ve already attributed to the Freebooksy day.  Since then, there have been 429 downloads.  Some of those will be Freebooksiers late to the party – because although the promo has ended, “Fatal Forgery” is permafree so anyone who finds their way to Amazon or Kobo or Nook or Google Play can still download it for nothing.

What I hope, of course, is that there will be more reviews, and more paid purchases of the next books in the series.  Since I started this frenzy of promotion, I have accrued six more “ratings” on the Amazon listing for “Fatal Forgery” – not full reviews, but 4- and 5-star ratings.  And sales of the other titles have increased – covering the promo periods on Freebooksy, Best Book Monkey and Bookangel, I have sold (mainly e-books, but a few of them paperbacks):

• The Man in the Canary Waistcoat – 8
• Worm in the Blossom – 7
• Portraits of Pretence – 7
• Faith, Hope and Trickery – 7
• Heir Apparent – 8
• Notes of Change – 17

And as for rankings on Amazon, well, “Fatal Forgery” is currently sitting at #83 in the Historical Fiction category on the Kindle store, and #156 in the much larger Crime Fiction category, which is not bad at all.

In short, I think it’s going well.  My focus is on getting more people hearing about and curious about the series, and I think this is happening.  If only 1% of the people who downloaded the free “Fatal Forgery” actually read it, that’s still sixteen new readers – and here’s hoping that it’s much more than 1%.

A month of Notes

Tags

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop, Draft2Digital, Google Play, Gumroad, Kobo, marketing, Notes of Change, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Smashwords

And here I am, a whole month later.  That was a deliberate gap, in case you’re wondering: I decided to take a break after publication, have a holiday, and come back refreshed and full of fab ideas for book promotion.  Well, two out of three ain’t bad!  When I was working full-time, I could carve out space to do the actual writing (which I love) but not for any marketing (not so much love here…).  Now that I have stopped work, I am hoping to take a more professional approach: my ideal routine would be to spend two days a week writing, one day researching and one day on marketing.  And so I have not beaten myself up about abandoning “Notes of Change” to its fate after publication, as I know that before too long I will be revisiting the whole series with a proper marketing/promo plan.  (I’m going on a long train journey next week – four hours each way – and my goal is to spend most of it on preparing that plan.)

Meanwhile, I thought you might like to hear how “Notes of Change” has done in its first month.  It’s the first book for a while that I have published “wide” – i.e. on platforms other than Amazon, as well as on Amazon itself.  And here are the latest stats:

• Sold to bookshops: 10 copies
• Sold via Amazon: 25 copies
• Draft2Digital: zero
• Google Play: zero
• Gumroad: 1 copy
• Kobo Rakuten: zero
• Barnes & Noble: zero
• Smashwords: zero

So that’s a total of 36 copies.  On the plus side, I’m getting excellent reviews – five five-star ratings on Amazon already.  So onwards and upwards, as I promise my poor little books that I will give them the promo help they deserve.

The league table

Tags

Amazon, e-book, Faith Hope and Trickery, Fatal Forgery, Heir Apparent, Kindle, marketing, Notes of Change, paperback, Portraits of Pretence, sales, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, Worm in the Blossom

Tomorrow is the big day – the publication of “Notes of Change”! Today, therefore, is a day of preparation and reflection. And I haven’t updated you recently on the sales of the Sam series. So here goes – the number I have sold in paperback (print-on-demand through Amazon, and through physical bookshops to which I supply stock) and in various e-formats (mostly Kindle, but occasional other formats):

	Paperback via Amazon	E-book	Paperback via physical bookshop
Fatal Forgery	290	954	145
The Man in the Canary Waistcoat	90	122	75
Worm in the Blossom	62	78	56
Portraits of Pretence	63	78	43
Faith, Hope and Trickery	49	46	26
Heir Apparent	32	36	27
Totals	586	1314	372

As you can see, it’s almost three-to-one in favour of e-books – which is good in some ways as the royalty for e-books is more generous than that for paperbacks. And “Fatal Forgery” is far and away the most popular title. Yes, it’s been out for longest, but I think what the figures really suggest is that not enough people like “Fatal Forgery” enough to stick with the series. That’s something I need to address – another task for the book marketing to do list (how to make sure that people know there is a whole series of lovely Sam books). To be fair to Amazon, they are very good at highlighting series: when you buy one book in a series, the others appear in a tempting carousel display. Perhaps I need to make the pricing more appealing – or investigate the possibility of a seven-title omnibus edition… (Apparently you can’t call e-books a box set, as that implies a physical box – you can, however, call it an omnibus. Like the number 27 to Clapham.)

But is it bright enough?

Tags

Bob Marrion, cover, Design for Writers, Fatal Forgery, Notes of Change, publication, research, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

But is it bright enough?

One of the many joys of being a self-published author is the complete control I have over how my books look.  And one of the many curses of being me is that I have no visual artistic talent at all.  Thankfully I am smart enough to find people who have this talent, such as the marvellous Andrew at Design for Writers.  He has done all my covers – fiction and non-fiction – and, to quote the immortal Hot Chocolate, everyone’s a winner, baby, and that’s no lie.  In particular, he has done sterling work in turning what we both thought was a one-off cover for “Fatal Forgery” into a powerful visual brand for the Sam Plank series.  Each Sam Plank cover has a central line-drawn figure against a blurred document, and its own, bespoke font.  And so it is with – drumroll, please – the seventh and final Sam Plank cover, for “Notes of Change”:

Choosing the colour was tricky: earlier books in the series had already nabbed blue, yellow, red, green, purple and grey, and the Regency/Georgian colour palette is all about strong colours, so the pastels are out.  I did some fun research on various decorating websites, particularly for companies specialising in heritage and period properties and restoration, and the strong orange/ochre/cinnamon palette seemed promising.  And look what Andrew has done – who could possibly not spot that cover on a shelf!

As for the image, that was quite a saga, but with a happy ending.  I wanted an image of a Metropolitan Police officer, but right from the beginning of the “new police” rather than later in their life.  There are dozens of drawings and paintings of Met Police officers in the Victorian era, but finding one from the start, with the right facial hair…  And I finally came across this one, drawn by a fellow called Bob Marrion.  A police officer himself, he illustrated dozens of books on military history – uniforms were his thing – and one slim volume on called “‘C’ or St. James’s: A History of Policing in the West End of London 1829 to 1984”.  Sadly Bob has died, but his estate has given permission for the use of his gorgeous drawing – all Andrew had to do was cunningly remove the duty band that the officer was wearing.  (Duty bands weren’t introduced until 1830 while “Notes of Change” takes place in 1829, and you know what a stickler I am for historical detail.)

So now it’s all hands on deck for actual publication (officially Friday 29 April) – let the uploading begin!

Sam’s hit list

Tags

Amazon, Apple, formatting, Kindle, Kobo, KOLL, KU, Notes of Change, self-publishing

I’m giddy with excitement – the text of “Notes of Change” is finally, well, finalised.  It has been through several drafts with me, corrections/suggestions from two beta readers, some plot clarification (which moved the chapter count from an irritating thirty-nine to a lovely round forty) and a final read-through yesterday.  Final word count is 75,672, which is about average for a Sam Plank book (as readers will know, he’s not a man given to florid description or overlong introspection).

And now that the creative part is done, I move into the phase of lists.  I have a list of the steps to create the paperback edition, one for formatting the e-editions (more on that in a minute), one for “pre-publication tasks”, one of “people to tell about the new book”, several of “book promo and marketing ideas” and other random sets of bullet points and reminders jotted in notebooks, sent in emails to myself and written on my phone.  One day, dear reader, this will all be amalgamated into a slick publishing process – but today is not that day!  Today is the day for formatting the paperback edition.

Ah yes, the e-editions.  For the past few years – can’t quite remember when I first did it – I have published my e-editions through the KDP platform (part of the Amazon mega-corporation) and opted for their KDP Select programme.  This means that the e-books are sold exclusively in Kindle format through Amazon, and not in any other e-format through any other seller (such as Kobo or Apple).  The benefits (this is over-simplifying) are two-fold: you get a better royalty percentage from Amazon than they would offer if your book was published “wide” (i.e. with other sellers as well), and they put your book into their KU and KOLL programmes.  KU (Kindle Unlimited) is where people pay a monthly subscription and then can indefinitely borrow up to ten books – as an author, I get a pro rata share of the “KDP Select Global Fund” according to how many pages of my e-books are read by those borrowers.  KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library) allows those who are enrolled in Amazon Prime to download one book a month – as an author, I get a share of the KOLL pot according to the number of downloads of my e-books.  And over the years, I’ve rather taken my eye off the ball.  Recent soul-searching (and bean-counting) has revealed that:

• The amount of money I make from my books being in KU and KOLL is insignificant to the point of invisibility
• Competitors to Kindle books are growing in number, and many offer good exposure, international coverage, decent royalties and a chance to diversify my risk
• There is an increasing number of readers who are going off Amazon, for all sorts of reasons, and looking for alternative places to buy their books.

In short, I have decided that the e-book of “Notes of Change” will not be going into the KDP Select programme and instead will be published “wide”.  The existing six Sam Plank books are stuck in the programme for a couple more months (auto-renew – a casualty of taking my eye of that ball) and then will be withdrawn and also published “wide”.  You can see why I need all those lists…

Jam doughnuts all round!

Tags

Amazon, beta reading, Crime Writers' Association, editing, marketing, promotion, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, The Notes of Change

In life it is important to celebrate achievements, and today I have had a jam doughnut for elevenses because I have completed my draft of “The Notes of Change”.  [As an aside, am I the only person who eats a jam doughnut by spearing it onto a fork and then eating it like a toffee apple?  So much tidier than the doughnut-in-fingers method.]  I realise that there will be more work to do, but for today – I’m happy.  I have sent the file to my lovely beta reader Roy, to check for plot madnesses and general readability and likeability, and at the same time my husband will be close-reading it for spelling mistakes, poor punctuation, extra spaces and all the other typos that return to haunt us.

Meanwhile, I have been contacting the people who have kindly reviewed other Sam Plank novels, to ask whether they would like to take this one on as well.  Other more organised authors would have blog tours and the like lined up, but I’ve just not managed that this time round.  However, I have decided not to chastise myself too much for these promotional shortcomings – after all, I’ve written a whole book!  By myself!  And this “being an author” thing is meant to be fun.

That said, I do have plans.  On the advice of several people, I am planning to get to grips – or at least within gripping distance of – Amazon ads: I have bought a couple of books on the subject (of course I have – when faced with any new endeavour, I will always buy a book) and will read them while I wait for comments on my draft.  My other task in that hiatus is to apply to join the Crime Writers’ Association – it’s quite the application process, and acceptance is far from guaranteed, but as they have just opened their well-respected and much-coveted “Daggers” awards to self-published novels, I now have a real incentive to try.  And just think: if they do accept me, it will be the perfect excuse for another doughnut!

The home straight

Tags

Fatal Forgery, marketing, plotting, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, The Notes of Change, writing

Good heavens – has it really been two whole months since I updated you on what I am up to?  I do apologise.  If it is any excuse at all, my blog silence has been the direct result of my writing busy-ness – yes, the finish line is in sight for “The Notes of Change” (the novel formerly known as “Plank 7”).  All is in hand for a publication date of Friday 29 April (2022 – for the avoidance of doubt!), and as it stands I have only one last chapter to write.

Oddly for me, the chapter left to write is indeed the last chapter of the book.  Usually I write the ending somewhere in the middle of the writing process and then work my way towards it – I have written before about my “jigsaw” writing technique (where I write the chapters I fancy in any order I want, and then patch them together at the end – I find it a good technique for avoiding writer’s block).  But this time, perhaps because I know it really is the Final Chapter for Sam, I have been putting it off and putting it off.  And, if I’m honest, until quite recently I wasn’t actually sure what I wanted to do with him.  Those of you who have read “Fatal Forgery” and done your date calculations will know that I can’t do anything too drastic to him in this book – which ends at the end of 1829 – but still, I need to make the transition for him.  And now I know how I am going to do that.  But actually writing it, and knowing that it’s the last time I will write in his voice, well, that’s quite sad.

Some readers have suggested that I could go all Morse on him and write a prequel – and I might yet do that.  (For my money, “Endeavour” is by far the best in the Morse canon – and in our house we can no longer even watch “Lewis” as it features an actor whose abhorrent political views mean that I will not even name him, let alone watch him.  Not the lovely Kevin Whateley – the other one.)  But if I do one day try a “young Sam” book, he will of course be a different man – he’s Sam as I know and love him only because he has lived so long and experienced so much.  But I might not be able to resist.

Publication is not just about finishing the text – there are other ducks to get into that row.  I have booked my lovely cover designer and have found a cover image that I want to use.  I’m now waiting to hear from the copyright owner of the image about whether and how I can use it.  My regular beta reader is lined up and waiting for the finished draft – I’ve promised that by the end of next week, so I’m going to have to get over my Sam sadness before then.  And once the text is off my hands, I need to get cracking with arranging some marketing splash or other for the big day – and marketing is real weakness of mine.  So if anyone reading this wants to suggest something, I’m all ears!

At long last – and a longlist!

Tags

Discovered Diamonds, Helen Hollick, marketing, Portraits of Pretence, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, The Notes of Change, writing

The day has finally come: I am a full-time author.  Well, that’s over-stating it, but on 31 December 2021 I retired from my “day job”, and now I can spend more time learning about self-publishing, marketing my books, exchanging ideas and encouragement with other indie authors – oh, and doing some writing as well.  I found my last three months of work so busy and all-encompassing, what with planning my exit and providing “just one last training session” for so many lovely clients, that I have not even opened “The Notes of Change” (the final Sam Plank novel) since the end of October…  But now I can, and the first order of business is to read it again, from start to, well, not finish, but to “wherever I’m up to”, so that I can remember the plot.

Actually, that’s another over-statement, because of course the real first order of business was to turn my efficient business office into an equally efficient but much softer and more creative “writing den”.  My husband very kindly did the grunt work of removing a now-surplus second built-in desk and making good the walls, and then I scarpered while he and a neighbour manhandled the new “sofa of reclining reflection” through the house and garden and up the office steps.  It looks marvellous – and within ten minutes had been colonised by Maggie the cat, henceforward known in her new incarnation as “writer’s muse”:

Maggie thinking deeply creative thoughts – about dinner

And what of this longlist, I hear you cry!  Well, as if to welcome me properly to authordom, on 1 January 2022 I had a wonderful email from the sainted Helen Hollick (quite why she has not received a damehood for services to the self-published, I do not know – she’d certainly have no trouble finding a hat to wear to her investiture!).  Her review website for indie and self-published authors – Discovered Diamonds – has launched a new award.  The Richard Tearle Discovering Diamonds Award is named in honour of one their most prolific reviewers, who died last year, and “Portraits of Pretence” (the fourth Sam Plank novel) has been longlisted for the inaugural award, by dint of having been the Discovered Diamonds “Book of the Year” in 2017.  I can’t wait to see who will join Sam on the longlist, and then we’ll have to be patient until they announce the winner and runner-up in spring 2023.  What with a new sofa and the honour of being a longlist nominee for a new award, my new writing life is off to a flying start.

Another one bites the dust

Tags

Daunt Books, Heffers, sale or return, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

In my last post I mentioned that Heffers – my local bookshop, and the first physical one to stock the Sam Plank books – had changed its book ordering system and no longer places orders with small publishers, only through the large distributors.  This is a hassle, but one that I shall navigate in January.  And now I have lost another physical stockist: Daunt Books.  I was never in their flagship Marylebone branch – the one with the amazing oak shelves and gorgeous skylights – but the manager of the Cheapside branch did take a chance on me, reasoning that book-buyers in the City might be more interested in financial crime…  And indeed the books sold slowly but steadily.  I contacted the shop earlier this week, to ask if they need more stock for Christmas, and “my” manager has left and the new fellow wants me to collect the remaining copies he does have.  Ho hum.  So that’s two down.

What I need to do is work out what is going on.  The books did sell in Heffers, but I have now fallen foul of their new ordering system – and so the solution is for me to learn how to fit with the new system.  But if Daunt is returning their copies, I assume the books didn’t sell well enough, or quickly enough, to justify their shelf space (it is quite a small shop).  Again, I will wait until January and perhaps contact the chap to ask his view: is he purging self-published books in general, in readiness for (à la Heffers) ordering only from large distributors, or is it my books specifically that weren’t selling?

I’ll add it to my enormous – but exciting – list of things to do once I am a “proper author”!