New thoughts

I don't know how many people read my blog--I have a list of followers but I doubt very much if they all follow me any more. I have noticed that I don't follow other blogs the way I once did. Not enough time and also, even though I was once signed up, they no longer appear in my in-box. I've been remiss in not blogging more often and vow to do better in this regard!

This leads me to marketing, a subject I can't seem to get away from. I placed my first Facebook ad today--they refer to what I did as promoting my page but I assume my ad will show up on the right of the FB page--at least I hope it does. From what I've read 'promote page' is better for what I'm trying to sell than 'boosting posts.'

They wouldn't let me include a link so I hope that the ad itself will link back to my author page--from there one click will get to my books on Amazon. My ad goes for 10 days at 5 dollars a day. At least at the end of it I'll have more information about what works and what doesn't. Trying to choose the target audience is hard, though--the choices they give you seem more geared toward small business trying to sell a pair of shoes. I did the best I could given what I had to work with, entering e-readers, arts and music, environmentalists, dogs, cats, and so on, into the interests area...

I'm sure many of you have experience with this sort of thing--I'm kind of flying blind. Maybe that's good since I don't have any expectations.

Speaking of marketing I've been trying anything and everything these days, tired of my books languishing in KDP. It used to be that I would sometimes see my own titles in my e-mails from Amazon, but that has not happened in a very long while. How does that work, exactly? I wish I knew.

I used Draft2Digital for my newest cozy mystery novel, 'Murder in Plain Sight' in order to place it in Kobo, Nook, I-tunes, Oyster, and several other e-book markets. They offer the service for free but take a nominal percentage when the book sells. I decided to do the same with my other books, incurring the wrath of Amazon in the process. I had heard that offering the first book in a series as permafree is a good marketing tool but I neglected to pay attention to whether the two I chose were still in select. They were and I found out about it tout suite. Select on those two titles (The Moonstone and Gypsy's Quest) has now expired and all is well, at least I hope so! Hate to anger the largest retailer in the world.

I do some form of marketing nearly every day now, taking the time to research sites or going with others advice who have been there before me. My main problem continues to be doing stuff and then forgetting what I've done! I hope this is due to being disorganized and not some form of brain disorder brought on by age...

Thanks for reading!!!

frustrating day

As I mentioned in the past post, Gypsy's Secret is nearly here. The Kindle version is up but has one spelling error that needs to be corrected. And there may be other small things as well. The paperback is still in process with problems with the cover. Not sure what the e-mail Createspace sent me meant but I forwarded it on to my cover designer and despite it being a weekend she sent me a new improved copy.  (Thank you Viola!) Now I'll have to wait again for the approval.

Now to the reason for the title of this post. I set out this morning with great hopes and a bag of books, heading first to find ribbon to tie around my Wolfmoon Trilogy and then speeding down the road to my local bookstores. My plan was to tie a nice red bow around the three books and offer a big holiday discount for buying all three together. Sadly this was not to be. The first one, Antigone Books, said 'they don't do that sort of thing'. I whined about how difficult it is to be a self-published author, asking if I could showcase my books somehow...the answer was NO.

The second store, Mostly Books, said I could replace the ones already on the shelves with the bow idea, but if I did so then no one would have the option to buy them singly! We talked for a while (I like the people there) but didn't come up with any sort of marketing strategy for me, although she did say she would try to get someone to read Just Another Desert Sunset--if he or she liked it, it could potentially be facing out on the 'staff picks' shelf. (I'm not holding my breath)

After that I found a new clothing store a couple of doors down and proceeded to buy myself two new items of clothing. It was my reward for at least making an attempt to market myself! Don't worry, I didn't spend much.

My conclusions from this are as follows:
1.  My books do not do well in bookstores due to too much competition and no showcasing.
2.  I will market my books in gift stores and metaphysical stores and maybe Celtic stores.
3.  I will concentrate my energy on my kindles and deal with KDP select and trying to get them seen.
4.  I will drink wine and try not to whine.
5.  I will be proud of the fact that I have 7 books out now--a major accomplishment! And maybe since 7 is my lucky number this year will start a new upward trend in sales!

Thank you for reading and I would love to hear your stories!

It's out! or should I say 'up'?

Gypsy's Quest is now uploaded to kindle--and what an easy process it was after Rik Hall formatted it for me! It was exciting to do this myself instead of waiting for Createspace. The interface with KDP is simple and straightforward. AND, this one had two spelling errors that turned out to be names--and so NO errors!!!! (a minor miracle)

 The other interesting detail is the 'look inside' feature is already activated--something I had to beg for on my last three!

My next hurdle will be sending the formatted POD files to Createspace. (Rik again) In the past CS has formatted these files for me and it's taken a long time from upload to up on amazon. In fact it has been a hair-pulling process that made me want to scream! I will be interested to find out how long it will take and how complicated it will be this time.

All in all I like hiring a formatter--way cheaper and less time-consuming.

Here's the link to my book: Gypsy's Quest  And if you decide to read it I would LOVE a review!

Thank you for reading!