Thought I'd christen the new website with the latest in a short line of sporadic blog posts! If the website looks different, it's because my author site is now being hosted by BookBub! If you do not know what BookBub is, it's a great place to find deals on books, both old and new. It's been, I think, a tremendous boon for indie authors, and I am currently in the midst of running my first ever ad campaign on BookBub (I will have an author page linked soon, it is still processing).
Yes, I have dipped a toe in the marketing world after having a bit of a rough go with my debut novel. Over the past few weeks, I have launched an Amazon ad campaign in four countries (The US and four commonwealth) along with a bookBub one. I will admit, there is a rather steep learning curve with online ads, and I fear it may require more time and attention than I initially had to make it successful. So far, what I can tell you is that BookBub has generated many more impressions (shown the ad to more people) while only about a quarter of the clicks compared to Amazon. The only sales I've generated were from Amazon thus far.
I have given Kindle exclusivity another chance, setting myself a deadline somewhere in December to see if things pick up. Right now I am just not having the success with Unlimited to justify not going wide and publishing elsewhere. I have also heard that Facebook (Meta) advertising can be very successful, so I have laid the groundwork for a campaign there. I did not want to start that until I tested the waters in these two markets first since Meta requires you to make your own ads and has a different model.
Enough about advertising, which, if you are not a new author, is dreadfully boring. What have I been up to? Well, besides the campaigns and the website, I have just finally wrapped up the re-write of my Victorian speculative novel, Project Sugar (it has a real name now). I re-wrote the thing from scratch, added four new chapters in a new subplot, and hopefully polished the prose a bit. The thing will require some alpha eyes, followed by some more editing and then hopefully its off for querying. I think now, if I fail there, I may self-publish it in the future.
Other than that, I am now beginning the sequel to A Murder of Crowes. While not many have read it, those who have are anxious for a sequel. It's title is A Coven of Cabaret, and I hope it will be at least twice as exciting as the first! The goal is to have that wrapped up by the end of January. I do have some poetry I want to polish this coming week, perhaps for some literary journals, and I have a short (horror) story that I want to submit as well. My first short story seems to have fallen flat with the lit mags, as no one picked it up. I may re-work that and give it another go, or perhaps post it here. Oh, and my second novel (presently in its second draft) was submitting for an excerpt contest so we will see how that turns out!
I think that about covers it here. I will potentially have some exciting news in the near future, but for now I will count myself lucky that the baby is still asleep and leave it at that. Hope you enjoy the new site, and I welcome any suggestions!