This is insane. A few days ago I got approved for a Bookbub on The Saint’s Rise – a 99c wide promotion that’ll go out to over a million people on the Bookbub lists on March 24. It costs $500 but I expect to make much more than that back. That was dizzying enough. Now today I’ve just been approved for another Bookbub a week later! Normally you need to be 3 months apart on Bookbub promos, I think, but in this case it is a New Release Promotion. This is a new thing Bookbub are offering, and they don’t …
Writing Update 2019 week 7&8
Somehow I always let these weekly updates slip for a week – I think it’s down to these days having just too much to say! I want to get it all into its own separate post, on separate days, and thus I over-run. So this update will combo multiple major developments, starting with: BOOKBUB!!!!!!!! In December I had an International Bookbub for the Saint’s Rise, yah boo who cares right? I sold some 400 at 99c internationally, but because there is no tail in any of these countries, there is no ongoing cashstream or much more than breaking even. Maybe …
3 weeks in to Facebook ads
I have now spent £600 on Facebook ads! You may remember from my analysis a week back that I was losing money. So am I in profit yet? Ha ha, no! I have made £500 so far, so I am still £100 underwater. This is actually pretty generous too, assigning all earnings to FB ads, which is not accurate – even without ads I get a couple of sales a day, so it’s probably more like £200-£300 losses. Well well well. Oddly though, I am holding my nerve still. In practical terms, I have only lost £100, which is really …
8 books returned in one day!!?!
Yesterday I had an epic day in Facebook ad response – 29 books sold across two series, earning $54 there and then with more to trickle in over today and tomorrow, on $65 worth of spend. Almost getting to the breakeven point? I had some great responses to ads, and as I learned from Michael Cooper, every comment on your ad increases its relevance in Facebook’s eyes. My challenge blurbs are raising a few hackles, but more people are saying they’ve gone on to buy the books in question because of the boldness!! Someone compared me to Levar Ball. Huh? …
Facebook ad success?!?
Two weeks back I wrote about how I was getting back into Facebook ads. Well, I have done that with a vengeance, and while spending $500 from Feb 1-15 I have experienced some of my best results yet. So am I making money? Technically, no. But maybe yes? Let’s break it down. After reading Michael Cooper’s book ‘My Facebook Ads Suck’ I got wise to the importance of knowing your readthrough payments. If you know what any single first-in-series book is worth to you overall, as in how much money you’ll make from a certain proprtion of people who read …
Further thoughts on the narrative structure of Mr. Ruin.
As I wrote yesterday, I got feedback from my beta-read/developmental edit that the new version of Mr. Ruin got dull in the back half. I’ve been thinking about this since then, and this is where I’m at. I’ve got two threads, call them A and B. A is the ‘real world’, set approx 2364, and it follows Ritry Goligh and his battles with Mr. Ruin, leading to a climactic battle. Thread B follows the chord as they jack deep into a mind, seeking some unknown target at the center. I wrote the book entirely as an A B A B …
Reeling from the editor’s comment on Mr. Ruin…
It’s late, but this is a tough one and I want to get my thoughts down now before I go to bed. So, I got the beta-reader/manuscript assessment editor’s feedback on the reworked version of Mr. Ruin. Broadly, he loved it. Great sci-fi. Well-written. Hardly needs any work at all, except… It’s a big except. Much of the second half of the book was dull. This a huge blow. Of course it’s just one person’s view. It doesn’t mean they’re right. But – this is what I was always worried about with this story – that straightening it out would …
The answers! Why people don’t read through The Last Mayor series.
Yesterday I wrote a post about calculating my readthrough on the Last Mayor series – ie. how many people who start book 1 then read all the way through to book 9. By a conservative estimate, I came up with 3%, which seems extremely low. There’s got to be a problem there. I thought about how to figure the reason out. There’s a big drop off in sales from book 1 to 2, but maybe this is because book 1 is often 99-cents, and 99-cent readers are less likely to finish a book, and more likely to pick up a …
Calculating readthrough on the Last Mayor series
Readthrough is a fascinating concept that may seem a little complex and alien at first, but is actually super obvious and essential to know when selling books in a series. You’ve probably heard Mark Dawson banging on about it. Maybe you’ve had a crack at calculating it. It basically means – what percentage of people who read your first book in series go on to read the later books? I’ve had a go at this before, and came up with something like a 50% readthrough for my whole Last Mayor 9-book series. It’s important because it helps you determine the …
Fresh Mr. Ruin blurb!
Oh boy, the lessons never end! Recently I’ve been talking and thinking a lot about the interest/excitement factors in my writing. In brief – I’m great at evoking interest, through wacky world-building and lots of deep character hints – and not so great at evoking excitement, through conflict and danger and etc… Well – in this post I get punched in the face again, and come back asking for more. I’ve been rewriting Mr. Ruin to punch up the excitement and dial back the interest, and feeling like I’m succeeding. I’m thinking I have a killer blurb to reflect that …