A nice spring picture …
I’ve been meaning to write a post for some time but unfortunately while, like The Leaning Tower of Pisa, I had the inclination, unlike Big Ben, I did not have the time. Also the weather has been fantastic and so much stuff has to be done with a wi-fi connection these days that I can’t just sit outside and type stuff up like I used to. Everything has to be a work station rather than of any practicable use. Despite the lack of internet access, I keep finding the lure of sitting outside in the sun reading a book to be too great. And I’ve been ill, so it’s good for me to relax and just read a book or chill. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Last night I continued with the time honoured British tradition of missing the Northern Lights when they appear. In this case, in Suffolk and as far south as Brighton. Lots of fabulous pictures on t’interweb taken some time after I went to bed. It’s going to happen again tonight apparently, although I suspect that is the point we will adhere to the other tried and tested British tradition, of it being cloudy, and I will sit in a deck chair in the garden until all’s blue seeing nothing while a light show of unfathomable beauty plays out above the clouds.
Ho hum.
Other news…
Mc(not so)Mini has done his first GCSE this week. Best of luck to everyone doing exams over the next few months. Here’s hoping everything goes OK for him.
Health wise I am hoping I’ve turned the corner. Lots of things ache but otherwise, I’m feeling a lot better and my innards appear to have settled down … which is quite a relief.
Book news …
I have been wondering whether to start sharing chapters of my works in progress as they … you know … progress. To be honest because of the way I write, it would be less chapters and more random scattered bits. Apparently The New Way Forward for authors is a subscription. I get that subscriptions are good for companies in that they can predict the money coming in but I’m struggling to see the benefit for readers, unless they are happy to pay a couple of quid a month to read the tangled mess that is my stuff before I smack it into shape.
On, on… probably …
Personally, I have two subscriptions; Disney and Spotify. I don’t use either as much as I should to justify paying for them. Oh yes and I have a subscription to dishwasher tablets and washing powder which I basically keep paused until I need them and then go to the website and click on the ‘help, I need it now button’ and just buy them. I’ve never, yet managed to work out how much washing stuff I’m going to use so as a punter, a lot of the things people are selling subscription only these days look like a bit of a crap bet.
From the author subs point of view, I’m thinking that if people did subscribe, I’d want it to be a community too. So bits of random writing for folks to read and then maybe something like the K’Barthan Jolly Japery facebook group, but where, perhaps, there was a bit more me or video things or live chats or… um … something.
You can see I’m really awash with ideas here. Mmm.
But on paper the subscription makes sense for vendors but not so much for customers.
OK, so people who love my stuff subscribe and get to see my work in progress and get access to a fantastic online community which is a bit more in my control. I am aware that Facebook could ban me for something bizarre, like the time I said ‘boys are gross’ when discussing my son’s socks in a school parents’ group and got banned from Facebook for a month. Getting locked out of my own fan group is a very real possibility. I have emergency moderators for this but it’s still a bit of a worry.
Sorry, tangent there (quelle surprise). So as I was saying, on paper it makes sense, but if other people are like me then all these subscriptions to authors soon add up to something big and unmanageable. I could only subscribe to two or three, just as this blog will never take off because I can only cope with following and commenting on a handful of other blogs that I really enjoy and I would need to interact with hundreds to get any traction, so I feel I would not do well with something like Substack because it’s based on you spending all your time there reading and commenting on other posts and I lack the spoons for that.
OK, so I know a lot of authors don’t care if they have 10 subscribers and only two read or interact but … I do.
Then again, the thing that sells books for me is … me. I have far more success going to events, standing behind a table dressed as my main character and being a twat relentlessly funny* at people until they buy a book, than I do trying to work out what the normals would put into a search engine to get my books seen, and then purchased, online.
* Yeh. I say ‘funny’ but I suspect other people’s mileage may vary.
Standing behind a table being relentlessly funny* at people until they buy a book … *probably.
There is also little or no money for ads. Seriously. Absolutely fuck all. Gone are the days when I could budget £2 a day for a mailing list sign up ad and have 30 or so people quietly signing up to my mailing list each month. These days it’s £10 a day on facebook to get out of ‘learning’ and anyway, if I spend £10 a day on ads to my store, I need to sell 5 or more books per click to pay for that £10. I only have a few books and I would bet there are not enough. I reckon I’d need more like 30 books to make my money back, indeed the red-hot organised lady on the panel with me reckoned there was no point in advertising with less than 20 books. I have 11 … 8 if I count the ones I charge people actual money for.
Another thing that is leaning me towards the community thing is that doing a Kickstarter was a bit of an eye-opener. My aim with that was to test the water; avoid incurring any design costs by doing it myself, do it print on demand and try to make a third of the overall total in profit, because it’s actually quite hard work and there’s a fair bit of admin.
The books cost £10 each to print for the hardback and £5 each for the paperback. Most buyers were abroad but I can keep the postage costs between £10 and £15 if I have the books delivered to me and then send everything by boat. I expected to sell about five but 31 people bought copies. I even made some UK sales, which is a little cheaper £5-£7 so that makes up for some of the peeps further afield where I took a hit on the postage.
However, the most fun bit of the Kickstarter was all the chat, when backers asked me questions and I got to interact with them. That’s a big part of it for me. Now there is time in my life to think, I reckon I should look harder to find ways where I get to do more of what I love and less of the things that are hard going. While I’m on the brink of starting to write again, but still, mainly, sorting Mum’s affairs, it seems a good time to work that sort of stuff out. So far what I’m thinking is that it’s me people follow (although that may be because most of the signed up to my mailing list to get a free book and seven years on they haven’t read it yet). But yeh, it seems to be a big part me side as well as books and characters, so maybe I should capitalise on that … I dunno …
Talking of the fun stuff …
Last weekend, 4th May, I went to the Indy Book Fair at Centenary Hall in Huntingdon. It was a gas.
First up, one of the K’Barthan Jolly Japery group came to see me and hung out with me all day, which was lovely. I’ve known her sister for years but never met her so that was awesome. And she brought me coffee and millionaire shortbread! Which was awesome! Thank you, you know who you are. 
Second, I dunno … I wasn’t really trying to sell the books that hard. I was just telling people about them, but it was busy and there were lots of people to talk to and I did sell stuff. There was a maker’s market on outside, which might have helped as it probably brought in people who were prepared to spend some cash, but austerity aside, people seem to be spending more. And whereas last year, my books were doing well online but in Real Life people wanted dark gritty realism, they seem to have swung back. Either that or I have a better pitch going now.
In addition, cash purchases were up so I’m guessing people had been saving up, and I had a wonderful time talking to people. As with the previous event (Sci Fi Weekender at Yarmouth) people were buying whole series, which was a bit of a thing and not a sales trend I’ve seen since 2017.
Having failed dismally to sell Too Good To Be True at any of these things, I suddenly got rid of a whole bunch of copies of that, which was nice!
I loved seeing this lady carrying her shopping home on her head as I drank a Peroni Zero
After a hurried supper with another author, snatched from a couple of fast food outlets, and a zero alcohol beer outside the venue (very nice) we went back inside for the evening events which were two panels; on producing audiobooks and selling ‘wide’, ie not just on Amazon. I was on the wide panel, which was great fun.
I’m the one with the hat on.
There were four of us, myself, a proper, grown-up successful author and two of the big hitters in paperback printing and distribution. A lot of the questions were about print so I got a pretty easy ride and managed not to fart, fidget (too much) or interrupt too often. Although I think my contribution was the least useful of all the members but it was great fun. I really hope I’ll be asked back next year.
The whole thing felt up beat and full of vibrant spiffy joy. I was just chatting to people and then they bought stuff. I suppose it was a book fair so they were going to turn up ready to buy things, but maybe there were more of them, or perhaps I was more relaxed. But… it sort of feels like something’s turned the corner. I wouldn’t say I’m going places, but I do think I’m going to be able to start writing again soon and that I’ll have a lot more capacity than I have had this last 15 years. I’m looking forward to it.
Right then. It’s time I did something else. I have chapters to read, some editing to do and maybe a bit of writing. Also I have to plan my week.
And finally …
I leave you with this smashing stone which I bought in the Maker’s Market (Bury St Edmunds) on Sunday. It’s a piece of quartz of some kind, but to me it looks more like a ‘Sheba, flakes of salmon in jelly stone’. I guess if I was naming it properly I’d call this gem, ‘salmon in aspic stone’. Yeh, you saw it here first.
Salmon flakes in jelly/salmon in aspic stone … both sides.
Looking at it, one side of it, the one shown on the right, it looks like a face with an eye, an eyebrow and a nose to me … you know … as well as the salmon flakes. What do you reckon?