Month: July 2014

We’re practically at the end of July already. Can you believe it? Feels like this summer–this year–is just flying by. So far we’ve been inundated in rain for most of this week. Hasn’t exactly been a scorcher ’round here. For the most part, things have settled into a dull roar at the Scott home. Even work has calmed down significantly.

I’m doing some publishing work for a friend–Roz Pullara. She’s a member of the local writer’s group I attend at the library, and has written a 1940’s family mystery/drama. Her style is quite different from mine, which is certainly fine. She paints with a very detailed brush. Anyway, she hired me to do the cover design, interior formatting and upload type stuff for her latest work. Looks like I’ll be putting together a similar package for her first novel as well. Should be fun. She likes the look of her cover, too. 🙂

In the meantime, I’m still plugging away at my various projects. Looks like I’ll only get in about 20k words or so for the month–significantly off my last year’s pace for June. Then again, I’ve had a few things going on.

I did some promotion-type stuff in June, which nearly doubled my sales. I’m hoping to see more “fruit” from that effort pay off in August, with new readers of Jefferson’s Road moving on to books two through four. I plan to do more “promoting” of some of my other titles in August and especially in September, but I’m conscious of the fact that I only have one series really ready for promoting. Typically, readers (I’m told) look to see if there are three books in a series, and then pick up the first one for free to see if they want to keep reading. While I have six series going, only one of them has more than three titles available. I do hope that I’ll have more series ready for this by the end of 2015.

From here on out, I don’t plan on publishing any new series until I have at least three books in it completed–and quite possibly even four. That way I can try to create some “buzz” with my release strategies. Not to worry, though. There’s plenty enough to keep me busy before I can pull that off.

Anyway, just thought I’d drop a line in before the end of the month. I’m getting back to writing now.

See ya!

So I’m trying something new: The Coppersmith, my first Janelle Becker Book, will be going on sale this weekend (it’ll start Saturday and run through Wednesday). I’m utilizing a combination of paid advertising and free advertising to get the word out (as well as mentioning it here), in the hopes this will get the ball rolling.

The truth is, though, that I need a few more things in place to actually make it in this business – barring a lightning strike. One, I need to have more books out. I know, I know – I’ve got thirteen titles for sale! Yes, many writers have done it with half that number. Foolish me, I spread myself a little too thin, trying to write over six series as well as stand-alones. The thing is, I need to have at least three books in each series in order to effectively promote them. The first book is made perma-free (it becomes my loss leader, the way I’ve been doing it with The Spirit of Resistance), and the rest are sold as sequels. Those who like the first book in the series often go on to buy the second and third, etc., but only if they are available to buy!

In order to pull this off, I need another seven books. I have to finish writing The Blood-Eater Coven, Anarchy, and The Music of the Spheres, and then I have to begin and complete writing the following: Puzzle (A Janelle Becker Book), The Division of Darkness (Book 3 of The Dragon’s Eye Cycle), A Glass Half-Full, and the as yet untitled fourth New World Order book (I was going to call it “Blood,” but my daughter pointed out that people will think it’s a vampire book. I haven’t yet selected a new title. Working on it, though).

Once this is done, I will be able to promote all six series.

The second thing I need to pull this off is the money to buy some ads on a few particular sites (which I won’t mention here). The sites I have in mind have a proven track record of generating significant ROI when it comes to selling e-books, and  I’m reasonably confident I can’t do this without them.

The good news is this: I should be able to a) finish the three books in process this year, along with the fifth installment of Jefferson’s Road, and easily write the remaining four novels in 2015. As it stands right now, I will only be able to effectively promote two series at the end of this year – and only one of those is independent! My Jonathan Munro Adventures are traditionally published with Ellechor.

This, it seems, is the heart of the problem. Too many series too soon. Sigh. Once I get some of these off my plate, I promise that I’m going to write more books in fewer series at a time. I think this’ll be a little more effective in the future.

Okay. Enough for now. Back to writing!