As I’m sure most of you know, I really love to read.
Almost as much as I love to write!
I have my nose in a book or, more usually, my Kindle whenever I can, and knowing how important it is to other writers, I post a short review of whatever I’ve read.
Now I’m ready to load up my Kindle for 2020, and I need to do this within the next three months, since that is the length of my super-duper deal on Kindle Unlimited.
So, fellow writers, add your Kindle Unlimited book links below,
or recommend someone else’s.
This weekend wasn’t the best time to try an ebook giveaway. I really should have known though, because if I’d checked on what happened this time last year, I wouldn’t have bothered.
So what happened? I hear you ask. Especially after the (northern hemisphere) summer giveaway of The Silver Locket did so well: 292 copies downloaded and up to #7 in the genre hit parade (albeit briefly).
Oh, but how quickly I’d forgotten the November 2018 debacle. A five day giveaway of the same book had resulted in just 20 copies downloaded. Now this year, buoyed up after the happy surprise of last August, disappointment reigned supreme again.
I was all over LinkedIn and more than a little bit on Twitter. I pitched in on Instagram and posted all over my personal Facebook page. Loyal friends locally liked and shared: one more download!
Of course it didn’t help that the Facebook Elves took 6 hours to approve my US ad. Maybe they were busy approving the million other ads (or were they busy giggling naughtily over the slightly racy start to chapter ten?). Or, when I tweaked the UK audience demographic yesterday morning, the edit was still under review 10 hours later, well past the Great British tea-time.
Two days of ‘bigging it up’ and busily checking the KDP reports. All for just 17 bites. Couldn’t I even give these away???
No! No, because everyone’s in a Massmart store filling their shopping carts with improbably-sized flat screen TVs, so huge that they totter precariously over the edge of the super-sized luminous pink trolleys they wheel, dodging and weaving through the slippery-floored over-peopled mall. (Or so my friend Jonathan told me. You don’t think I ventured out that day? Are you mad?).
Still, after a tiny flurry of downloads in Canada, You’ll Never Walk Alone peaked at a heady #47 in Romance Action and Adventure.
All wasn’t lost anyway. I have three free books from other indie authors to read on my Kindle.
Just remind me next year to concentrate on the last few days of NaNoWriMo and give the Black Friday thing a miss.
Writers, we love to write, don’t we? That’s the best, even if NaNoWriMo can make us a little jittery (I know I had a wobble last week). But if you’re a writer, or an artist or creative of any kind, you know how wonderful it feels to be in the zone.
The converse of this: you still have to sell.
For indie authors, it’s all down to us.
This is why friend and fellow author, Paul English and I were selling our books at the local car boot sale last Saturday. My husband Cliff was there too with his some of his lovely artworks. He’s a very important member of the team as he has the transport (that’s his bakkie in the background) and the tables and the all-important awning were borrowed from his school.
I have to tell you, it was not a great success. I sold a copy of ‘The Silver Locket’ very early on, but that was it! No other sales of anything! A couple of sniffs… and a couple of people said they’d come back next time. And there will be a next time, in two weeks.
I mean, who wouldn’t want a lovely book for a Christmas present?
Ah well, there’s always next time.
Meanwhile I’m planning some Black Friday and holiday offers – stay tuned out there!
luna's on line 