Lasers, Ports and Courses

March 8, 2015

I’ve had quite a week of it, one way or another. It has been busy and frustrating at times, but life can be like that, right? I’ve wanted to get on with my grand plan of course, but other priorities got in the way. Monday I was at the local hospital for Laser treatment on my eyes. This meant no driving, and because it was a late afternoon appointment, I couldn’t do anything that evening. I felt shattered. Must have been the Laser treatment! I was back at the hospital again on Thursday to have a ‘port’ removed from my chest. This was the device through which my chemo had been administered, and was still in use for my medication. Now it’s gone, I only need to visit the hospital every other month and the treatment will be administered in a different way and will take less time. Once again I wasn’t allowed to drive, which it quite frustrating. We’ve had furniture delivered; been to the cinema; been to the local bathroom shop and ordered white goods for the bathroom. Shopping of course. And, I have to confess, watched a couple of football matches on TV. Well, maybe more than a couple.

So what should I have been doing? I should have been working on my master plan to sell many more books than I am at present. And it was at the beginning of this week that I signed up for a course with Nick Stephenson (an Amazon author), and am very keen to implement it. I’d seen the preliminary videos about the course, and was fortunate enough to meet Nick in London (it wasn’t planned) when I attended the International Thriller Writers Meet Up. It was good to actually chat with him, rather than know him as a faceless salesman on the web. Nick’s coaching is spot on, meticulous and packed with information that I would never have unearthed on my own. I’m not even a third of the way through the course and have learned a great deal already. The course wasn’t free and it wasn’t cheap. I won’t say how much but if I get it right it will have paid for itself many times over.

Readers of my blog will know when I have completed the first steps and am happy with it. I plan to give one of my books away free in return for an agreement to subscribe to my emailing list. The beauty of that is that any reader can sign up and then unsubscribe once they have received their free title. I’m hoping they will stay with me, naturally, but it would be their choice. To get the free copy it will be necessary to download my permafree title: The Eagle’s Covenant. Not yet though; I’m not ready. Part of this process is having my free gift book available in ePub, Mobi and PDF. These will be uploaded to the cloud, from where subscribers can download via MailChimp. But like any new project: it all takes time; and for me the learning curve is quite steep. But I will get there. Hopefully, regular readers of my blog will keep an eye out for my announcement and start the ball rolling for. Wish me luck!