Puppies and Projects

April 16^th. 2016

Two things happened this weekend which will help to re-order my life. Did I say ‘help’? We picked up our eight week old puppy, Tuppence, today and we are now experiencing a minor, soon to be major, disruption. At the moment she is fast asleep in a cardboard box. No, we didn’t force her to go in the box; she chose to do this herself despite the lovely soft bed we bought, the blankets in her cage where we thought she would feel safe, and the lap my wife offered her several times. Oh, and earlier she chose to sleep wrapped around the leg of the table. I had to rearrange things so I could have my lunch. Her toys are now scattered all over the floor, and she probably has no intention of clearing up after her.

What was the other thing? I decided to bin the 12000 words of my latest book and start again. Day one, page one. I’ve never done that before and believe me, it’s hard. Why chuck out all that work? In my heart I knew I was going down the wrong path, but I had to do it. I now have to look at the end of the year before I can say the book will be finished. Perhaps I should set a November target so I can have it ready for the Christmas rush.

Earlier this week I completed a revision of two book jackets. One was for A Covert War, and the other for my religious book, A Word in Your Ear. I received a copy of the first book today, and am satisfied with the result. The other one should be available in a couple of days.

Something else changed too. Yesterday I discovered that Amazon had altered the zero price on The Eagle’s Covenant to $0.99. No reason given except that the book isn’t free anywhere else. I contacted them but they claim to reserve the discretionary right to do this. As someone on one of my author forums said earlier this week, “$0.99 is the new zero.” I must admit, it does seem pointless offering a book for free these days. Even at the new low price, there’s very little profit to be made.

My sales rankings are tumbling a lot quicker now, which I expected, so next week I’ll be raising my prices on my two lowest priced books, and dropping North Slope to $0.99 for a promotion on the 22^nd. After that I’ll get back to Facebook advertising again. May even have a shot at BookBub.

So what’s on the horizon for me now? A lot of ‘walkies’ I expect, and more head scratching as I work on my latest thriller. Wish me luck!