This is me – squinting blindly and blithely, straight into the rising sun.
Let me see if I can give you a final summing up here.
Over the month of October I have sold almost 300 books in total on Kindle alone – which is pretty huge for me. I haven’t EVER sold more than 200 e-books in one month before.
Specifically, that was 214 copies of TATTERDEMON and 36 copies of DEVIL TREE – as well as a smattering of other sales.
On Kobo I sold 49 copies of TATTERDEMON and 1 copy of DEVIL TREE. I am pretty certain that was primarily due to my taking part in the Kobo promotion. I’m not sure if ANY of my prom websites made ANY sort of difference to my Kobo sales.
I feel that the Kobo sales were worthwhile, over all.
On Nook and Apple I sold 4 copies of DEVIL TREE and 1 copy of TATTERDEMON.
I am really beginning to grow discouraged about my lack of action on Nook and Apple. I feel that part of that inaction might be because I reach both of those services through an aggregator, namely D2D but because I am Canadian and I do not own a Mac computer I am really hamstrung when it comes to publishing directly onto Apple or Nook.
There are ways to do it – but I am not particularly inclined to going about all that much trouble for what might be a limited reward. Nook has not been shining for a lot of e-book authors. I know some folks do really well there – but every day I hear nothing but bad news about Barnes & Noble and Nook in general.
I had been trying to decide whether or not to go all-in for KU or to continue playing it wide. Given that I am still happy with Kobo’s results I probably WON’T let go of Nook and Apple yet. Why should I? It doesn’t take any effort on my part. They are already formatted and entered. The only reason to leave Nook and Apple would be if I were ALSO leaving Kobo – so why bother?
All that remains for me to figure out is whether or not my promotion expenses were worth it or not. I am definitely going to have to take a long look at what worked and what didn’t.
I’m going to leave both books – TATTERDEMON and DEVIL TREE – on for 99 cents for the rest of the week and then bump them up to $3.99.
I sold 66 copies of TATTERDEMON yesterday, thanks to a ROBIN READS promo that is still in effect this morning. The promo spot on Robin Reads cost me $15.00 – which I made back and then some yesterday.
So – what’s going on for November?
Well – it is going to be an awfully busy month.
For starters – my e-book UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – FROM EDEN TO THE ARK was free yesterday and is still free this morning.
Just click and grab it while you have got the chance!
I am in my last week of my Kindle Scout program and any nominations are gratefully appreciated.
The Tale of a Time Traveling Toilet.
And I am in my third day of NaNoWriMo – which I still have to talk about – but not today! I am 3600 words into my new novel – THE NOVA SCOTIA BROTHERHOOD OF UNITED GHOSTS – and I need to bang out 1700 more words this morning.
yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
Please click this link and nominate A BLURT IN TIME for the Kindle Scout program.
That point in the story where you are NOT sure where you are going.
That’s when doubt creeps in.
That’s when you begin to second-guess yourself.
“I’m no good,” you say.
“I don’t know what I am doing,” you say.
“I ought to rewrite. I ought to give up. I ought to take up needlepoint or knitting or counting itches at the flea circus.”
Remember the first line (roughly translated) in Dante’s Inferno?
“In the middle of my life I found myself in a dark wood for the right way was lost.”
Keep on writing. Remember, your words are nothing more than steps in the wilderness. You might feel lost – but keep on going – and step by step you’ll find out that you were right where you needed be the whole time.
Write blindly.
Let your pen be your compass needle.
Have faith that your story knows where you are going.
Remember the words of my Uncle Bob – “When you are waist-deep in alligator it is important to remember that you set out to drain the swamp.”
What does that mean?
You set to write the first draft of a story.
Don’t let that second-thought alligator talk you out of completing that first draft.
So never mind that gator.
Keep on draining the swamp – one Solo cup at a time.
Remember – it is AWFULLY hard to revise a blank page.
Last night I had a wonderful time signing books at the Halifax Shopping Centre Coles.
I always enjoy going out to signings and meeting folks who want to buy my books. It’s a really unique experience. You’ve got to remember – being a writer is a job with a serious lack of actual personal feedback. Unless you count the times the cat comes into your office, asking to be fed.
My cat, Kismet.
As I have mentioned, Mother’s Day weekend is ALWAYS a good time to sell books. And I always seem to have pretty good luck signing my books at the Halifax Shopping Centre.
The fact that I actually live across the street from the mall means that I frequently walk by the bookstore – and when I say “walk” by I actually mean “walk into” and when I say “walk into” I actually mean “walk in and BUY”.
Yes folks – my name is Steve Vernon and I AM a book addict.
Today I will be signing at the Chain Lake Chapters from 12 noon to 2pm. I hope to see some of you folks there.
***********************************
I also got a chance to try out my new secret weapon – my business card.
I know, I know – you are reading this right now and you are wondering just WHEN this bearded dude actually thought he discovered business cards.
Hi – my name is Steve Vernon and I was born in the days when giant prehistoric beaver walked the earth.
Back in the beginning of April I took part in a local Book Fair with about thirty other authors and I talked to all of them – including Kobo guru Mark Leslie Lefebvre and ALL of them had business cards.
So I went home from that Book Fair and order a box of business cards from Vistaprint. I chose Vistaprint after taking a short intensive survey with each of the writers I talked to that went something like this…
Steve – “So where did you get your business card printed?”
Author 1 – “Vistaprint.”
Steve – “So where did YOU get your business card printed?”
Author 2 – “Vistaprint.”
Steve – “So WHERE did YOU get your business card printed?”
Author 3 – “Didn’t you just hear those first two authors? Are you stupid or do you just have a build-up of wax in your ears? I got my business card printed at Vistaprint.”
So I took a hint and went home and Googled up “Vistaprint” and came up with the business card you see below.
I am really excited about discovering business cards. I think they might actually catch on with other folks. Mark my words – before you can say “obvious”, nearly every self-employed writer in North America and the known world is going to start carrying business cards.
All kidding aside I am REALLY excited about this simple idea.
You see – I have been trying for a very long time to bring the two facets of my writing together. As a traditionally-published author I can see my books in bookstores right across the Maritimes and Canada.
And, as an indie author I can see my self-published books in Kobo and Kindle and e-book distributors across the world.
But the two realms rarely mix.
I’d like to change that.
I’d like to be able to simultaneously promote both my independently-published work as well as my Nimbus books – and I am hoping this business card is one step towards making that dream a reality.
Best thing is that if you scan that funky-looking square with your smartphone (it’s called a QR or QUICK RESPONSE) it will take you DIRECTLY to my Kobo page where you can see all of my Kobo releases – independent and traditional alike.
This isn’t rocket science. In fact I had been thinking about it for some time now but had never got around to doing it.
So that’s what I want you to get out of this blog entry. Stop trying to get around to doing things and TAKE ACTION NOW!
**********************
Lastly, let me get you up to speed on my Kindle Countdown Promotion for UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com for only NINETY-NINE CENTS this weekend!
The book is now sitting at #70,572 ranking and the promotion ends this Monday. I’ve sold 35 copies over the last five days – which isn’t bad at all.
Yesterday I felt a little discouraged but I woke up this morning and kicked myself in the butt – which is a maneuver that all of you writers out there ought to practice regularly. Take yoga classes if you need to, in order to develop the necessary degree of flexibility.
The fact is thirty-two copies sold in three days really doesn’t need to be that much of a tragedy. That is still respectable numbers and it represents thirty-two potential Steve Vernon lifetime fans.
Writing is a long game. I’ve been at it for about forty years – from back when I used to have to save up American postage for SASE – (that’s self-addressed-stamped-envelope for all of you in the digital generation) – and it has NEVER been an easy gig.
I don’t expect it ever will be.
So – if you folks out there who are reading along take nothing from else from this blog series – take this single nugget of wisdom.
If that helped your day out one little bit why not spend a dollar – which is how much UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS will cost you if you buy it before the weekend is up.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com
If that DIDN’T really help you – or if you DON’T have a dollar to spare grab this freebie right now and it won’t cost you a single cent.
Remember…there may come a day when your courage as a writer will fail – BUT…
The Mother’s Day weekend is ALWAYS busy in bookstores.
I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps it is because your average mother has already spent a lot of her lifetime in hard labor – first carrying the growing baby for nine long months and then cleaning and feeding and raising that same child – sometimes while carrying and cleaning and feeding and raising another child or two or three or so.
Some mothers even have to spend time raising and cleaning and feeding their husbands throughout their married existence – given that some fellows are not quite as self-sufficient as others.
Husband – “Honey? How do you work the microwave?”
Wife – “Put it in and push the button.”
Husband – “Which button? I’ve never done this before. Is it this button?”
BEEP!
“Or this button?”
BEEP!
“Or this one?”
BEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!
At which point the wife in question probably gets tired of hearing her hubbie push those buttons and so she gives up in exasperation and drops whatever she was really doing and goes out into the kitchen to help her husband.
Face it.
We fellows are raised by women – mostly – and a lot of us never learn how to take of ourselves unless we have to and if we do we most likely wind up running to the nearest MacDonalds or Tim Hortons and finding some bought-and-paid-for proxy-wife to put the thing (whatever it was) into the microwave and push that button.
Let me tell you – being a Mother is HARD work.
I was lucky in that I learned to cook some time ago and I actually have a pretty good idea on which button to push on the microwave although I nuked some smoked sausages in a bowl of water this morning and let me tell you I really should I have just given into my masculine instincts and chopped those suckers and thrown them into a fry pan. The darned things tasted more like hotdogs than decently sizzled sausages.
***
Let me tell you about cooking.
I learned to cook when I was about eighteen years old. I had been raised in Northern Ontario by my grandparents and my grandmother was a truly wonderful cook and she let me in the kitchen to eat and do the dishes – but that was it. She showed me once how to fry an egg for a Boy Scout badge – but after that I was mostly on my own.
I learned how to cook in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia when I came east for a visit about forty years ago. I came to meet my Mom who had lived out here most of her life.
My parents had one of those geographic divorces early on in their marriage in that Dad went about as far west as he could travel and Mom went about as far east – to Nova Scotia.
Mom worked in the Yarmouth Library for an awful lot of years – and I guess where this is about Mother’s Day I really ought to tell you more about her but I want to tell you about her husband, Irvin.
Irv has been a mailman and a hunter and a pitcher of baseballs and a card player who could cheat if he wanted to but didn’t really need to. He was a chucker of darts and a raiser of rabbit hounds and I’d show you a picture but I don’t really have the time or inclination to run and hunt for the photo album to scan in – so instead I will just tell you that he kind of looks a little bit like a rougher and shorter less-Photo-Shopped version of Sam Elliott.
Well, Irvin came down to the kitchen one morning and caught me trying to make French Toast in a sauce pot.
In my defense I had read an article on camp cooking in one of those outdoor-type magazines written by fellows who most likely haven’t seen the woods since back before Mark Trail raised his first pup tent – that talked about making a French Toast compote – which really wasn’t French Toast at all.
“What you doing, Steve?” Irvin asked me.
I muttered something in return that I couldn’t say in church unless maybe I had just dropped the offering plate on my toes.
So he took that pot from my hands before I hurt myself with it and took time out before his hard day of delivering the mail to show me just how to make French Toast – and if I had time I would tell you more about that but I am just finishing up my morning coffee before I head off to my job in cubicle hell.
That’s right.
Steve Vernon – spinner of yarns and author of more books than you shake an abacus at – has still got himself a day job.
You want to say something I got two words for you. Vacation pay and pension.
All right – so that was more than two words, if you want to get statistical about it.
Learning how to cook that French Toast gave me a little bit of confidence and in later years I learned one heck of lot more about cooking from watching James Barber, the Urban Peasant, on television.
And no – James Barber did not look a THING like Sam Elliott. Maybe more like Richard Attenborough, from Jurassic Park.
Which – in hindsight – doesn’t have much to do about this blog entry today – but sometimes a fellow sees a road and he just has to get up and wander down on to see where he gets to.
***
I started this blog entry this morning before I went to work because I was tired of jumping up and down yelling at all of you folks to go and buy my e-book while it is on sale for a measly 99 cents over at Kindle this week
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com
(dang, how did that get there?)
Today I want to talk briefly about a couple of book signings I have got coming up.
I have got a book signing Friday evening at the Halifax Shopping Centre Coles bookstore from 7 – 8:30pm.
I’ll be at the Bayers Lake Chapters on Saturday from noon to two pm – as well.
I like book signings. A lot of authors don’t. They moan and they groan and if I were not such a diplomatic fellow I would call them all a pack of pickle-nosed wusses – but I am diplomatic so I will instead show great concern about their high moral ethics and anti-social tendencies.
Me – I like to meet my reading public. It makes my day to see somebody pick up one of my books and actually pull money out of their pocket and give it to somebody or read it themselves or best of all read it first and THEN give it somebody else.
I like the fact that they actual VALUE and enjoy my hand-scrawled signature which really ought to be used in a this-is-how-NOT-to-sign-your-name hen-scratching self-help video.
I sell an average of about fifteen to twenty books at a book signing, make a few more royalties and end up grinning by the end of the day.
Beer always tastes good after a book signing.
So let me end this entry with a reprint of my previously blogged article, FLY FISHING IN THE RIVER OF POSSIBILITY – A DOZEN TIPS FOR MAKING YOUR NEXT BOOK SIGNING A SUCCESS.
***
We’ve all seen those lonely writers sitting at those tables parked in front of bookstores. We’ve watched them slowly growing cobwebs behind stacks of sadly unsigned books.
Heck, I have even been one myself, over the years. Signings are never predictable.
Just last month I found myself outside of the Coles Bookstore in the Halifax Shopping Centre. This can be an awfully tough spot to sign in. People come to this mall with high-test boutique shopping in mind. I have seen them sprint past my book table – aimed towards dresses and jewelry and the cellular phone experience and, of course, the food court.
If I sign and sell a dozen books at this mall I figured I was doing great.
But I love that bookstore – partly because of the location – so handy to my home. Partly because the people who work there really love their job and they mostly know me by name and always go out of their way to make this writer feel right at home. Even on days that I’m just browsing the bookshelves they always smile and say “Mr. Vernon, how good to see you.”
So I go there and I do my best and this October I signed and sold twenty copies of my books. That is a fine fat day for a book signing author.
Which goes to show that you can never tell how a book signing will go. That is the number one tip for writers scheduled for a book signing. Anything is possible. Don’t go there figuring you know everything there is to know. You are a writer, after all – which means that you make stuff up. Which means that you need to believe in the power of possibility.
Anything can happen.
So abandon all preconceptions. The fact is we’re just fishing. And I can tell you a fishing story or two. Most of them all begin with “I went fishing and stood on the side of the river” and end with “the mosquitoes bit but the fish did not.”
Here are ten of the never-before-told secrets for signing success.
1. Make sure your bait is fresh. Remember – you are sitting in a building filled with books. Make sure that yours stands out. Set up a display. Bring a few photo stands to prop up copies. For the launch of my now-out –of-print weird western-horror I brought a small stuffed buffalo, tastefully zombified. For Lunenburg Werewolf I bring along a small stuffed wolf – all right, so he’s a husky, but don’t tell him that – you would only hurt his feelings.
Mind you, not everyone will have such an easily illustrated motif as reanimated bison, but anything that stands out stops people. A snazzy sign, a portrait of your main character, a funky colored lava lamp. You’re a writer, use your imagination.
2. Find the right fishing hole. Position your table close to an entrance. Heartily hail the folks who walk in. Wave to those who walk out. Keep smiling and have fun. Sooner or later people will come closer just to see what you’re so danged happy about.
3. Have a sharp hook. Get your patter ready. People are busy creatures. If they stop to listen to you they want it to be a succinct experience. On the off-chance if you happen to bore them to tears then at least they’ll be able to extract themselves quickly from what might otherwise be a sticky experience.
Hopefully, you won’t bore them.
“Hi there. I’m launching a new book today.” If they come closer to listen, reel them in. “This is my new book, YODELING WITH MALAMUTES, a heart breaking tale of a Swiss dog sled racer with deep-seated Iditarod dreams.” Talk to everyone who’ll listen. You are fly fishing in the river of possibility. Keep the fishing line dancing.
4. Keep casting and stay friendly. A lot of folks aren’t really interested in what you’re selling. Pity them quietly, but don’t browbeat them into conversion. It won’t happen. If folks bustle past, smile and say “Enjoy your browse.” Maybe they’ll stop on the way back.
5. Don’t forget to keep that fishing line dancing. Avoid long conversations. You’ll miss potential customers. Know when to shut up. If the person skims the first couple of pages, let your book do the talking for you. Odds are, you probably sound better in print, anyway.
6. Keep your feet in the water and stay hydrated. Have a drink, you’ll need it. Not a coffee, that’s bad for your breath. Have an herbal tea or a bottle of water – but make it a small one. Easy does it on the maximum-grandiose-large. The bookstore bathroom is a long walk away.
7. Bring a bright and shiny lure. Have a blurb clearly typed up for bookstores with PA systems. “Welcome to Check It Out Bookstores. Today we have novelist Steve Vernon signing copies of his new book PIZZA SCREAMS – A TALE OF DEEP ANCHOVY LOVE. He’s at the front entrance. Come and chat with a real bearded author.”
8. Don’t throw anything back. There is no telling who you will meet. In a two hour signing I met a school principal who hired me to teach a workshop on storytelling and writing; a radio host who lined me up for an interview, and the head editor of a local publisher who signed me on for my next book. Remember – the world is watching you, sitting there at your table full of hopeful books. Sometimes opportunity knocks, and sometimes you hold the door hard against the right set of knuckles.
9. Try and personalize your signature. I make it a point to chat with the person I am signing for and find out who they want it personalized to. Sometimes they are buying the book for someone else. Be prepared to just sign in generically – for the folks who are buying it as a gift idea but haven’t got an idea who to give it to.
10. CHECK YOUR SPELLING! This is very important. There are a lot of ways to spell a name. Ask them to spell the name – no matter how much you think you know how to spell the name “John” sooner or later you are going to run into a “Jon”.
11. Keep a tally on how many you sell. Sign a few before you go. I recommend signing them with a little space up top. That way, when you come back to this store for another signing you can always personalize it with “To John” in the blank space you’ve left up top.
12. Here’s my last bit of advice. No matter how hard the day goes, no matter how few copies you sign and sell – remember to have fun while you do it. You’re fishing, aren’t you?
I would like to dedicate this blog to my stepfather Irvin Chatelois and my grandad Hanlan Vernon – both of you took me fishing and neither of you laughed too hard when I caught nothing but a handful of stickleback perch.
I’m pretty good at book signing – but I SUCK at fishing.
I’m beginning to feel like a follow-up article needs to be written. Something along the lines of “How Many Ways Can You Say – BUY MY BOOK?”
As a writer I don’t find it comfortable standing up here on this homemade soapbox. My ankles are getting sore, my balance is suspect and I’m pretty sure I’ve got splinters in my feet.
🙂
I know that I get easily bored by one too many BUY MY BOOK tweets on Twitter. I grow irritated by the authors on certain Facebook pages who seem to be aiming for Guinness Book status in single-handed-spam-status-updates.
Shoot, do they even call them status updates anymore?
I am SO 2012.
Still, I’ve sold twelve copies as of this morning. This campaign is only one day old. It hasn’t been a huge success – but it has definitely pushed the book towards visibility.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com
Here’s where UNCLE BOB started out this morning.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,385 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#20 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children’s eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Religious Fiction > Christian
#96 in Books > Children’s Books > Literature & Fiction > Religious Fiction > Christian
For those folks who have been following along I’ve got a similar push going on for my perma-free historical-horror story IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP.
Currently IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP is sitting at this ranking.
#4,838 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#60 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mythology & Folk Tales
#61 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Fairy Tales
Today my FIVERR with Bknights kicks into action. I’ve got another similar program lined up for tomorrow. I am hoping that this will be the secret – each of these pushes going off like so many hopeful star-shell flares into the darkness.
So – let me ask you – how many ways CAN you write “Buy my Book?”
Anybody out there catch THE RETURNED on the Space Network?
Belinda and I watched the first episode tonight on our DVR. It is TOTALLY creepy and I am enjoying the fact that it is in French, with subtitles. Less banal Hollywood dialogue this way.
As for the e-book promotion, things continue to move well.
As of tonight I have sold 10 copies of UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS, all on Amazon.com.
Click this cover NOW to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com
The Amazon ranking is sitting at 98,480. I’ve got another big promotional push going on tomorrow as a few other promotional websites go live – so hopefully I get this puppy airborne.
Meanwhile, I’ve given away 28 free copies of IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP, bringing the ranking up to 3,787.
26 of the 28 copies were US “sales”, only two to the UK.
The cool thing about having to work a day job is it forces an indie writer such as myself to actually step away from the computer for a while – so when I come back home from work I can see some ACTUAL changes in book sales.
Well, there have been some changes.
Since this morning I’ve sold six copies of UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS – all on Amazon.com.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS for only 99 cents at Amazon.com
That isn’t exactly huge results – but it is a start.
Some of the promotional pages have already gone live.
The UK has not been kind to me at all. Perhaps redneck Bible Tales are not a good match for England’s readership – but I remain hopeful.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS for only GBP 0.99 at Amazon.co.uk
I have seen a significant bump in my perma-free e-book IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP. I have given away EIGHTEEN copies since this morning – where as I usually only move one or two copies a day.
Now, some of you folks might be wondering why I am all that excited about moving FREE books. Well, this book is nothing more than a really cool dark story and it is part of a larger collection of Sea Tales – and, if someone picks this up for free and likes what they read well then there is a chance they might actually go on to buy some of the other stories in the series or even snatch up the complete collection of my Sea Tales.
Then too there is always a chance that one of the folks who picks up a freebie of IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP or a ninety-nine cent copy of UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS might like it enough to leave a really cool review over at Amazon or at Goodreads or the like.
A review helps promote an e-book’s saleability and helps bump up an author’s popularity – especially when you are talking about Amazon ranking.
I’ve spoken of this before. It’s a game of pebbles in the pond. A writer sits on the bank and chucks his pebbles one-by-one, hoping that each little splash and ripple will eventually build up into a tsunami of book sales.
At least that is the theory.
Wish me luck – and bigger pebbles.
yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
(PS: An hour later I’ve got eight copies sold. Not a whole lot so far but the promotion is just getting started. I am pleased that the Amazon Rating has shot up from a low, low, low 1,056,820 up to 89,496. If I can just get a little momentum and a few more sales I might break into some of those more noticeable Amazon listings and really start raking in some sales.
Meanwhile, IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP has moved 27 free copies and has climbed from a ranking of 14,084 up to 5,347.
Remember – in an Amazon ranking the lower the number the faster the book is selling.
For those folks who have been following my blog you know that I am CONSTANTLY looking for new ways to promote my e-book sales.
I’ve been waiting a while for the right book to jump into the Kindle Countdown with and I believe that UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS is the one that will do the trick.
The thing about countdown is that it hinges upon the time you set it up for – so it is important to time your promotions wisely.
My UK promotion is now live. The book is listed at GBP 0.99 (going up to GBP 1.99 in 2 days).
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.co.uk
The US listing should go live later today – I believe around noontime or so.
Click this cover to order UNCLE BOB’S BOOK OF GENESIS at Amazon.com
For those folks who are following my promotional efforts with professional interest you might want to know that I just signed up for a FIVERR promotion through DBS PUBLISHING.
You have to be careful dealing with FIVERR. There is a great deal of companies that are nothing more than scammers trying to pry a few fins from out of the fists of unfortunate indie authors – however, this particular service came highly recommended by the good folks of Kboards.
If you use them for one of your releases, please mention where you heard of it from.
I’d appreciate ANY sharing and tweeting and mentioning on Facebook of this Kindle Countdown promotion I have got going all week long. Heck, if you want to scribble it down on the bathroom walls at work, that might do as well.
One final word about paying for promotion. I have a couple of sources of Paypal income that trickles in every month or so and I keep that Paypal income STRICTLY for promotion. I don’t have it hooked to a bank account, so I can’t readily withdraw it, so I have to come to look upon it as virtual money and I use it to pay for my covers and my promotion. It is well and good to spend a little money to attract attention and hopefully sales to your latest promotion – but bear in mind every dollar spent ought to net you some kind of profit – so don’t blow the piggy bank on this, friends and neighbors.
Darn piggy bank will only over and smoke a cigarette afterwards without a trace of gratitude and while there is nothing wrong at all with smoked pork it is better to aim for a profit.
I’m happy to announce that the second volume in the Uncle Bob series – UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – FROM BABEL TO THE BULRUSHES is now available in both Kindle AND Kobo format.
This weekend for all of you KOBO owners out there I am offering the first book, UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – FROM EDEN TO THE ARK for FREE at the Kobo network.
The second volume, UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – FROM BABEL TO THE BULRUSHES is marked down from the regular price of $6.99 down to $2.99 until SUNDAY APRIL 13!
Now, before you folks all sprain your index finger trying to click onto those covers to order a copy let me help you.
(in a burst of Kung-Fu speed)
I am doing things a little differently.
To order either of these books PLEASE click nifty blue KOBO -icon at the top of my blog. That will take you to the Kobo booksite through my affiliate link. Once there you can order either of the UNCLE BOB books through Kobo and I get an extra bit of income to help pay my mounting bills.
In fact I have a secret hope that somebody will order a Stephen King novel through my Kobo affiliate link so that I can go to bed tonight kidding myself that I’m getting a cut of Stephen King’s money.
YOURS IN STORYTELLING... 