Newsletter - April 18, 2023

Anybody else out there have kids in select sports? Our oldest had a tournament a 3-hr drive from home last weekend, and another coming next weekend. It's the first season where we've had to do this kind of traveling, and I am struggling to grasp the benefit of it. We have major cities that are closer--there really aren't competitive teams that we could reach without having to pay for a hotel? Next weekend my child will have to miss some school for this... what have I done???

The team played hard, with great plays and passes. They came in second in the tournament. In the championship game, our team had only one sub while the other team had over five subs. The other team played strategically, wearing us down with full-team swap-outs. We held on until the 4th quarter, but in the end, the other team's strategy paid off.

I spent a lot of energy trying to give away the kindle version of my first book last week. Some things went wrong with dates on Amazon, but I understand that piece better now, so it shouldn't happen again. With all I've learned, and the improvements I've made to covers, blurbs, and targeting, I expected to get more downloads. The IG and FB ads have tons of "likes", yet they don't track to downloads. The downloads track closest to the Bookbub ads. I'd made the choice to send the IG/FB ads to my web site, with a button right at the top to download the book. Maybe I should have put a direct link to the download on those ads? But I don't think that's it. I suspect there's a different group of people who "like" book ads versus those who actually want to read the specific genre of book I'm offering, and I think BookBub homes in on that audience. Lesson learned. I also ran 4 variants of the Bookbub ads, so I learned what worked for me.

Enough of my fumbling data analysis. The last week I leaned more heavily into forward writing than editing of Mother of Trees. I'm starting to see (as has happened before), that places I want to take the characters in later books have an influence on who they are in the first book. So, to make the first book of the new series better, I need to scratch out the next book. I'm not saying I have to nail everything down, but I need the foundation poured, which means I need to have done enough work that I know where the walls will go, and lay all the pipes properly. (I'm not building on cinder blocks).

I'm going to try to include the podcast interview I've talked about the last couple of newsletters. The preview suggests it is embedding correctly, but it might not. Here's a link to the fiction fans podcast website in case the embedded podcast doesn't work. I was really happy with how it turned out. Do any of you have a podcast you listen to regularly that you would recommend?

broken link

Finally, I promised a reader that I would look into how to create prints of the pictures from my books. I posted questions into author FB groups that I thought would get traction. I didn't get a peep (yet). I did find a company called gooten on my own quick perusal for options, but the fact that they don't put pricing on their web site makes me hesitate, and their integration instructions look complicated. Anyone have a suggestion? I could do printables instead of print-on-demand. Or I could try to fulfill orders myself... it's not like there would be a ton. Thoughts?

o To-Do list for writing last week:

~~Email updates~~
Keep editing Mother of Trees - I did a little. I leaned more into writing ahead last week.
Write ahead - Finish the scene prior to Troll's Teeth, then jump back to the Troll's Teeth story - I've thought that segment of the story through some, and it won't be quick to write. I'll be working on it for a few weeks. I worked on this, but they've still barely begun the segment. There was a lot more to set up than I realized. I talked it through with my oldest on our trip to basketball, and I think the basics are hammered out, just not on paper.

o To-Do list for writing this week:

Email updates
Keep editing Mother of Trees
Write ahead - Finish the scene prior to Troll's Teeth, then jump back to the Troll's Teeth story - I've thought that segment of the story through some, and it won't be quick to write. I'll be working on it for a few weeks.