This week, I almost threw Plottr out a window (figuratively). I identified alternatives — did I pull the trigger? As I reviewed the chain of events from a potential reader clicking on my Facebook ad to them ending up on Amazon’s page for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning, I made a startling discovery. I’m still a bit freaked out by it. And it’s been a long while — too long! — since I wrote anything. Have I finally, finally started Dreams of Deucalion Book 2: Flanking Maneuver? Let’s look at the key performance indicators first.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
Finally, Flanking Maneuver is underway!
Last week, I mentioned that I finished the first draft of the plot. Previously, I’d go through two drafts, then start writing. But I got to thinking — how can I make this plot more engaging? More interesting? More appealing?
I had a Real Life Family (RLFE) one night this week, and I had to take a short trip. Unsure of whether all would remain well, I took my MacBook Pro with me and decided to do a deep dive on Atticus Porter’s arc. Regarding that effort, I have bad news and good news. First the bad news.
When I write, I open Plottr with the current plot. I store the data file on iCloud so I can access it from wherever I am, no matter which computer I’m using. When I finish a session, I note my stopping point and new starting point, save my work to iCloud, then copy the Plottr data file to a local directory. I implement multiple backups because I’ve used computers too long to trust them — even my MacBook Pro!
But since I was on the road, even though i can tether through my iPhone, I decided to edit my local copy of the plot. I spent an hour making updates, confirmed the RLFE was still on solid ground, and copied the local copy to iCloud. That’s when things went downhill.
The date/time stamp showed yesterday’s date. Confused, I double-checked my local copy. Now, it also showed yesterday’s date/time. Somehow, Plottr (or MacOS) lost my data. I tried to open the local backup copies, because Plottr makes those. But Plottr overwrites on close, and it doesn’t keep generations.
Side note: Scrivener creates a ZIP backup every time I close Scrivener, and it keeps multiple generations. Can confirm that’s a better approach!
I still don’t understand the mechanism, but somehow, me opening the same file from more than one location really freaked out Plottr. I tried editing it again, being more careful to open the local copy, making some changes, and trying to copy the file to iCloud. Nope. Same thing.
Tweaking my plotting process has given me more confidence, which translates into faster writing.
If I edit the iCloud version, copy it locally for a backup, then edit the iCloud copy again, it saves my data. It’s back to being stable as long as I play by its rules. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this. I was close to tossing Plottr out the window. But now that I understand what it takes to keep Plottr happy, given how well it meshes with my processes, I’m going to keep it.
This is really annoying to me. I’ve been using word processors since PFS:Write and DisplayWrite III. I’ve had all sorts of word processors do all sorts of things — but never anything like this. Weird.
Oh — the extra time I invested in Porter’s plot? I revised the plot to get his scenes off Earth and into space. Honestly, I think they materially improved the plot. I like it a lot better. And as I wrote his first chapter this weekend, that extra time investment gave me more confidence, which translated into faster writing. I think I’m going to keep that change in my writing process. But I’m only going to open Plottr files from one location!
Tweaking the Sales Chain
Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried multiple options for most steps in the sales chain. You know what I mean: the sales chain starts with the artwork in a Facebook ad to attract someone’s attention. You have to include verbiage that either improves the odds of a click or at least is neutral. Then you have to make sure the landing page is right.
Last year, I listened to advice saying you shouldn’t link directly from your Facebook ad to Amazon. The reasoning was that if you generate a lot of clicks without sales, Amazon will interpret that as your book not deserving a position on also bought lists. The logic made sense to me. My ads for Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action followed this approach, and I saw some success with Facebook ads generating sales.
This ad art is working for me. Thanks to David Gaughran’s YouTube video for the idea and technique!
My new ad for Red Flag Warning generated a lot of clicks. But I didn’t see the expected number of sales. So I checked to make sure my site’s links worked. They did. I checked my site’s access log, and I could see people landing on my site from Facebook. But I didn’t see any outbound clicks.
So I changed the ad to link straight to Amazon. And the next day, I saw a jump in sales. Okay, maybe that was coincidence. But that trend persisted the next day. And the next. In the first six days of October, I’ve sold more books using Facebook than any previous month for Executive Action.
A Topical Cover
I tried that same arrangement with Executive Action, and I never saw results as good as I’m seeing now. I suspect there are myriad contributing factors. But, I think there are two factors that explain what’s going on. First, I think that folks have read stories about not clicking on dangerous URLs. Going from Facebook, where the add is displayed, to a personal website, even one like this one that doesn’t look sketchy, makes people less likely to click one more time.
Second, Red Flag Warning’s cover more clearly communicates the story. I like the cover for Executive Action. It’s consistent for its genre. But its genre is not obvious. Honestly, I’ve had a hard time identifying the genre with any precision, at least in a way I can communicate. I’ve been calling it hard science fiction, science fiction action adventure, and science fiction/political thriller. That’s hard to get across to people.
But Red Flag Warning? The cover has a spaceship, a planet, and a moon. I’ve defined the genre as science fiction/military/space fleet. The cover clearly reflects the genre. It’s an easier sell. I’ve always read the cover has to be not only professionally executed, but genre appropriate. More than that, though, for a new writer, you have to make it easy for a reader to want to read the book. We’ll see how this performs over time.
Read Through
Remember how I mentioned that I intentionally held off publishing The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning until I had also ready to publish The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone and The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak? I know the read-through rates of Evolution’s Hand, which I published over a period of a couple/three years. I wanted to see if publishing all three at once would help.
To put this into perspective, here’s a quick breakdown of the read-through rate for the six books of Evolution’s Hand:
- Executive Action to Dying Breath: 9.6%
- Dying Break to Primary Target: 68%
- Primary Target to Blind Exodus: 50%
- Blind Exodus to Split Infinities: 64%
- Split Infinities to Unnatural Crypsis: 44%
The number of readers going from book 1 to 2 is a disappointment, but I think there’s a rational explanation that doesn’t including saying “my writing sucks.” It might, but I think the drop-off is the same genre issue I talked about earlier. It’s hard to classify the book, so it’s hard to know who to market to. Keep in mind these numbers are over a period of two or three years.
After around two weeks of availability — just two weeks! — here’s the read-through rate of the new trilogy. The first number is the ebook rate; the second, the Kindle Unlimited rate.
- Red Flag Warning to Collapse Zone: 10% and 48%
- Collapse Zone to Firebreak: 100% and 65%
I’ve sold as many Firebreak copies as Collapse Zone copies. Not only that, but once Kindle Unlimited folks get to the second book, they’re very likely to go to the second. I’m reaching readers at a much, much faster rate than the first books ever managed. And this is after a week and a half!
You might wonder how my decision to test the waters with Kindle Unlimited is going. Consider this:
All of my eggs might be in one basket. That could bite me at some point. So far, though, it’s a very comfortable basket.
Unless something changes, I intend to release Dreams of Deucalion all at once and in Kindle Unlimited.
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did compared to my goals from last week:
- Revise the outline for Dreams of Deucalion Book 2: Flanking Maneuver: Done!
- Write the first draft of Atticus Porter’s Hook: Done! Well, I finished the first chapter. It’ll be two chapters.
- Write the first draft of the helper plot’s chapter one: Done! More precisely, I wrote the second helper chapter; the first is pending.
- Write the first draft of Jadwiga Janczak’s Hook: Not done! I allowed myself to get distracted revising the plot again. I might do the same for Janczak’s plot.
- Evaluate performance of the Facebook and Amazon ads; tweak as needed: Done
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2024 Week 41
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Finish Atticus Porter’s second Hook chapter
- Write Trent Raven’s first Hook chapter
- Write Jadwiga Janczak’s first Hook Chapter
- Write the first helper plot chapter
What Do You Think?
I still have a sense many of my marketing “insights” are guesses. How do you go about quantifying the impact of cover art? Ad text? Amazon blurb? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
