That was a challenging week. It delivered a much higher occurrence than average of Real Life Family Events (RLFEs). With my energy depleted by watching the elected leader of my country sell us out to an enemy (undoing 80+ years of work — not to mention endangering the entire planet), I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to start with. How much did the RFLEs affect my writing? I also decided to bold action with my marketing campaign. Have I learned anything from my past attempts? Let’s look at the key performance indicators first!
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
All I can say is this: it could have been worse.
I think I’ve mentioned before that my son is deaf. On many days, I meet him at his work site, after my work day, so I can interpret for him. I had almost arrived at his site when I got a text from him: on the way to work, he had a flat tire. After determining he was okay (dude managed to get his truck to the side of the highway without incident — given that highway, I was impressed), I drove to where GPS said he’d stopped.
I let him take my vehicle to work, and I called AAA. Yes, it was humiliating — I asked for help changing a tire. I could do it, of course. But I’d never changed a tire on that truck It had a full-sized spare, and I could just see myself fumble it and somehow send the spare into traffic.
Causing a twenty car pileup and sending me to the ICU. Yeah. My imagination does stuff like that to me. I wish it was as active when I was trying to write!
AAA made it by the time I’d reviewed the YouTube videos about changing that truck’s tires, so I wasn’t completely embarrassed. They did their usual great job, but I said goodbye to the nice man who had helped me. But I had a problem. When I looked at the flat tire, I noticed three holes in the sidewall that looked perfectly round. Exactly the size of a 9mm round. Late last year there’d been a road rage shooting in that vicinity. I wondered if someone had opened fire and hit my son’s tire as collateral damage.
Fortunately, it was just my imagination again. One of the tire guys found the puncture hold from a nail in the tread. When the tire went flat and my son veered to the berm, the rim and gravel punched those holes. The friendly tech even showed me where there were tears and not just punctures.
Still, the night of the flat, I didn’t get home until late. Between that and another RLFE, I lost two full days of writing. But you know what? I’m going to count it as a win. No one got hurt, my son didn’t miss work and neither did I, and we were about due to replace the tires anyway. Plus, I still wrote over 8,000 words. I’m freaking exhausted from all of it, but I’m calling this a win.
Experimentations in Marketing
Sales were February started strong but diminished as the month wore on. Kindle Unlimited page reads were stead throughout, much to my delight! I decided it was time to try something different.
My problem wasn’t sales. Well, it was. If I sold a ton more at a high click to conversion ratio, that’d be great. But my sales for The Sword of Sirius are well ahead of what my sales were for Evolution’s Hand. That’s not the problem.The problem was I’d priced The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning at $0.99. It takes a ton of sales to make a profit at that price point.
It’s not on sale anymore!
I took a suggestion from David Gaughran. I changed my graphics to look like the one above — specifically, I removed the “On Sale” badge. Then, I raised the price to $2.99 (below the $3.99 price point for the other two books so there’s still a little bit of an incentive to try it out). Now, I’m still running a Facebook and Amazon ad. But I’m not trying to sell a $0.99. I expect book sales will drop, but I hope page reads will continue at present levels. Perceived value might work in my favor!
It’s only been three days, so it’s impossible to say. But so far, it looked like the ads are working like I expect. My unit sales are down, my page reads are steady, and most importantly, my revenue is up. I’m really curious to see if I can make March 2025 the first month I turn a profit.
Because if I can push profit into the black, I can scale. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Cover for Dreams of Deucalion Book 3: Bait and Bleed
I finished the back cover blurb for Bait and Bleed, so I figured, why not bid the cover? Not surprisingly, I selected Miblart again. They did the first two covers, which I loved. It only makes sense for them to do the third.
I might try another outfit for Wayland’s Forge Book 1: Conventional Forces. Or I might not. I’m not really sure. I don’t like to be single-sourced on any provider. But I like the combination of Miblart’s work and reasonable price. I’ll make that decision after I finish Wayland Forge Book 2: Resistance Movement.
And while I was doing an unrelated search, I discovered that there’s a gaming company named Wayland Forge. I might have to change the name. I’m not sure of the legalities, but I don’t want to cause confusion. It’s a fantasy game, and there might be some overlap in my readers and RPG gamers.
Maybe one of these?
- Wayland’s Anvil
- Wayland’s Hammer
I’m leaning toward the second. What do you think?
Well, that’s an unexpected pain.
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s what I achieved last week compared to my goals:
- Write Owen Payne’s Hook. Done!
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s Hook Part II. Done!
- Write Payne’s Hook Part II. Done!
- Write Mortiz Lehner’s Plot Turn 1. Not done! This was a victim of RLFEs.
- Draft the Amazon blurbs for Special Recon, Flanking Maneuver, and Bait and Bleed. Done! I managed to use my time waiting for a four tire change to draft all three Amazon blurbs.
- Draft a back cover blurb for Bait and Bleed. Done!
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 10
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Take delivery of the first draft of Dreams of Deucalion Book 3: Bait and Bleed’s cover.
- Write Moritz Lehner’s Plot Turn 1 Part I
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s Plot Turn 1 Part I
- Write Lehner’s Plot Turn 1 Part II
- Evaluate the Facebook and Amazon ad campaigns
What Do You Think?
Do you have a robust method for calculating the return on your marketing investment? Or do you wing it? Something inbetween? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
