I experienced the benefits of planning this week, ironically by spontaneously identifying a missing piece that I had missed during plannng. I’ve also made the first adjustments to my Facebook ad, and it’s only the second week of the year. Did the change affect sales? Did Real Life Family Events relent this week? And most importantly, did I hit my writing target? Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators first.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
Honestly, I was surprised when I calculated the weekly word count.
This week, I had to work through three RFLEs before Thursday. I was frankly shocked when I ran the numbers and realized I’d written more than 10,000 words this week. I figured it’d be closer to 6,000 or something. I’ll say this again: before beginning to write, immersing my brain in the plot and characters, really pushing myself to envision the plot, has paid huge dividends. Even if my mind’s all over the place with RLFEs, if I can get just an hour to write, I can be productive.
This week, I realized I needed another chapter to complete Moritz Lehner’s arc. I took the time to think it through and make sure to capture and weave all the narrative threads throughout. It took a little extra time; but it made writing the chapter a lot easier.
Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation is coming together. I can’t recall the flow feeling so smooth before, at least in a sustained way. I really struggled through Resistance Movement, and the first book really kicked me in the teeth. But I think I’m on solid footing now with the third book.
Which reminds me that I need to get my books in front of more readers who will enjoy it.
First Marketing Course Correction of 2026
I tried using Facebook ad’s automatic targeting. Meta has been pushing it hard, and I figured, why not set a baseline? Why didn’t I do this before? Because I think I know my audience. I think my audience is 35+, made up of males and females, who like The Expanse and Old Man’s War and ebooks. Facebook’s automatic targeting doesn’t let me specify any of that.
The automatically targeted ad ran for a week. I had a very low number of sales but a high number of clicks. That means Facebook showed the ad to people who would click on it. They just weren’t in my audience, so they didn’t buy it. The data seemed to suggest my fears were valid.
I paused that ad and defined a new one. This time, I took as much control of targeting as I could. For the ages, the oldest I could set was 25+. I assume there’s a reason for that, but it escapes me. I specified United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. That’s pretty much all I could set. Facebook has removed the rest.
And guess what? Sales tripled in the first three days. They’re still not where I want them to be. And being only able to set the age bracket, and that imprecisely, is not enough. But it suggests to me that the ads will still work if I can get them in front of the right people.
I really want to drive sales of The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning so I can gauge the success of the audiobook. I’m going to let the current ad run, or maybe I’ll investigate other tweaks and run multiple ads within a campaign. I’m going to track success, I think, using Amazon attributes. I’ve started investigating that topic. That will let me run several ads within a campaign at the same time and know which drove the most sales.
Longer term, as I mentioned last week, I’m going to run a campaign that drives traffic to this site. The Facebook Pixel on my site can identify who clicks. After a month or two, I can use the output from the Pixel to create a lookalike audience, and that should make ad targeting more fruitful. It’s going to be expensive. Ads that go to my site have a lower conversion rate than clicks that go straight to Amazon, so this is going to be more expensive. But it’s the best way I can think of right now.
Note that I’m trying to attract the right people just through the selection of graphics. Unfortunately, I’m not discerning enough to make that work.
Progress Against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did measured against last week’s goals:
- Write a helper plot for Jackson Scott’s preparations: Done!
- Write Owen Payne’s pinch 2: Done!
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s pinch 2: Done!
- (Stretch goal) Writer Payne’s plot turn 2: Deferred! I wrote part 1 of Lehner’s pinch 2.
- Monitor proofreading for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure: Ongoing! The proofreader continues to make progress.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 2
HEre’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Write Owen Payne’s plot turn 2
- Write Jackson Scott’s additional helper chapter
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s plot turn 2
- (Stretch goal) Write Lehner’s pinch 2 part II
- Monitor proofreading for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure
- Monitor the Facebook ad for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning
What Do You Think?
Have you used the Facebook Pixel to build lookalike audiences? Has it worked for you? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
