Happy Father’s Day!

First off, Happy Father’s Day for all the fathers out there! I hope you’re still able to have a festive day even with social distancing.

The Slaying of the Bull (Book 1 of the Tocharian Gospels Series) has been out for a full week, and things are going reasonably well. Although still far from an expert in this ebook selling game, things are far more straightforward this time than the first go-round with the Island of Stone. I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes, and hopefully, it will pay off. I’m bringing a bit of an audience to the Bull, and that helps tremendously, but I still have a long road ahead.

I’ve come to some realizations in my marketing. Although Twitter and Facebook are exciting because you can interact directly with current and potential readers, and it is addictive trying to build a follower base, I haven’t seen a lot of sales directly through these platforms. Secondly, I have been marketing my books with the situation, when I should have been selling with the characters. This redirection required minor tweaking of my ads and book description, but I have seen an increase in clicks since this modification. It makes sense. People care more about individuals than they do the situation. If you care about the character, you could place that person in any condition, and their response would be a worthy story to tell. Lastly, I’ve realized that nothing works as well as just plain hard work. I’ve searched for easy routes to sales so I could focus more on my writing, but it just isn’t going to happen. You have to hustle and push always. That means creating and posting ads, retweeting and liking other’s work, commenting and interacting, and studying- oh the studying. Somewhere in there, you have to carve out a bit of time for writing (and I very much look forward to getting back to the next installment of the Tocharian Gospels Series, The Power of the Heliodromus).

Although I can’t spend as much time writing as I would like, it isn’t all bad. I’m learning a lot. I mean just a huge amount about the writing craft, social media, marketing, video protection, Photoshop, blogging, SEO, design, etc. Many of these skills I can apply to my everyday job and other venues. Any growth is a good thing. Right?

If your in search of a good yarn or two, don’t forget to grab a copy of one or both of my books here (and kindly leave a review if you like), and continue following me on my journey on this blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and AllAuthor!

Cheers!