A bad week for sales - I think I need to push my book a bit more

Pride comes before a fall and I was proud - or certainly pleased at any rate - to have sold four books last weekend. What have I sold since? Erm, norra lot, as Cilla Black might put it.

So it's somewhat disappointing. Actually my sales flurry last weekend was largely due I think to a regular holidaymaker at Abersoch who came across my book, bought it, told all his friends about it, and three of them also bought it on his recommendation.

But that is exactly the way a self-published ebook like this will either stand or fall in the end. It isn't enough to just upload it onto Amazon's bookstore and leave the rest to Google. Writing a book is just half the battle - marketing it is at least as difficult and I haven't done anywhere near as much as I should.

You cannot get a better accolade than when a complete stranger like Paul comes across the book and he and his young daughter like it so much they recommend it others who then also buy it. This is absolutely the way to do it. On that basis, and considering I deliberately haven't knowingly sold any to friends and family, I should be pleased to have 43 buyers so far. I need to keep pushing it and I am keen to write another - in fact at least a couple more, one of which will be a sequel to Smugglers at Whistling Sands and will also be based at Abersoch / Llyn peninsula using the same core characters: Jack, David, sister Emily and their friend Lou.

I did say that if I were to reach 50 sales by the end of Sunday, October 9, I would guarantee to write that sequel. I am all but relieved of that pledge now by the fact that there is no way I will get seven sales over the next 48 hours. However, I still want to write it - but it may not be my next book. This weekend I am going to think hard about which direction I now wish to take. I have half a mind for my next book to be pitched directly to the adult market, but I'll have to see which way my muse takes me!