And now for the reality check . . .

What a difference 77p makes! I had a total of around 312 downloads of Smugglers at Whistling Sands during its 24-hour free promotion. After this I had three I think paid-for sales fairly soon afterwards. I can't be totally sure of exactly what came after the end of the promotion.

I can be clear, however, on the fact that from 10.30am today all sales have completely dried up. On the face of it, it is very disappointing. But it has to be borne in mind that offering something for free is inevitably going to be easier than charging money.

Insofar as more than 300 people have now got a copy of my book, I think it was a successful exercise. If some of them bother to read it, like it and tell others, then it may help what is an unknown book gather momentum. I suppose it was inevitable that once it went back into the paid-for category sales would revert more or less to what they were previously. I should remember that I've only had it back on sale from Friday - ie. four days ago!

I think it is great that Amazon allows authors five days of free promotion during a three-month period. I just wish it was more than that.

My hope is that some of yesterday's downloaders will read it, review it and get the word out - and that slowly but surely, the paid-for book will get bought. I know how much better it is than the version I published last year, I really think I've got it how I want it now.

Free promotion going really well - 245 downloads of Smugglers

I am over the moon at having had so many downloads of my ebook Smugglers at Whistling Sands. By 10.15pm, there had been 245 downloads, of which 125 were from Amazon.com and 120 from Amazon.co.uk
Actually, two of the American purchases were before the free promotion started, which is maybe a good omen.

Very surprised that more downloads should be from the American site than the British one. For a couple of hours this afternoon, someone somewhere was downloading the book every two minutes. Demand has tailed off somewhat since, but still a regular trickle of orders.

Of course, I realise one shouldn't read too much into this since giving something away for free is asking far less of people than a paid-for novel. But nonetheless, there are plenty of other free books out there, it is still great news I feel to have had this number in little over 12 hours.

Will it bear fruit in terms of reviews and further orders once it has a price tag back on it from tomorrow? I am hoping so. For an unknown author, the important thing is to get my book onto people's Kindles, (or other electronic devices) and read and hopefully appreciated.

That is what a free promotion is all about and I feel sure that it will help towards that end.

Buy my children's adventure book free today Sunday February 19, 2012!

And a number of people already have! Quite astonished that since the free price promotion began about an hour ago, I have had about 25 sales. Ok, not sales as such because the book is currently free but I am delighted at that interest and really hope it continues today and word gets out about Smugglers at Whistling Sands.

I really do feel it is 10 times better than the version I was selling in 2011. When I realised what I saw as a major plot flaw, I took it off sale in October and it has only just gone back on sale. Those of you who miss the free promotion today, bear in mind that it will only cost you 77p again from tomorrow anyway (or the dollar/euro equivalent on the other sites.

So PLEASE give it a try and if you like it - or even if you don't - I'd be grateful if you had the time to write a review and post it on Amazon.

I'll update the "sales" figures later in the day!

At last - Smugglers at Whistling Sands is back on sale!

Hello again, have you forgotten me? I wouldn't blame you if you had! Anyway I have finally come out of hibernation to reveal that I have now got my children's novel back on sale in Amazon's Kindle store - the new, improved Smugglers at Whistling Sands is now back on sale!

If you click on the product link on the side of this page it will take you straight to it. I've listed it for an introductory price of just 77p - the minimal possible. Thanks to the VAT reduction, that is the cheapest it has ever been and there is now about 3,500 words more to read. It was originally 22 chapters long and I've had to create two new chapters to accommodate the extra length.

The important thing, however, isn't that it is longer, but that it is better. It is simply a much better read than before. I had the making of a good book before (if I may say so) but I committed a fundamental error by allowing the mystery involving the smugglers to be effectively solved by the forces of law and order. In short, the kids, and in particular Lou the lead character in the novel, simply did not do enough.

I believe I have now got a far more satisfying, rounded, exciting novel than before - fun where it should be fun - and nail-biting where it should be nail-biting.

It isn't for me to say that it's a good book, that's for readers to judge, but I can hand on heart say that it is in a different league to the earlier version. I had 46 buyers before I removed it from sale at the end of October - if you are one of them, you may find that the version you have already bought is over-written with the new file, it depends on your Kindle preferences. If not I hope you will not be too annoyed with me if I suggest that you might like to purchase the new version. I will keep it priced at 77p for the foreseeable future, and maybe indefinitely, if I can pick up reasonable sales at this price.

Please try it - and if you like it, please consider taking time out to post a review on Amazon, for unknown authors it can help enormously to picking up a wider following.

Bye for now, and sorry for leaving it so long . . .

One week on - and I'm back at my book again

Apologies for not updating before now. Can't believe a whole week has flown past since my last blog as I prepared to tackle the rewrite of the ending to Smugglers. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, partly because I didn't actually get until the middle of the afternoon before the front door opened and wife and kids returned!

Not that I resented them coming home earlier than I had anticipated but well, I felt a bit rueful that I didn't get as much time on the book as I had planned. That said, I got quite a bit done, and I will now continue apace this morning - again with the house to myself for an hour or two.

'Nuff said - here goes! Hope to be able to report at the end of this weekend that the book isn't too far from going back on sale.

Right, roll up sleeves - time to get to work on new ending for my book!

It's 9.45 Saturday morning, I've got the house to myself until at least the middle of the afternoon, at last a window of opportunity to make the changes I want to make to my novel, Smugglers at Whistling Sands.

I've been wanting to crack on with it all week, but have had a very busy few days and it's so valuable to have a few hours free and without interruptions. Phone do not ring! (If you do, I may not answer!)

Right, on which note, I'm not going to sit here extending this blog entry any further. I need to be getting on with it. Tonight, the family are going round to some friends in the village who are holding a bonfire party as we remember, remember the Fifth of November. Fingers crossed the weather stays dry.

I will report back on how I got on either tonight or tomorrow, and I hope to be able to report that I have made some real progress. Here goes!

Smugglers at Whistling Sands to get a new ending

I've spent a few hours today, including the extra one from the clocks going back an hour overnight, mapping out a new structure for the closing chapters of Smugglers at Whistling Sands.

As I explained in my previous post, because this is major surgery and not just minor tweaks, I no longer wish to be selling a version I am not happy with and am poised to replace and for that reason the book can't be bought any more.

Such is the flexibility of publishing a novel as an ebook, one can make these changes without having to wait for the end of a print run. I absolutely guarantee to allow those who have bought my book so far to have a copy of the revised ending.
I am very pleased at the progress I have made today in mapping out what I believe to be a better, more satisfying, more exciting ending for Smugglers at Whistling Sands and one which does proper justice to the confident, capable, strong-willed lead character, Lou (Louise) Elliott.

That now leaves me with the small matter of a complete re-write of the last 4,000 words. If the book becomes longer, and it might, then this will be possibly a writing job of some 6,000 words, some of which will ultimately be cut away in editing.

I do feel that I have grown as a writer since I penned this book. I can see flaws in it now that I could not see when writing it. By putting those flaws right, I will then have a novel which I feel I can be proud of and be confident in offering for sale.

How long will it take before I am in a position to sell it again? I'm not sure, but I've set myself a month to get it sorted and back on sale from December 1, 2011. It's frustrating in a way, because I want to be getting on with writing a second book, not fiddling with my debut one. But by getting this one right, I've got more chance of getting my next one right as well.

I've stopped selling Smugglers while I make a few adjustments

At the risk of annoying some people, not least those who have already bought my children's adventure novel Smugglers at Whistling Sands, I have decided to withdraw it from sale in Amazon's Kindle store. This is only a temporary measure to allow me breathing space while I make changes which I believe are necessary.

If these were just purely cosmetic I would keep the book on sale and just upload a revised version to over-write the existing file. But I have grown dissatisfied with a few aspects of the book, in particular, the ending.

I cannot explain why and what I intend to change without introducing a spoiler but I will say this: Lou is the lead character in the novel and I feel I let her down towards the end, cutting short her important role. If I am not happy with the book as things stand, then it is not fair of me to continue to sell it until I am.

For those who have already bought the book, I am more than willing to email you the revised ending when it is ready, just drop me a line.

Writing my first-ever novel has proved a big learning curve for me but it is the act of publishing it, the feedback I've got and the greater awareness I feel I now have about writing a good children's book that has persuaded me to go back into Smugglers and give it a few tweaks.

I can do that best by withdrawing it until the changes are in place.

Price promotion - price of book reduced from £1.71 to 86p

I've decided to cut the price of my Kindle ebook Smugglers at Whistling Sands from £1.71 to 86p for now. Sales have tailed off in the last fortnight, it's my fault because I haven't had the time to promote the book properly but I'm going to start pushing it with a straightforward price drop.

I was worried before that selling it so cheaply could be taken as a sign of poor quality or lack of confidence on the part of the author, but there are so many good books out there for 86p or less. Incidentally, you cannot set your price for less than 86p, but if Amazon become aware it is for sale for less than 86p elsewhere on the internet, such as on Smashwords, then they will cut the price to match. I only sell on Amazon at the moment, so 86p is the lowest it can be sold for.

I have to face facts, I am still an unknown author - I have had 47 sales since mid-summer, none of which have (to my knowledge) gone to friends and family, since I only wanted what I call "genunine" purchases. Forty-seven is a lot better than none, which is the fate of quite a few unknown authors selling their self-published novels. But if I want more I have got to raise my game. Writing the book in the first place is proving to be only half the battle - possibly the easier half.

Planning out my second book - but the ideas are slow to come

I've been turning my thoughts to what my next book should be, now that Smugglers at Whistling Sands is selling as an ebook on Amazon. Should I write a sequel to it, or branch off in a completely different direction? Or maybe I should do both.

I feel a desire to write a sequel and bring back my characters, Jack aged 12, brother David, 11, sister Emily, 10, and their 12-year-old headstrong friend Lou to Abersoch for another adventure of some kind. But I'm also yearning to write a book aimed more directly at the adult market - in fact two for adults. One about a guy who is fed up with his life in increasingly insufferable modern Britain and another, a thriller of some sort or even one with a paranormal theme or something.

So I'm feeling torn in different directions, and they all seem to be sort of cancelling each other out, since until I settle on one or two clear themes, it is very difficult to map out a clear plot.

On that note, some people of course just get writing and allow the action to unfold on the screen in front of them. Its great to allow inspiration to just carry you along and we are all different, but I believe strongly in knowing where you are going with a story first - who is in it, what you think will happen to them and what sort of ending you envisage there will be.

That was my approach with Smugglers at Whistling Sands. I knew that meeting adventurous Lou would be the catalyst for the other rather boring kids to escape from beneath the wing of mum and dad and be dragged along on an adventure. I was aware of the subplot involving Lou's less than happy home life - the soft underbelly to an otherwise tough female character.

There is more I want to say about all of them and more that I think they could do together, and they do rather live in my head now. So as I'm typing this I am rather thinking out loud and feeling that it would be good to get them back together again for a sequel. And it would be nice to give all my readers so far the opportunity to get to know them all better and share another adventure with them.

If you want to buy my novel - remember that you can use the product links on right of screen

Assuming you want to buy it, that is. I shouldn't presume. But my statistics show that almost nobody uses the product links on this page to purchase my ebook, Smugglers at Whistling Sands.

Instead, people seem to feel that they have to log on to Amazon on a separate page and search for it. You don't need to do that - just simply click in the box advertising my ebook - either the one for Amazon.co.uk or the other one lower down for Amazon.com. This will take you to my Amazon listing where you'll see my book cover and book description. At this point you can choose whether to buy it or not and/or continue shopping on Amazon.

I've put a few other Amazon product links on further down to books that I think viewers of this blog might enjoy, a couple of Enid Blyton's Famous Fives; John Locke's useful advice book on how indie authors can get good sales on Kindle; the current no.1 bestseller on Kindle, Scott Mariani's The Alchemist's Secret, and my all-time favourite book, The Lord of the Rings. I've also put a link to Amazon's new, cheaper Kindle which I think is an excellent product for the price.

It is very much in my interests and all authors who sell their wares on Kindle, that people should have the proper kit to read ebooks. You don't need a Kindle, of course, you can just read an ebook on your computer with easily downloadable softwar, but I think the Kindle, particularly the excellent and more affordable new version really does take some beating.

I intend to put further product links on this blog to books which I personally recommend, in particular of independent authors whose work I am aware of and which deserves pushing.

New book cover for Smugglers has just gone live on my Amazon listing

If you look towards the top of your screen, you will see a tab for a new page on which I have posted all three of my covers so far, including my new one, on a blue background.

I feel my original cover was simply too simple - and was potentially hampering sales. It simply wasn't striking enough and I hope that this one will be more inviting. I had been meaning to replace the other one for some time and am glad that I have now done so. As the saying goes, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but people do - and probably all the more so with an ebook which you can't physically flick through.

I know myself that a cover can subtly affect my own decision to purchase a book and the experience of reading it. I suppose, when you think about a fine wine will taste better drunk from a cut-glass goblet than a paper cup - perhaps it shouldn't but it does. And bearing in mind how difficult it is for independent, self-published writers to get their work in front of readers, doing one's best to get a decent cover is an investment worth making.

SALES UPDATE (Monday, October 10th at 9am): A dry few days meant there was no chance of me reaching my target of 50 sales within my first 80 days of having published Abersoch-based Smugglers at Whistling Sands, ie. Sunday October 9th. By midnight I remained on 43 sales but overnight, I've had a 44th buyer - so maybe that's a good omen for my new cover!

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!

A bit about my book, Smugglers at Whistling Sands

I said in my last blog I'd give people a bit more of an insight into my children's adventure novel, Smugglers at Whistling Sands, based at Abersoch, North Wales.

Actually, looking back through my earlier blogs, I did talk about it a bit in my entry on August 20th, that said, it's probably well worth offering a reminder, especially for those of you who have only recently discovered my blog.

As I mentioned just over a month ago, Abersoch and the surrounding area is in my blood - I love the place and have been going there on holiday all my life - ie. for 44 years! So when I decided to write a children's adventure novel, the part of the world which has such fond memories for me seemed the obvious location.

The title makes no reference to Abersoch, but refers to Whistling Sands as in "Smugglers At Whistling Sands". As you'll gather from that, this beach does feature prominently in the book, and the sand on that beach does whistle by the way. Well, not whistle exactly, it's more of a squeak - but in all the beaches I've ever walked on, I've known any other sand to make that noise as you walk across it.

The youngsters who feature in this book are on holiday at Abersoch but they do not just stay put there. Their adventure takes them to a number of places including Whistling Sands obviously but also the St Tudwal's Islands, Aberdaron and Porth Ysgo - a remote beach nearby, and the hillside above - and the disused manganese mine to be found there.

The owners of the Vaynol Arms public house in Abersoch might be pleased (I hope) to discover that their premises features in the novel. Oh and the grotty hotel where one of the smugglers stays is, I hasten to add, a figment of my imagination!

The action centres around the Johnson children, Jack, David and Emily (aged 12, 11 and 10 respectively) and a headstrong girl called Lou whom they meet on the beach. It is she who is the catalyst for these rather dull Johnson siblings to spread their wings a bit. And what better time to do that than when they should happen across the activities of smugglers!

As I said in August, there is quite a lot of realism in this story, for all the fact that it is a rather post-modern children's adventure owing some of its inspiration to Enid Blyton's novels which I enjoyed a great deal as a child.The activities of the smugglers are based on real life occurences and if you do a search on Google at the point when the children do their Google search, you might well come across references to real-life smuggling which was in part the raw material for the book.

I could say more, but Downton Abbey is about to start. (Martin in Canada, you may not know what I mean by that but all UK residents will!)

PS: Sales update: four sales over the weekend takes tally to 43 - will I make the big 50 by next Sunday? If I do, as I said before, I guarantee to write a sequel.

40th sale achieved - now for the half century!

Mind you, I've had to wait for it. I'd gone three days without selling and was beginning to think when would I ever get my 40th! But tonight it came, and hopefully somebody somehwere, I have no idea who, will be settling down with a good book tonight: my book.

I suddenly realised something earlier that I have never actually stated in all my blog entries since I began this blog in early August, what my book is really about and my reasons for writing it. And that thought occurred to me as a result of reading the opening couple of entries of a brand new blog by a fellow wannabe children's novelist, Martin Jones of Toronto, Canada, formerly from Lancashire.

Martin has been regularly following this blog and has now decided to set up his own to promote his book, They Shoot Birds Don't They? And straightaway, he's done something very sensible, which is to tell people what the book is actually about! Not a bad idea really. All I've done is sort of vaguely tell people that it's a children's adventure novel set in Abersoch and the Lleyn peninsula of North Wales and I don't think I've exactly given away much else of the plot whatsoever. Of course, there are links to my listings on Amazon but I perhaps could have allowed people more of an insight into Smugglers at Whistling Sands, and the characters who appear in it.

So, it being the weekend tomorrow, I will endeavour to do that. I'll write a blog entry or two letting all those of you, save the 40 who have been kind enough to purchase my book already, know a bit more about the novel. And I'll select a few passages for you all to have a sample read, and see what you think.

Meanwhile, don't just read my blog, read Martin's - you'll find a link to it on the right of your screen, or alternatively just press here and you'll also find out a bit more about his novel, which is largely written but still in the final stages of production.

Good! I'm back in Amazon's bestseller list for children's adventure stories on Kindle

Another sale puts me back in the top 100 bestseller list for children's fiction, action & adventure category - at #83 (as of 4pm Sunday afternoon) with Abersoch-based Smugglers at Whistling Sands.


# Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #9,811 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

* #83 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Children's Fiction > Literature > Action & Adventure

Really chuffed about this, since being on this list is an important part of getting one's book known about and acquiring more readers. Again, it is evidence that you don't have to virtually give your novel away just to get readers.

Well the sun is not far off setting on another weekend and I wish I could say that I have been furthering my writing ambitions these last two days. Unfortunately, the demands of being a dad to two young children and hosting a friend of my wife's who visited for the weekend have conspired against me.

Mind you, right now I have no excuse. My wife has given me a couple of hours' grace to disappear to the top floor where I have my office to do book-related stuff. And what I have been doing - reading rather than writing or promoting. I've been tucking into the No.1 bestseller in the Kindle store: The Alchemist's Secret by Scott Mariani.

The ebook version costs the not-very-princely sum of 49p, which rather disproves my theory that selling too cheap will discourage sales. Ok, but I will say this: Mariani is an excellent writer and this is by all accounts an excellent book. I would have been happier to pay a good pound or two more for it and for him to have been rewarded accordingly. Mind you, he has several books for sale on Amazon and most are for £1.99 and a couple for £2.99. If giving one or two away at 49p apiece helps win more readers for his other novels, good luck to him. Certainly, I am happy to plug The Alchemist's Secret - really gripped by it (not that Mariani is in any need of being plugged of course!).

* I've just tweeted to say that I have set a deadline of Sunday, October 9th, 2011 to notch up my 50th sale of Smugglers at Whistling Sands. If I have reached that milestone by then, I GUARANTEE to write a sequel, bringing siblings Jack, David, Emily and their friend Lou back to Abersoch for another exciting adventure! I am currently 14 short of that target and must sell an average of one book a day to achieve it. Fingers crossed! (If I don't reach that figure, I intend to start work on a wholly different book aimed primarily at adults rather than children.)

Couple more sales and a really nice email is spurring me on to thoughts of a sequel

My decision to put the price of my novel Smugglers At Whistling Sands back up to £1.71 seems if anything to have increased sales. I've had a flurry of three over the last couple of days and an email from my latest buyer very pleased with the book.

Interestingly, she actually thought it was too cheap at £1.71. I don't agree - I don't intend to increase the price on my Amazon ebook any further. £1.71 (£1.49 plus VAT) is the lowest I can charge to qualify for the 70% royalty. At its previous price of 86p I only got a 35% royalty which equated to 26p profit per sale. But at £1.71 I get 99p and I think, for an ebook that is a perfectly reasonable cut. I do not understand why it is that major publishers feel the need to charge almost as much for an ebook as they do for the paper and ink version.

That said, and maybe not everyone knows this, hard copies of books do not attract VAT - but ebooks do and Amazon - as the seller - must therefore apply 20% VAT to the £1.49 cost of my book, hence the VAT inclusive price of £1.71. But I still find it hard to stomach that an ebook, even of world-famous authors, should cost £6 or more. For me, £1.71 is just fine. A smallish sum for the buyer but a reasonable return for the author. Above all - and this is the key reason for dropping the 86p price tag - it is because it puts off more buyers than it attracts.

The sort of person keen to buy a children's novel like this, either as a nostalgic read for themselves or for their kids, aren't likely to need to be corralled into a purchase with an ultra-cheap price.

Anyway, it was great to have a few words of appreciation for the book because like most writers I am inherently insecure and love praise. And I am now seriously turning my mind to a possible sequel to Smugglers. I said I would start one for definite if I could reach a total of 50 sales by the end of September. I am 15 sales adrift so that might be pushing it - but when that milestone is reached, particularly if it's fairly soon, I will definitely consider it.

Have now dropped introductory price of 86p

I don't want to send the Retail Price Index through the roof but I have decided to drop my ultra-low price of 86p and leap back up to £1.71. Boo hiss!

There are a number of good reasons though, and I'll start with the obvious one: Amazon punish anyone selling their Kindle books for less than £1.71 (£1.49+VAT) by allowing them only a 35% royalty. Thus from an 86p sale, I would take only 26p - that is simply not enough of a return to reap an author a noticeable reward for his efforts unless he was lucky enough to sell huge quantities of books.

At £1.71 - I will take 70% royalty (minus an obscure 'delivery' charge introduced at this rate) which gives me 99p - a reasonable sum per book and one which I feel, can leave buyers with the satisfaction that they have paid a fair price for their ebook and the author has had his fair reward.

Of course, the priority for any fledgling novelist should be to acquire a readership - and not worry about trying to make money from it. I still hold to this principle so it may seem counter-intuitive on that basis to jack the price up, but I also feel that asking a mere 86p is sort of saying to people - "look my book may not be very good but come on, I only want 86p for it". In other words, by appearing not to value my own work, I may actually be losing sales.

Let's put it this way, if anyone reading this would like a copy of the book but doesn't want to risk £1.71 on it - then I will gladly send you a PDF of the thing for free - and you can pay for it afterwards if you like it!

Pleasingly, I have already had my first sale at the higher price - making a grand total of 35 sales. When you consider that some people struggle to get anyone buying their ebooks, I think that is a result which I ought to be reasonably happy with.