First things first, I’m participating in an amazing Black Friday sale that has a ton of great resources for authors: The Writer’s Craft Super Stack 2.0. Get it at https://authorlevelup.comwc2. Just $49 gets you a bundle of books, courses and resources to help you level up your author game in 2021.
Second, this is a PSA for everyone to consider purchasing important author items this Black Friday/Cyber Monday if you can afford them. External hard drives, thumb drives, and so on. It’s the perfect opportunity to invest in protecting your work.
Third, I wrote 5,000 words today, all toward Indie Author Confidential Vol 3. I’m on track to finish tomorrow. I’m looking at an early December release date.
Fourth, I took some time to practice my craft today, and maybe you will find this helpful. I visited a new bubble tea shop that opened up near my house. While I was waiting for my bubble tea, I whipped out my phone and did my five senses exercise. I wrote down sensory details.
See:
- Giant, man-sized teddy bear on the corner wearing a green apron
- Lemon-colored wall
- Overhead lights painted cotton candy, lemon, and Robin’s egg blue
- LCD TVs turned off
- Polished concrete floor riddle with black pockmarks and spidering cracks
- Barista with tie-dye mask, frilly green apron, curly blonde hair pulled into an uneven bun, cat’s eye black glasses
- tablet point of sale system
- Obese white lucky cat figurine with little golden cats inside its belly, all raising their paws at me for good luck
Sound:
- Rush of water from faucets
- Bar spoons clinking against glass and ice as baristas prepare drinks
- Machines humming, buzzing, whirring
- Heavy metal music playing from a Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen
Touch
- Gold, shiny sleek cats
- white quartz countertop whose swirls look like cold blue nebulas
Taste
- brown sugar
- Grass jelly
- lavender milk
Smell
- inside of mask
- Ice cream
- Fruit loops
Anyway, I did that in five minutes, and it’s an exercise you can do, too. I saved this in my Evernote so I can recall it whenever I need some inspirational imagery. I can copy/paste the details directly into my manuscript.
LESSON LEARNED
Today looks as if it will be another ad bloodbath, but it’s less blood than yesterday. In fact, depending on how the night goes, I may post a slight profit.
In fact!!!
I sold another poetry collection today, bringing it to break-even status.
I also noticed sales with ads that hadn’t previously turned on for my fiction. So cool to see a few of my Book 1s selling today! I know these sales can be attributed to the ads.
So, things are looking up!
My short story collection is still bleeding me dry though, even with the negative targeting work I did over the last few days. This is painful. But I’m not doing anything until December 1st, as that will be around the time I have 100 clicks and can therefore make (somewhat) meaningful decisions. With 100 clicks I’ll be able to see trends and determine a more accurate conversion ratio. So far, my conversion rate is around 1 in 27, which means that I am selling a short story collection for every 27 clicks, which is not good. It’s better than 1 in 0 though, and the silver lining is that I can improve it. The ads ARE selling the book and getting clicks, and it’s up to me to figure out how I can help them sell MORE.
Like I said, I’d be tickled if my short story collection sold a couple bucks in profit every month, maybe with some audio sales here and there. I’ll take that all day long.
LESSON EXECUTED
I did some deep-diving into my data today, but I don’t have anything to share yet as I didn’t finish it. I’ll share tomorrow.
Hope everyone has a good night.
