Ah, Flex Day…

I enjoyed visiting with my parents this weekend. I always have to choose to a degree, and spent most of my time with Dad this go round. We still all went to supper, and we all had breakfast together on Sunday.

My wife and I had some shopping to do on Sunday after everyone left. I'll tell you more about that in a future post, but it's all good.

Today became my time to do something on the writing front. Finishing up the short story I'd worked on for so long opened up the flood gates.

Lorelei, the Muse sent me some cool imagery so I wrote it all down. I don't have a story to go with it, but that's exactly why I keep notes. It's like some people wake from dreams and write down thoughts so they don't forget. It's all about roots and cocoons, and stuff. It should have a use somewhere, someday.

I didn't do any review for my novel in progress, so I skipped writing it. While making the story notes, I reviewed my short fiction list. I managed to write two of them today. I'll call them micro-fiction, but one of them exceeds 1500 words. I could probably get away with posting it on a blog, so I'll tag it as micro-fiction.

I intended for one of the stories to be a fantasy, but kind of missed the requirements. It's something else, even though it has the medieval setting. I'm not going to mourn the fantasy idea, I like the way the story came out.

The other one is science fiction, and I really like it. As a micro, it may even deserve a follow up story. Can I get away with using the character again in the same publication? Maybe. Place one early, and another one toward the end?

Right now, I have enough shorts and micros to publish another Experimental Notebook. I'm a little disappointed that fantasy didn't make this round. I love fantasy, but never did write gobs of it. That doesn't mean I'm finished though, and one may turn up.

Summer has always been a dry spell for me on the sales front, and even though it's still raining and windy, Summer is upon us. Based upon my past, it makes no sense to release anything until school starts back up. That means I can keep writing and stockpiling short form stuff.

Most of it needs some kind of edit or polish, and I can also fiddle with that during the summer months. Then I can separate everything into three piles, Experimental Notebook II, Macabre Macaroni for the blog, and salvage for reference.

I wound up with a couple of tales that don't have a speculative element in them. It isn't unheard of, but I don't know exactly what to do with them. I like them, and should share them somewhere. Maybe I'll include them in a future Notebook, but make them extras. Meaning a dozen speculative tales, plus two free ones. Something like that.

I still have a long list of short form tales to write, and some of them are demanding keyboard time. I'll probably slow down now and pick away at one during the evenings.

In other news, I worked on a future Lisa Burton Radio slot and sent it back to the author. If any of you would like to get your character interviewed by Lisa, drop me a line. The instructions are at the top of my blog, and have their own dedicated page.

It's approximately noon here now. The bills are paid, the shopping is finished, I managed some writing time too. I may just veg out, but I'll probably play with my banner some more. I never got any comments on this one, so maybe something else will spark some interest. I have an idea or two in mind.

Back to the grind tomorrow. Hope you're all having a great Monday.

Chipping away at things

I allowed myself to sleep in this morning. I think I could have lasted another hour, except for my wild alarm clock. There was a duck quacking right outside my window. It's kind of funny when you think about it. I still got to sleep in, but it is what it is. What do you think possessed him to come in my yard and act like that? I expect this out of the tiny birds, but waterfowl should be better behaved.

When I got up, my daughter was already downstairs. Saturday is usually my best writing day, but this Saturday was going to have to be a compromise.

I managed to get my wallpaper changed for May. It is a little bit cramped on my iPad, but it looks great on the Mac. I'm going to assume it looks great on PCs and laptops. I'm sure it never looks good on phones, but I can't help that.

I assembled next week's Lisa Burton Radio post, and it promises to be a fun one. I also spent some time working on future posts in this arena, and it looks like I'll be able to keep it going for a while.

I checked my sales page, and it looks like a few more sales recently, and a few pages read. The sales are mostly due to the Wild Concept sale, but there are a few Experimental Notebooks, and Playgrounds mixed in. The pages read are mostly The Playground.

I received a couple of invitations, and need to ponder them. I love challenging assignments, so I'll have to see what I can come up with here. I have about a third of one in mind, and maybe my Muse will show up and inspire me for the rest.

I found a great new 5 star review for Experimental Notebook. The reviewer said, “Mr. Boyack must be a strange man. I like the way he thinks.”

You know, I probably am a strange man, because this quote gives me great pleasure. I've been cracking up about it since last night. Besides that, 5 stars is awesome! Reviews have been really hard to get lately, so I'm thrilled.

I played around a bit more with my art app. I'm getting a big kick out of messing with the blog banner. I have a bunch of ideas, but not a lot of talent. We'll all find out together if I can pull it off.

I spent some time surfing around for stuff to use in Lisa's artwork. It seems like I have more ideas than money to get the art made. This round is so I can stockpile stuff to use on the blog, Facebook, etc. I have other ideas for specific book promotions. I consider this to be research, but it isn't totally unpleasant. There are a lot of retro pinup models online these days. It kind of makes me want another antique car. I used to have one I took to car shows in the last century.

Other than that, I haven't been very productive. The new issue of Heavy Metal arrived the other day, but I haven't taken the wrapper off yet. My wife wants to take me for beer and pizza tonight, so that's good. I know it's her plan to trick me into shopping for shirts at the mall. I need some new short sleeve shirts, and beer is always good. I'm going to go along with her nefarious plan, and not tell her I'm onto her.

Hope you guys are having a great weekend.

Now with even more productivity!

I didn't even try to dedicate time to new fiction today. I did a bit of work in other areas though. I finished all of my critique work, and am ready for the group on Tuesday.

I did a bunch of work on my super secret project, and it's starting to shape up very well. This involved exchanging multiple emails with several friends, and waiting patiently. Lots of progress here though. I could claim a lot of new words here, but who's keeping score anyway.

I have several more short stories chomping at the bit, but they can wait. I'm not going to jump into them until it's time. I have a great opportunity tomorrow to write, and I'm going to. In fact, I'm going to saddle my yak and get back to the novel. I still don't have my conundrum all figured out, but it's because there are too many options. If I build a few fences it will be easier to get right. I'll write those fences tomorrow. They're only words, right? I can trash them if I have to.

I changed my wallpaper too, and I'm kind of dubious about it. It looks like crap on my iPad. I checked it out on the Mac and it looks great. How does it look at your end?

On top of that, I finished the ARC I was reading. I hurried up and wrote a review PDQ so it was still fresh in my mind. (I could count words here too, but they aren't fiction. It's all true.) I won't say any more just yet, because the book hasn't dropped. It's a fantastic story though.

I added two new guest posts about The Playground to my portfolio. I still need more, but if I keep pecking away, there will be enough when it comes time to promote. (New words here too.)

I've been writing about how new words aren't the only work when it comes to writing. Today is an example of what I'm talking about. I still need to tour through Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and whatnot. Promotion is part of the gig too, and I need to throw something out there to pique reader interest.

Sales are still dead, but pages through Amazon Prime are still going strong. I don't know what the deal is, but I'm grateful for any readers I can get. Keep on borrowing, or whatever it's officially called.

I hope your weekend was awesome, and please let me know if my background looks horrible at your end.

Assessment, Part Two

I glanced back at the bullet list from my last post, and decided to limit this post to two promotional items. Comments from last time told me there is a lot of interest in the Amazon advertising. I'll talk about that, but first I'm talking about Macabre Macaroni.

Macabre Macaroni is my name for Halloween themed micro-fiction. I posted one per week during October. Mostly it was just fun, but I turned it into a mild promotion for my Experimental Notebook. The idea was, “If you like this sort of thing, why not spend 99¢ on Experimental Notebook, etc.”

I never know which story will pique everyone's interest. My personal favorite was called There's a Cat on my Grave. I watch the likes on a post, to keep score. Your favorite was called Selfie. This story was popular enough to join my top ten posts of all time.

To tell you the truth, I thought Selfie would be a middle of the pack story. Last year, I thought the same thing about Jack O' Lantern. It could be that readers like a bit more blood and death than I thought.

As far as the promotional value goes, there were clicks to Experimental Notebook from my page on the story days. There were sales on those days. Data isn't available to prove whether the stories produced those sales.

Which brings me to the entire assessment in general. There is no way to get tracking data from Amazon on these promotions. I've shared statistics on occasion with people who guest posted here. Sometimes they like to know how their visit performed. They don't have access to whether someone clicked on their link, but I do – so why not share? We still never know if the click led to a sale, but we do what we can.

I ran three different Amazon promotions during my big push. The results are confusing, but encouraging. I made a mistake at the beginning, but changed things up right away. Amazon offers two options, target products or target book genres. I decided to run one of each and compare.

I ran Will O' the Wisp out by targeting products. I chose nearly a hundred items with a Halloween vibe about them. If you shopped Amazon for the movie Hocus Pocus, you might have seen my ad.

I ran The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack by targeting genres. I felt pretty good about the experiment and let them both loose.

Later on, I learned that targeting by product will never appear in a Kindle device. I made the assumption this probably included all the various apps too. Will O' the Wisp was my best shot at Halloween sales, and time was ticking. I ran a third campaign by pushing Wisp out toward various genres. I was assured that Wisp would appear on Kindle devices at least for this campaign.

I justified the extra expense by telling myself that using the same book to compare the different advertising options was a better comparison. Here are the results

When I targeted products using Will O' the Wisp the ad was shown to 90,516 shoppers. It was intriguing enough for 53 people to click upon it. These clicks cost me $4.18. It never sold a single book.

When I used Wisp to target genres, and appear on Kindle devices, the ad went out to 25,501 readers. 171 of them clicked on the ad, costing me $34.05. It never sold a single copy.

I'm going to break the flow to explain how these ads work. I've posted about them before, but I might find a new reader today, so bear with me. I have the option of setting my own time period, so I ran every campaign for one month. There is a fail safe in the system, so I set the campaigns to halt if I spent $100. Beyond that, I get to decide how much I'm willing to pay when someone clicks on the ad. I pay nothing to have it appear, but if they click I get charged. Amazon holds an instant auction among competing advertisers, and the high bidder is the only one who gets placed. I bid 20¢ per click.

Wisp cost me 8¢ per click when I pushed toward products, but 20¢ per click when pushed toward genres. There was some tough competition for Halloween books. Neither campaign produced a sale, but it's still data to consider. There is value in being seen, even if nobody buys. It's possible that someone saw my ad and came back later to download the book.

What about that campaign for Experimental Notebook? The other one that pushed to genres? It performed best of all. 31,979 shoppers saw my ad. 207 of them clicked the ad, costing me $38.48. Each click cost me 19¢. But out of those clicks, 15 of them actually downloaded the book.

Before anyone gets too excited, this is a 99¢ book. After I split with Amazon, I pocket a sweet 35¢. I lost money, but did I really? If you remember my last post, Notebook was designed to be a gateway drug into my other works. Take a 99¢ chance… Come back for the novels. I found 15 new readers I wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Why did Notebook sell, while Wisp did not? There were sales of Wisp for two months, but not because of Amazon advertising. It could be that Notebook's cover appeals to more people. Maybe my blurb was better on Notebook. Personally, I think price has a lot to do with it.

People might take a 99¢ chance on a new author, but not a $2.99 chance. Macabre Macaroni is free, if you enjoyed them… Notebook is 99¢ if you enjoyed it…

It appears the conversion rate is higher when targeting genres, and appearing on Kindle gadgets. It makes sense. Those shoppers are all readers in the first place. When targeting products, the shopper might not have read a book since 1974. Less people saw those ads, but they were more productive ads.

Still, a crap ton of people saw my ads in total. Maybe something lodged in their brains, and they will buy a book a month from now. Exposure has some value too.

I've spent more money on promotional stuff that produced less. There is a reasonable chance that I'll run an Amazon campaign again in the future. I'll probably target book genres and appear on Kindles. I may bid low and give it more time too. I haven't really pushed The Cock of the South lately. Maybe it's time. It keeps my name out there for a couple more months.

Assessing the promotions reminds me of the paleontologist who finds one fingernail and interprets the skeleton of a giant ground sloth. There isn't much evidence to go on, but we do what we can based upon that evidence. We can also share with our friends. This includes not only campaign data, but blog stats when we host someone.

What about you guys? I've shown you the fingernail, do you see something I'm missing? Let me hear from you. Next time I'll try to cover the rest of the things I did during September and October.

Tomorrow, definitely tomorrow

I didn't get any new words down today. I did work on a couple of promotional projects for my existing books. The whole world seems to have slowed down in the last few weeks, and I need to jar the mechanism somewhere.

“Psst, hey buddy, want to buy a book?”

I have something else in mind too, but I want to spend some quality time writing it out before approaching The Storyreading Ape. It's an open invitation I've been meaning to get to.

I don't know whether it's graduation plans, wedding, or vacation plans, but the world seems to have slowed down. My blog stats are down, my sales are down. It might be because I had so much going on at the paycheck job, or because I went to Jackson for a few days. Let's just say I'm trying some things to remedy all that.

I spent some time reading a book I've neglected for a long time. It's a fun story, I just had too much going on in the real world. I still have stuff going on, but I'm stopping by the writing cabin tomorrow come Hell or high water. (Either of which could occur at the writing cabin.)

I also managed to get through my critique feedback. I'm about as ready as I ever get to sling electronic ink. The bills are paid, I have no excuses.

Tonight it's all about Game of Thrones and a decent night's sleep. There might be pizza and beer involved, all of which is good.

Hoping you all had a productive Sunday, or got to celebrate Mother's Day in the USA. How goes the struggle? Tell me in the comments.

Not quite so busy, but productive

BlogPad Pro finally updated their app after six months. They waited this long to accommodate iOS 8. I have no idea why it took that long, but I’m trying the new version tonight. This always was my favorite blogging app.

 I busted out my long suffering novel today, The Playground. Getting Will O’ the Wisp out took some effort on my part, and the current project had to take a back seat. I added a whole chapter today, and it was the last one to get through the middle slog.

I have to confess a love for one character in this story. It seems like every story has one, and it’s rarely the main character. I stopped when it was time for him to pick up the story. This was on purpose. When I pick it back up the words will fly off my fingertips.

Speaking of Wisp, sales have slowed down. This was expected, but I would have preferred June or so. On the Wisp front, I got it added to the Rave Reviews Book Club catalog. I asked to place it in the Young Adult section, but they placed it under Paranormal, Science Fiction, and Fantasy. This is correct too, so I won’t complain. Now I can use their hashtags to promote the book on Twitter, and have been. The retweet response has been phenomenal.

When I finished writing, I made a sandwich. Old What’s Her Face* bought some kind of Hippy bread. This stuff has every kind of seed, nut, or kernel you can imagine. It reminded me of the horse bread from Pillars of the Earth. It tasted fine, but it was really dry.

 I need to book my blog tour, but there are a couple of people who offered to host me, and I want to hit them up first. These are loyal readers, and deserve first crack. I’ll probably send out some email inquiries tomorrow.

I upgraded my “about me” page. It includes links to my new book baby, and I mention the current projects and what status they are in.

I started reading the first Windemere book last night. This has been on my list for a long time, and I need to get on with it. Charles has been a great supporter, and has become a friend. I’m enjoying it so far. He’s doing a Twubs chat tonight, and I’m going to see if I can catch part of it after I get this posted. It’s supposed to last until 11:00 PM EST, so he ought to still be there.

Tonight was date night, but we started early. Maybe this is what old timers do, but we avoided the long lines at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

Do any of you guys fall in love with your supporting characters? Do you use BlogPad Pro? Did you make the horse bread from Pillars of the Earth? (I tried) Are you heading for Charles’ Twubs chat, maybe I’ll see you there.

* Entertaining Stories, protecting my wife’s online identity since 2013.

Edited with BlogPad Pro