Everything to Nothing

Over the last week I have spent as much time as possible between work and time with my wife modifying the sales channels and website for Everything to Nothing. There are a few reasons why.

With millions of books published each year and so many different sales channels available to readers, who has the time to read the original long description that I was using for Everything to Nothing? Probably not that many people. So I have made the description shorter and also, I’m hoping, more appealing.

Doing this simple amendment is not as straight forward as it may seem to a person who has no experience of self-publishing.

I have had to amend Amazon, Smashwords, Lulu, CreateSpace, Facebook and my website. And because I amended the description on the print option via Lulu and CreateSpace, I have had to order proof copies to ensure that the amended back cover is correct. Actually, the Lulu proofs are sat on my desk unopened so I suppose I had better check them. They are fine, but all this ordering of proofs comes out of my pocket much to my wife’s annoyance who has been supportive, but when we are trying to save up for a deposit on a new apartment and to start a family, every penny counts!

Also, I have changed my picture on the website to make it look, I’m hoping, more professional.

Now I’m not so naïve to think that by making these small changes my novel would shoot into the Amazon Top 100, but a few more downloads would have been nice especially considering it is free again on Smashwords.

In addition, over the last few weeks I have been sending my book out direct to publishers and other authors (at least Jeffrey Archer’s Personal Assistant was courteous enough to reply!), trying to miss out the agents however apart from the kind response from Mr. Archer’s P.A., not a word from anyone. But I do have a package waiting for me at the post office which I presume is someone posting my book back to me.

I also paid for a Facebook promotion which got a few more ‘likes’ to the page but no additional sales. At least I got some more ‘likes’ so I may try it again soon.

If the downloads/sales don’t improve, the next item on the list to change is the cover. There are not many covers on the market like mine, but that is why I designed it like that; to stand out, yet maybe it is standing out for the wrong reasons. I will have a think.

So with all this it has not left me any time to do any further writing on the sequel but now I have made these changes I should be able to commence writing this week.

Enjoy reading and take care.

Update: I have now signed-up for Google Adwords. Hopefully that might boost traffic to my website.