I was about to begin this post by writing, 'It's a been a while since my last blog entry' but realised I'd be repeating myself.

There's the school of thought that you ought to write a regular blog to get yourself and your books noticed. I've decided that if I did that my blog posts would start working better than Nytol.

I wasn't actually sure I had anything worth saying today but there is one thing; a little self praise; and it kind of links in with the above, and getting my novels noticed.

In a previous blog I wrote that I'd spent a lot of time and effort trying all the marketing techniques to sell the books and the result was that in April of last year I sold none! When I stopped the marketing and just concentrated on actually writing I began selling books each month; only about half a dozen but at least I was seeing monthly sales.

It's a pattern that continued through 2017. Aside from occasional blog entries and posting comments on Facebook and Twitter, I've done little other marketing. This week, I took down my Facebook Author page. I really don't feel it's worth having one anymore. When I post on it, the people that follow my page don't necessarily see that post. Facebook expects me to pay to boost each post to those people, which is totally wrong. Mind you, I suspect the majority of those followers that liked the page in the first place, following a paid-for advertising campaign, weren't genuine accounts anyway. In the campaign I only paid Facebook if someone liked the page and I think they have certain accounts set up to do just that. I never heard from most of them ever again.
So now I just have my personal Facebook account, my website, Twitter and Goodreads.

That seems to be enough because (getting back to the self praise bit) I sold 15 books in December and so far, 22 in January. Okay so I'm not about to appear on a best seller list anytime soon but to suddenly double, and then triple my book sales is pretty amazing to me; and I don't know why it's happened. I did Tweet a jokey advert for the books but only one in December and one at the start of January. All I can put it down to is that it's happening through word of mouth. Those people that have bought my books over the past, almost two years; have now read and recommended them to others.

There's obviously nothing wrong with advertising and marketing your books but sometimes the right thing is to just concentrate on writing your next one and leave the previous ones to find their own way. It's very easy to get caught up in marketing and using social media and therefore, neglecting to give enough time to your new project. (I believe a positive attitude and confidence in yourself and your abilities helps a lot too).

I'm very happy (and a lot calmer) concentrating on my new novel with occasional posts and tweets online. Reviews and ratings help. Only this morning I saw a new five star rating given to Driven to Distraction on Goodreads. A big thank you to all of you who take the trouble to rate/review my novels. It really is a great boost to know that something I've put a lot of effort into is being enjoyed.

Here's to next month's sales.