New Month, New Home

We made it! The move, involving two big trucks, six movers, 50+ boxes, and oodles of packing tape, got us from Port Moody to Delta without mishap. I can’t say enough about the friendly, professional folks from You Move Me. The day before the move, three of them helped me finish packing my office and kitchen, which was immensely helpful as it required filling about 25+ boxes alone, never mind the ones I’d already packed.

We’ve been in our new home a week now and have put most of it together, except for the living and family rooms. My office is much brighter and a better layout than my old basement office, where my window looked into the garage. Now I have the morning light shining in and a window that opens onto fresh air and scenic trees.

The photo above was the view from my kitchen window about a week ago. I believe those gorgeous beauties are called camelias. The previous owners took great care with plants on the property. Aside from the crocuses we had earlier this spring, tulips are in full bloom out front. Oddly enough, we also have banana plants, which isn’t common in BC, however, this area of the Lower Mainland receives more sunshine than Port Moody. And we have these lovely bleeding hearts along the back wall of the house.

Ironically, I wasn’t able to see my daughter and granddaughters in over two weeks as they came down with Covid for the first time. Finally, everyone tested negative yesterday and are feeling one hundred percent better, so they came by for a short visit.

As you can imagine, I’ve not put in many hours with respect to writing. I did write for a half-hour to a full hour most days, just to take my mind off the many tasks associated with moving. To my shock, I’ve completed nearly 20,000 words of my second fantasy in a month. I’ll be doing a bit of online promotion later this month, but overall I’ll be taking it easy with all activities. I have one more big personal event coming up this month, which is a whole other blog topic I’ll share with you in a couple of weeks.

Canada Council Survey and My BookBub Stats

Last week, Canada Council for the Arts released survey results regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the artistic community. The artistic community includes organizations, groups, and individuals working in arts and culture, so it encompasses a broad spectrum of people.

The report (HERE) is quite detailed but in a nutshell, more than half of the participants (just over 32% responded) felt that the Canadian government’s emergency response fund was helpful. Over half were not applying for assistance, though, for a variety of reasons. Some didn’t think they were eligible while others had income from other sources which they believed disqualified them. Needless to say, artists have been hit hard, but then artists have always had tough challenges.

But writers are adaptable creatures. I’ve already seen authors employing Zoom, podcasts, and Instagram in discussions, readings, and book launches which is very cool. I took part in a discussion hosted by Port Moody Arts on May 14th. Despite a couple of technical glitches with my audio at the beginning, I think it went well. The Facebook link to the recording is HERE.

Speaking of online promotion, I finally completed the stats from my one-day BookBub ‘Featured Author’ event back on Dec.31^st. I offered my first Casey Holland mystery for free that day on Amazon, Kobo, and Apple ibooks. The stats encompass Jan. 30-Apr. 30, and I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. Note that The Opposite of Dark remained free for 3 or 4 days after the event, although next time I would keep it free for a little longer.

There were over 96,000 downloads of the book and in January I sold 475 ebooks of the other four in the series. (The Blade Man hadn’t been released at that time). Usually, I sell maybe half a dozen ebooks in January if I’m lucky. As anticipated, sales tapered off in the following three months, but I have absolutely no complaints because the point of this was to increase my visibility and I succeeded.

The Opposite of Dark was #1 in Kindle sales by the end of Dec. 31^st, and still at #10 on Jan. 2^nd. Over 70 people recommended by book on BookBub’s site and I went from 7 reviews to over 150. I can’t imagine how long it would take me to find that many reviewers without this promotion. My net profit was nearly $900, so yes, I think the event was a success and I’m going to apply again next December. I don’t know if it’ll be any easier to get in the second time around, but the contact person there advised me to offer the same title only once a year. It took months to be accepted last time, so who knows what will happen?

I certainly can’t promise that everyone will have the same results. There are uncontrollable factors in any promotional event. We are in a different time now, where money is understandably tight for many people. Mystery/suspense novels are popular, so whether BookBub events work as well for literary novels, niche nonfiction, or children’s books is another matter. I do recommend that you have at least four books before approaching BookBub because the money is made on selling your other books. So, remember to put links into your ebooks, so readers can easily find them. As you can imagine, my challenge these days is selling print books. Here in British Columbia businesses are slowly opening up, but it looks like the book events I’d planned for the summer have been cancelled. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the fall.

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK:

Amazon: myBook.to/TheOppositeofDark

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-opposite-of-dark-2

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1151714413