Miscellaneous Musings (The Week That Was)

My second Facebook ad is performing no better than the first. They're actually almost identically even ~ a rare feat. Either I'm terrible at creating ad copy (likely) or my ad copy is great, but my book looks sucky (maybe?) I've chosen to just shrug my shoulders over the whole thing. What more am I supposed to do? In case you're interested, this is my latest ad:

I realize it doesn't convey what the book is about, so that's a problem, but I'm finding that it doesn't matter anyway, in terms of clicks. I could upload a blank screen and inevitably someone would click on it. I wonder if those companies that offer to manage Facebook and Amazon ads would do any better. Written Word Media offers that service, and while it's expensive, in the long run the cost would probably be comparable to what I'm spending on ads right now. Too bad my lottery ticket wasn't a winner and thus I can't afford to find out.

After I updated my blurb yesterday (yes, again), I went to take a look at its product page and I found a couple of surprises. Running From Herself had yet to get one single US review, but what do you know ~ there was one now! 

I couldn't wait to read it, but alas:

...no text.

So, one kind soul cared enough to rate my book five stars, but not enough to write why. It just seems odd. Don't get me wrong; it's great; I really appreciate it, but a few words would have been helpful. The other thing is, since all my sales (or free giveaways) occurred in the last few days, that person had to have been a really fast reader. The novel has some heft to it. I have no ready explanation for how this rating happened. Trust me; no one I know in real life even has a clue that I'm an author, so nobody was helping me out due to personal loyalty. Isn't it just like an author to pick everything apart? Can't just be happy when something good happens. So I guess I'll just go with happy.

Another quirky thing I noticed, which I'm sure happens all the time with authors who aren't me, is that suddenly Amazon felt me worthy enough to display some of my other works on my novel's landing page:

 

I kind of hate to admit it, but it was my FreeBooksy promo that finally put me on the radar. Sure, I made zero dollars in royalties, but it got my novel into the hands of 1,264 readers and told Amazon that I am, in fact, somebody. Other authors experience this all the time, no doubt, but it's a brand new feeling for me. And I'm still up there in Contemporary American Fiction, at #270 right at this moment. (I managed to lose about 28 spots in the course of an hour, but these things veer all over the place all the time.)

Regarding my "audiobook" created with Spoken.press (I'll explain the quotation marks), my newly updated novel actually landed one listener. I personally have only listened to a snippet so far, but I think I'll like the single narrator version better than the previous multi-voice one. 

Yes, it's technically an audiobook, in that people can listen to it, but only on Spoken's site, and how many people even know about that? Not many. I sure didn't until I read an article about it. And since the site is still in beta mode, there are no monetization opportunities. Do I worry that I'm giving my work away? LOL. Not really. The site is a niche, and curiosity is all that drove me to even give it a spin. People looking for audiobooks would only stumble upon Spoken by accident. But hey, I did get one listener!

Bottom line, for me, is that even a very tiny amount of recognition is far better than none. Money would be nice, too, but since that's not happening, I'm grateful for even a smidgen of appreciation.