There are excerpts on here under the working title, New Life and Reveal. They will be linked in the tags for New Life… that should bring up any excerpts I have pushed to the blog, but know that there have been changes made since they were published. One of the big changes is that the Cooks, Jim and Dave, are now Jim and Dave Chance. Kind of worked with the title.

This book isn’t part of the main story line of the Dixon-Prince series, but Jack and Amy Dixon are prominent through the story. Warren Chestik, Jack Dixon’s head of security is also more prominent, which has lead me to begin writing his story. That one has the working title Sniper, and is about half done. I think that one might keep the title, though. There are also a few excerpts from that story on the blog.

If you haven’t already, you should subscribe to the blog. Posts are generally Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and subscribers get an email on Saturdays telling them what the posts were for the week. A few times a year I also send out a special notice to subscribers… like the one they got when this book opened for pre-order, or if I have a book on sale or free. Subscribers also get the ebook Escape for free.

I would love for you to join me here, Goodreads, Facebook, MeWe or Gab, too. And I always enjoy getting feedback.

First, the blog.

I used to have a few hundred readers a week. But, in February, FB changed their algorithm, and engagement from there fell off a cliff. In two weeks it fell to 5% of what it had been before. Oddly, I started getting a LOT of ads from FB offering to sell me traffic. Nice, huh?

Getting back to the level I was at before will take a while, but I want to start on that path. So, between now and the end of September, I would like to add 15 subscribers to the blog, and increase my readership from 2-3/day to 3-4/day.

If you weren’t aware, if you subscribe, you can get a FREE ebook. I even have instructions on Vocal telling you how to load it onto your Kindle device or app. Why, yes, I did just link them there…

Speaking of Vocal.

I only started on the platform a few months ago, but I’ve added over 60 stories. Some of the content is shared between here and there, but some isn’t. Going forward there will be more promotion of content from Vocal, but less shared content… I’ll tell you about it here, but it will be there to read.

Here is my profile…

Currently, I average about 7 reads/day. In a given thirty day period, I am hanging around 215-225. 300 is a pretty big jump, but I’d like to try to get there. in the last thirty days, I had 9 that were over 10 reads. If not for the dumb zero read days…

And Amazon Books.

This is the big one, the one that scares me. It is more important than the others, but the others can help drive this one. And it can help the book sales sustain themselves.

I want to sell 50 books in one month.

I have given away thousands of copies of my books. Each time, it has taken advertising that I had to pay for, and has resulted in an increase in sales… but usually not enough to cover the advertising. Offering up discounted books was actually worse. there wasn’t a big jump in sales, and the cost was not even close to covered.

Lane’s books on Amazon.

I do plan on doing some marketing, while I might offer a freebie (Planning Vengeance… so, if you are thinking of buying it, hold off… it will be free at some point in September, I think). the major push will be full price ($2.99) Kindle books. I mean, if you WANT a book in print, that’s cool, too. But the goal is based on Kindle books, and Kindle Unlimited reads.

As a side note, I make almost the same from a Kindle sale as from a Kindle Unlimited full read. It doesn’t matter to me which you prefer… just please give a review.

Making a hundred bucks is a pretty modest goal, but it is also a stepping stone to making the books economically viable. I enjoy writing them, and a few people seem to enjoy reading them. I also think I’m getting better at it. I do know that I would probably be better served to hire out cover design and a few other aspects of marketing, but I need a basis from which to do that.

So, buy a book or eight and then leave me reviews… even if they aren’t five-star. Even personal feedback is good. I’d LOVE to know people are reading what I write.

The first one is fans. Not just those that drop a like on FaceBook or other social media platforms, but that take an extra moment and hit the share or retweet button. It can’t be overstated how important that is for our success. Most of the platforms limit our organic reach through our social media channels. Even though my FB has thousands of followers, only a couple dozen will see the posts, the result of “the algorithm.” For the rest, they would have to go looking them on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I post to it from the blog, or on Tuesday and Thursday when I post up a link of a book for sale, or Saturday, when I post the summary of the blog.

If they don’t hunt down my page, they don’t see it. FaceBook wants me to buy ads so that people that have already “liked” my page will see what my page has posted.

It is only marginally better on my personal FaceBook profile. More people will see the “share” I post on my profile. But the algorithm limits that, too. What is more effective… not only because it hits more people, but hits different people… is when my friends share my posts.

Not just on FaceBook, but also on Goodreads, MeWe, Parler, Gab, Twitter. Anywhere. And not just me, but ANY friend that you have that has any sort of “business interest” they are promoting through social media.

The second one is reviews. I can’t overstate the importance of reviews, either. They are the ultimate marketing. Books that have good reviews, and lots of them, sell. And the books that sell are pushed up in the rankings… getting more exposure… because they sell.

Amazon and every other retailer is in the business of selling. So, if they are going to use their limited space to promote something, they want to promote something that converts. I can pay for ad space (which I do), but those ads only pay Amazon if the viewer clicks through. So, if an ad doesn’t deliver clicks, they are less likely to serve it. At the same time, they make MORE money if after the clickthrough to the ad, there is a sale. Reviews can help drive both of those.

I do spend a little time reading books with no reviews. If the premise seems good, I will give it a rip. But many readers will not spend their precious time or money on a book with no reviews. They want to know that someone else took one for the team and read it… and enjoyed it.

Not only that, but some of the marketing platforms won’t let me promote a book that doesn’t have some minimum threshold of reviews. So, I can’t even pay to GIVE AWAY free ebooks without having reviews on file for it. Oddly, the reason an author will give away books is to get reviews.

Catch-22.

That is why I will often offer up free reads to people, gifting them book through Amazon. The other option is to “buy” reviews. I don’t like that. I have run across several paid reviews that really weren’t “reviews.” In fact, it was pretty obvious that the reviews weren’t real. And fake reviews are worse than bad reviews for conversion… so I won’t buy reviews.

In fact, if I give you a book to read, as I hope for a review, I won’t hold you to it, nor will I be mad if the review isn’t a five-star masterpiece. I’ll hope that you’ll give me four or five stars, but after you get the book, it’s free-will.

So, fan-shares and reviews are the two things that really drive everything for indie authors, and others with a similar business model.

FaceBook changed their algorithm in February to curtail page posts being distributed. So, all of the pages you subscribe to… the posts to those pages are less likely to show up in your feed. You have to go look for them.

Personally, I think they did that to bump revenue for sponsored posts. I can’t scroll my feed without an ad from FB telling me I can “boost this post and get 1000% more engagement.” So, instead of posts from pages that FB says pollute the feed, I get ads from them telling me to boost everything polluting my feed…

Anywho…

Subscribing is FREE. There is a link to the right. And then, you’ll get all of my posts delivered to your inbox, AND you get a link to download Escape, an ebook I wrote JUST for this. (the link has a couple of excerpts, just to whet your appetite)

Not only would I love for you to subscribe, but when you see a post you like, I’d LOVE for you to share it. If you read one of my books, a review would be awesome as well. For Indie Authors, those simple things… shares and reviews… are like gold.