Confessions of a Failed Author #8

I have lots of juicy gossip, unfortunately I am too tied up into too many projects that are 'at the sensitive stage' to share...so...boohoo, sorry for you.

What's quite cool is having started my own site, I'm already selling my own content.  Yup, I've already snagged my first client after just two weeks in operation.  The hit counter is also rolling nicely, and I have to say, as long as I've been in this content business, the market is always a slippery thing.  Not in a million years would I have predicted this story to do double the best traffic in the same site's Oscar trial coverage.

But there you have it.  All the dogs in media have to keep learning new tricks, or get out.

I managed to piss off around about 1000 people, apparently, not with my writing, but with my photography.  No harm nor foul intended, but some people were apparently pretty upset.  That dust, however, appears to be settling now.  I won't actually be picking up my camera for a while yet, not because I've been burned or anything, but simply because a lot of written work needs to get done yesterday.

I've also sent a sample of writing to RandomStruik, not something I usually do...and so I am in that unenviable position of waiting to hear whether the all-powerful publisher will deign to consider my (who, after all, am I?) proposal.  Since they asked for it I guess they would have.  So we'll see.

In other news, I recently had a look at my sales on Amazon.  These are actually for eBook downloads, rather than hardcopies ordered/sold, and I've recently hoiked the price from $0.99 to anywhere between $3 and $6 or $7 a pop.  On one particular day I had over 263 downloads, and that was a few days after the Jacaranda FM hype had subsided.  So, not a bad day at the office, and in fact, most days are pretty good.

In terms of my reviews, I have around about 9 on all three eBooks now, and 6 so far on the last one. I've only had one sucky one, a 1 star rating for Reeva in her own Words, but I'm assuming it's someone who doesn't know Reeva from a bar of soap, and just stumbled across it.  Revelations is still outdoing its three eBook brethren, but Resurrection is not far below. They've all fallen a little in the rankings, but I guess I'll do some PR again in the week leading up to sentencing.  GASP - that's next week!  I have arranged with Amazon for a discount in prices across all those titles.  They basically drop $2 or $3 and then gradually step back up to their current price over a period of about a week.  So that should be interesting.

Wanna authors should read this if you also want to get onto the Amazon self-publishing bandwagon.  It really is pretty revolutionary stuff, and as such, exciting.

What I'll also do is publish an extract from Revelations' last chapter, The Method and the Madness.  I obviously won't give it all away, but I'll provide half or a third for readers at Africanman.co.za, and if they want more they'll have to buy the book.

Been good interviewing Lauren Beukes recently, and interesting to hear her talk about backache, insomnia and the importance of women warriors (like, in movies).  Great minds think alike, and since we didn't agree on one or two things, it probably means I'll never make it big in publishing.  Unless I already have?  If that's true, can someone wake me when its over?