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Book Translations

Published by Chalita Majang on 13 June 2022

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Book cover for dead Centre
Book translations

Spreading the word…

I have spent most of this month doing what I should have been doing last year – adding references to book translations to my website.

I have admitted my error in not looking after this blog before, so I won’t go into it again now.

However, translators have every right to expect an entry on our blog Megan Publishing Services, and that is what I am doing now.

Book translations

It has surprised me how many languages Owen Jones’s books have been translated into. The current count is thirty-five (plus English), although not every book has been translated into each of those languages.

The book that holds the record is THE MISCONCEPTION, the first volume of the Psychic Megan Series. It’s the lovely tale of Megan, a psychic teenager, who is looking for answers to questions about her nascent psychic powers. It is available in 35 languages at the time of writing. We are only missing Sinhala to get all of them).

Foreign Translations

The second one is A NIGHT IN ANNWN with 14 translations. It is also about a man’s supernatural experience during an NDE (Near-death Experience).

There is a stunning number of applications to translate our books at the moment. We often receive up to ten a week from all over the world. It is not at all unusual to publish three of more books in a single day, and for a run like that to last a week. This is why Owen Jones has over 1,000 books registered to him. In fact, there are more than eight hundred in the British Library records, and we are adding more every month.

However, do you think that it is coincidental that the two fore-runner book translations are about Spiritual matters?

I don’t think so.

How about you?

Best wishes,

Chalita.

PS: I am now buying new book covers at the rate of two-three per month, so look out for lots of changes 🙂

PPS: I have changed the covers for both of the novels mentioned above. Check them out on this site!

Update March 2023: Publishing continues to expand. I now have 25% more than when Chalita write this article barely nine months ago. I am finding that audiobooks continue to outpace ebooks, and some months we sell three times as many paperbacks as ebooks. Ebooks are looking like third choice now for sure.

Owen Jones

Tiger Lily of Bangkok Series – When The Seeds of Wrath Blossom!

Daddy’s Hobby – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl

Sister blog: The Amiable Dragon

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Making a Living From Books

Published by Chalita Majang on 21 February 2022

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Daisy's Chain book cover
Daisy’s Chain

When the property is there, but it’s value is not being realised…

I know an author… Yes, all right, my father, Owen Jones, who has 1250 publications registered in his name on Amazon. Furthermore, they are all original books penned by him. However, he is not making a living from the books that he has created.

Many of his original works in English have been translated. Not only that, but all those books in English, and many other languages, exist as ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks and even hardbacks.

I’ll say it again: 1250 publications with his name on them to date!

However, they are earning next to nothing… a giant pizza a week. He is not really making a living from books. In fact, he was earning more from his first few books ten years ago, than he is from all these hundreds now.

Book Sales

This doesn’t seem right to me. When I ask him about it, he says he likes writing and working with other writers both home and abroad. He suggests that he has probably fallen behind modern marketing methods.

I don’t know whether that is true or whether his low sales are attributable to the global slowdown that is a result of Covid. Nevertheless, whatever the reason is, there has to be a way to improve his situation.

Anyway, I am determined to find out how we can rectify the situation. When we do, we are willing to share our findings.

Selling Books

So, are there other authors out there in the same boat? Is there anyone out there who knows how to cash in on all this intellectual property?

I’m looking for a marketing expert who is willing to help us for a fair, even generous, percentage of sales. Furthermore, if the scheme works for us, then I would gladly refer you to other writers.

Please contact me, if you want, using the form in the title bar.

Best wishes,

Chalita.

Daisy’s Chain – set in the rich person’s paradise of Marbella, Southern Spain

Our sister blog: The Amiable Dragon

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Modern Digital Designs

Published by Chalita Majang on 7 February 2022

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Or how to keep up with the Joneses!

Modern Digital Designs being used to sell books
Modern Digital Designs for The Megan Series

My Dad, Owen Jones, is a writer, as regular readers of my blog will already know, and has been a author of books for ten years on February 21st 2022. I was a teenager then, but I remember the excitement of the occasion very well.

It had taken him about fifteen years to produce a book from his father’s automatic writings as a Spiritual Healer, and the last thing that he had to do was produce a cover for the book.

Looking back on it, it probably shouldn’t have, but it did come as a shock that he would have to do that as well. Now, my Dad knows his way around the Internet, but this was a totally new experience, and it was for me too.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he did that and uploaded everything to the leading online bookshops of the day.

Book Cover

The cover was basically a flat image of the front cover of the book, but that was what all authors were providing at the time.

However, over the years, some more design-savvy authors began to provide more eye-catching cover images.

As far as I recall, it began with spread-eagled shots of the front and back covers plus the spine. They were definitely a big improvement.

Modern Digital Designs

After that, book covers went 3-D, and that is even better in my opinion, as a general item, but there are specialised uses for all three styles.

Finally, so far, that is, some authors are putting modern digital designs and the 3-D covers with the blurb on a relevant background image, and that is the bee’s knees in book advertising covers for me.

Look at the postcard I made for my father at the top of this page.

I am thinking of learning how to do this, so if you are interested, please encourage me to get into modern digital designs with an email.

Best wishes,

Chalita.

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My Writing Experience

Published by Owen Jones on 6 February 2022
My Writing Experience

Dum spiro, spero…

If you follow this blog, you will know that my writing life suffered a tremendous kick in the teeth in mid-2021. If you don’t know, then there is an article on this blog warning about my writing experience with virtual assistants.

Anyway, that aside, since I was ultimately to blame as the team leader who took his eye off the ball, I have really struggled for six months to work out how I can recover from this setback, which has reduced my earnings by 90%

It is is so serious a loss to me, that survival abroad has seemed precarious for six months.

My writing experience

However, I have started to emerge from the tunnel because I think that I have found a way forward.

In 2021, 90% of my income came from audiobooks, and I had about a hundred of them. I have still not got to the bottom of what happened, because Audible will not talk to me. So far, only talking about the English language books, they have de-listed my fifteen most popular audiobooks, but won’t tell me why.

I think that I have found a way out. I am hopeful, but everything is still in trial. If something similar has happened to you, contact me via this website, and I will share my experience with you.

Daddy’s Hobby – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl In Pattaya

Our sister blog: The Amiable Dragon

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Facebook Idiocy

Published by Owen Jones on 14 January 2022

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How not to make friends or influence them!

Facebook Idiocy

I opened a Facebook account shortly after it launched, and after a couple of name changes, I settled for OwenJonesWriter. Pretty succinct, but it described me and my activities very well.

Social Media

I had various spurts of activity, and inactivity, on my Facebook account, but I gradually built up a following of about 3,000 friends, acquaintances and complete unknowns, as one does.

As you probably already know, I am a writer, and writers want to sell books, so I incorporated Facebook into my sales strategy along with Twitter, many social media accounts and my blog.

By using devices such as smarturl.it I was able to see where most of the click-throughs to my books came from. It is impossible to track actual sales in this way, but most of the clicks on my sales links on Amazon came from my blog and Twitter

There was absolutely no doubt about that. Facebook was delivering at most about 5% of those two combined.

Facebook Idiocy

Then, one morning, I turned on my computer to discover that my Facebook account had been blocked or banned or shut down, whatever you want to call it, for ‘spamming’. I have never ever spammed anyone, so I sought clarification, but they would reveal nothing other than (paraphrased) ‘…they had to keep the Facebook community safe, because I had been accused of spamming by several of their members’.

So, it seems to me, that if you want to shut your opposition down, you just have to get a few friends to complain to Facebook about spam.

This is obviously open to abuse, and is madness… it is Facebook Idiocy in the extreme!

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The Ultimate Promo Package

Published by Owen Jones on 11 January 2022

Megan Publishing Services

Megan Publishing Services

The Ultimate Promo Package

The Ultimate Promo Package is Megan Publishing Services’ prime advertising deal, which is designed to give a three-stage boost to the book or artwork that you want to promote.

NB: The Ultimate Promo Package is subject to limited availability because I need to read each book in order to provide a review – no more than one package a  week (not per person – in total)!

Stage One: Lift off provides a powerful push to get your work noticed. Within a month, but at your own pace, we will produce an author interview, a book review, and a book sales’ page, which means that it will receive a random share of 30,000 banner adverts on MPS (Megan Publishing Services) a day and I will promote them on at least a dozen of the top Social media platforms

Stage Two: After-burner consists of creating six Tweets based on, and so uniquely relevant, to your work, which will be promoted across the Internet. The book review will be posted to Amazon US, Amazon UK and Goodreads. The Amazon US review will be available on ALL Amazon franchises around the world.

Stage Three: Cruising means promoting your work using three of your Tweets posted to my ever-growing band of 75,000 artistic reading and writing Twitter followers three times a day (every eight hours) for 365 days, which means that they will be seen potentially 82,125,000 times. Note that posting the Tweets every eight hours means complete global coverage within peak periods (due to the various time zones).

In short, the Ultimate Book Promo Package includes:

  1. A review of your novel on my high-traffic website, Amazon and Goodreads (permanent placements).
  2. Six Tweets based on your novel for you to use. I will send three of these Tweets to 75,000 of my followers three times a day for 365 days or at least 82,125,000 potential impressions.
  3. An author interview about yourself and up to three of your books (permanent page).
  4. A sales page for one of your books on Megan Publishing Services for one month.
  5. Random banner ads out of approx 30,000 per day for one month (linked to sales page above).
  6. Promotion of all website pages to more than a dozen Social Media accounts, including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Livejournal, Plurk, Digg, Diigo, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Blogger, Surfit, Favoritus, Folk’d, G+, Favoritus and more.

First come, first served due to limited availability (I have to read the books myself, in between writing my own) – no more than one package per week!

Read the details here: http://smarturl.it/ultpromopak?IQid=mpsstick or

contact me now:

owen at meganthemisconception dot com

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Promotion on Megan Publishing Services

Published by Owen Jones on 23 October 2018

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Promotion on Megan Publishing Services

Promotion on Megan Publishing Services

Promotion on Megan Publishing Services

Highly effective advertising on Megan Publishing Services is easy and not expensive. However, the type of promotions that we will accept is limited to books and artwork in general. Nevertheless, if you have broader requirements, we may be able to help there too, as long as the ads fit in with the site’s content.

You can promote books and artwork can most easily through the bookshop button on the Title Bar above. In fact, this method is partially automatic in that the advertiser can set up the promotion and pay for it without outside intervention.

However, there is another alternative too – banner advertising! This process is not fully automated, but is very easy to achieve. This is especially true if you have an existing banner, say from a company of which you are an affiliate, or one that you have made yourself. In this way, authors and artists can use this latter type to promote there own work. Perhaps even in a larger format, from which one would expect more impact.

Prices for the banner ads are also available from the Title Bar.

If you are having problems trying to create a banner, perhaps I could help. Alternatively, you can commission one  on Fiverr for $5, and you will own it outright. It will probably look much more professional too. (I may buy a few creatives for myself too, thinking about it 🙂 )

There are prime spots for all the common size banners. However, in general, there is only one spot for each size of banner.

So, if you have specific requirements, get in soon.

You can find the sizes of the banners and their prices for promotion on Megan Publishing Services here:

Advertising on Megan Publishing Services

Please LIKE and SHARE this article using the buttons below and visit our bookshop

All the best,

Owen.

PS: Promotion on MPS is best suits all SWAMPies (sculptors, artists, authors, musicians and photographers).

Podcast: Promotion on Megan Publishing Services

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Marketing Your Work

Published by Owen Jones on 30 July 2018

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Marketing for Small Businesses in 52 Parts

Marketing for Small Businesses in 52 Parts

Marketing Your Artwork

Marketing, advertising, promoting, publicising… it’s all basically the same thing, ie getting the word out there that you have something fantastic to sell. So, where do you begin?

This may sound odd, but you should begin before you have anything to sell.

Let’s say you’re a writer, like I am. You could set up a website in the name of your book, with an eye to it becoming a series, and talk about books you like; review books and post articles on events going on in the literary world – the Pulitzer Prize, that sort of thing. Then, when your book is ready, you already have an audience to present it to. So, it is never too early to start building what is called your author’s platform.

If you are that kind of person, you could make weekly or even daily posts about the progress of your novel. Some authors like this approach to marketing; others feel that it detracts from the suspense of the launch. I personally would not give away any spoilers, but I would talk about how I feel the writing is going and about cover designs. It’s up to you through, isn’t it?

About six weeks before you’re ready to publish, you could offer your potential readership the chance to pre-order at a discount. The effect of this is that you have six weeks to sell something that isn’t yet sellable (as it is unfinished) and all the pre-orders that you do make will go through on the one day, causing your book to jump in popularity. This is great because many people buy, and many firms recommend books on the strength of where they are in book lists.

However, as an unknown, you will find it very difficult to sell pre-orders.

Once you get to that stage, you could join a few of the online joint promotion schemes which combine the strengths of Twitter and Facebook. Try Bridgette’s T4US on Facebook. She and her group are innovative and hard-working.

Maybe I’ll see you there 🙂

All the best,

Owen

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and visit My Books

Podcast: Marketing You Artwork

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Getting Noticed Online

Published by Owen Jones on 21 January 2018

Getting Noticed Online

Getting Noticed Online

Getting Noticed Online

The principle of selling anything on line is basically the same, so since my blog is about books: writing and selling them, I will use books – novels as my example. Having said that the big difference between selling most things on line is that if you are selling, say, bicycles on line, you want people to realise that your bikes are the best, whereas if someone wants to read my books, I don’t have to worry about other writers called Owen Jones. I just have to make sure that I am findable.

Which brings me to the point of this article. Since an author doesn’t need a website really, he or she only needs to be findable, he only needs something he can use to point to his author page which could be on Amazon or any of the other aggregators.

However, an Amazon author page is a little generic, even though it is customisable. It is better to have a page elsewhere that points to that Amazon page. If you don’t have the time to make your own blog popular, then you need to get on a site where someone else is doing that job for you.

There are plenty of options, but I am going to recommend my blog (this one), Megan Publishing Services (MPS), where there are many ways for authors to take advantage of its popularity with the search engines.

Here are some verifiable statistics. In January 2018, Google visited MPS every 15 seconds looking for fresh content!

Yes, the biggest, and therefore the most important search engine for buyers and sellers, the one that handles 86% of online searches – will discover your book, blog or Amazon Author Page within 15 seconds of it being mentioned on my blog.

All the others surf it too, although Bing gets there every six minutes and Yahoo every twelve, but I can live with that 🙂

Couldn’t you?

Click the following link to check the opportunities available:

http://meganthemisconception.com/advertising/advertising-index/

Please LIKE and SHARE this article using the buttons below and visit our bookshop.

Podcast: Getting Noticed Online

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Promoting Books and Artwork

Published by Owen Jones on 20 December 2017
Promoting Books and Artwork
Promoting Books and Artwork

Promoting Books and Artwork

Whether you are launching a new project or trying to inject life into an older one, the principle is the same. You need to treat your project like a Saturn Rocket in that it needs a huge push from day one one as it lifts off really quickly, then it needs a prolonged steady push for a while, followed by a sustainable long-term cruising speed.

I, as a writer and self- or indie-publisher of over 150 books, have been looking for such a system for promoting books and artwork for years. I was looking for a set-and-forget advertising or promotion system that would allow me to get the basic advertising done, while I got on with what I wanted to do – writing. Yet also a system that I could ‘interfere’ with, ie boost as and when I had the time or inclination.

I am a writer, I love writing, I want to write…

Promoting Books and Artwork

I do not want to spend most of my time promoting, although I really don’t mind doing some promo when I have the time or am looking for inspiration. A change is as good as a rest, they say, and it certainly works for me.

So, I developed my own system for promoting books and artwork, and I have been fine-tuning it for the past five years.

Now, I am proud enough of it to present it to other writers and artists.

I call it the Set and Forget Ultimate Promo Package.

Why set-and-forget?

The Ultimate Promo Package

Because the Set and Forget Ultimate Promo Package lasts for a year! Yes, 365 days! The main thrust comes in the first month, followed by intensive promo, then a year of Tweets, and a lifetime, yes, a LIFETIME of presence on my high- traffic readers’ and writers’ blog.

All for one decision to opt in!

If you would like to know more about the Set and Forget Ultimate Promo Package, please click through to:

http://smarturl.it/ultpromopak?IQid=mps

All the best,

Owen

PS: there is genuine limited availability for the Set and Forget Ultimate Promo Package – it is not just marketing hype – because I do all the work myself including reading your book and writing the review.

PS: you can see my novels here:

http://smarturl.it/my-books?IQid=mps

Podcast: Promoting Books and Artwork

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Intercopy – Fuengirola

Published by Owen Jones on 29 March 2017

Intercopy - Fuengirola

Intercopy – Fuengirola

Intercopy – Fuengirola

Intercopy color is a photocopying service, and much more, in the centre of Fuengirola, the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. Intercopy color is situated opposite the bus station, on the beach side, very close to the Las Ramblas Hotel.

I had occasion to use them for some quite complicated photocopying – the copying of certified, sealed legal documents, which were essential for my Thai wife to obtain her residency papers in order to live with me in Europe. The load came to forty-odd pages, some of which were printed on both sides. The difficulty was that the seals on the legal documents could not be broken without invalidating the originals.

I was so nervous that I stood over the man operating the copier, something that I was later embarrassed about because he didn’t need my advice – in fact, I was just in the way!

I guess, when you have found an expert, that it is just best to step aside and let him or her do what they are good at.

The whole package of photocopies took about twenty minutes and cost €4! I could not have been more surprised and offered to promote their company to my readers free of charge because I was so impressed with their knowledge, skill and level of service.

Intercopy color’s range of services, according to their business card, includes:

1) Impression digital

2) Impression rigida

3) Expositores (displays such as banners)

4) Copisteria popelaria

For a full explanation, please visit Intercopy color’s website at http://intercopy.es or email them at info@photocopy.es and tell them I sent you 🙂

I have chosen to promote this excellent company because they impressed me without their knowing that I run a very popular website (4,000+ pageviews a day) with a growing number of visitors who come to or already live in Fuengirola. Give them a try, I am sure that Intercopy color will not let you down.

Contact Intercopy at

Calle Pintor Nogales, Fuengirola. Tel: 952475289 or email: info@intercopy.es and please mention this blog (Owen on Megan Publishing Services)

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Advertising on Megan

Published by Owen Jones on 8 December 2015

Advertising on Megan

Advertising on Megan

Advertising on Megan

I have been receiving an increasing number of requests from visitors to my blog about advertising opportunities. At first, I thought it odd because there are pages on there about advertising on Megan.

So, I went to have a look at what I ha to offer this morning and was surprised to find that I found the opportunities for advertising on Megan quite confusing myself.

I can see how the situation has come about, even if it is inexcusable. I had never intended to offer advertising on Megan to others; it was my vehicle just for me, a one-seater. However, over, over the last three years, things have happened and, as I said, people approached me, so I added a few options for advertising on Megan, but in a piecemeal fashion.

I suppose that’s all right when there are only three or so options, but the number on my blog had risen to about twenty and it was confusing without any structure.

So, this afternoon, I have reorganised the opportunities for advertising on Megan and they are now a lot clearer. There are basically five types of advertising offered and then there are several options within each group.

Megan remains predominantly a website/blog for readers and writers – especially indie writers and self-publishers, so the advertising opportunities are geared in that direction as well. There are plenty of ways of advertising on Megan, but if you have any specific requirements, please drop me a line, and I am sure that we will be able to sort something out.

One last point, if you advertise on Megan, you will be promoting your books alongside my own and every minute that I put into marketing will benefit you as much as it does me. Think about that, because I promote Megan Publishing Services for about ten hours a day, seven days a week.

Please LIKE and SHARE this article using the buttons below and visit our bookshops

All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Advertising on Megan

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Promotion

Published by Owen Jones on 30 July 2015

Promotion for Small Businesses in 52 Parts

Marketing for Small Businesses in 52 Parts

Promotion for Art-Lovers

If you are one of the growing number of creators of art without an agent, then you will have to do your own promotion. This was the realisation that I came to three years ago, when I joined the not always so merry throng of indie writers and artists. Promotion is tough and must be relentless, because it is so often futile.

Why do I say futile?

Because a lot of people’s promotional activity leads to nothing. The first example of pointless advertising that springs to mind is throwing up dozens of adverts like ‘Read My Fantastic Book’ on Facebook. I shouldn’t think that Facebook has sold one book for me in three years. So why do people keep doing it? (Myself included), because it’s easy and gives the satisfied feeling that you’re doing something. To be fair to us, a lot of automated advertising produces these useless ads too. Everything cross-posts these days.

Put a good ad-post on Tumblr and it’s automatically cross-posted to Twitter and Facebook, further adding to the junk posts that are already there. Sometimes less is more, as the saying goes. Cheese someone off once too often and you are consigned to the ‘undesirable alien’ bin, yet one of these ‘posts too many’ could have been an auto cross-post.

That’s how it goes, something else to bear in mind.

That’s not to say that Facebook is a waste of time, it clearly isn’t, since many, many people equate using it as ‘going online’ or even emailing. However, it doesn’t sell artwork well, but Twitter does.

Don’t ask me why the promotion of books works better there – I’m not sure, but I think it’s because a Tweet is short so people expect to have to click through to read more, which is where your sales buttons are. Once on Facebook, people don’t want to go out into the wild Internet. Facebook is a safe environment.

One of my wife’s girlfriends complained bitterly for months that I was ignoring her online and not passing her messages on to my wife. So, one evening I got her to show me how she was emailing me. It transpired that she was entering my email address into her Facebook Status Field and writing her often lengthy message there.

And she is not alone by a long chalk.

I think that the average member of LinkedIn has a lot more knowledge of the Internet, but does that make them art-lovers? I have yet to find out, but it is the next task on my list how to use promotion more effectively.

All the best,

Owen

Please take a minute to LIKE and SHARE this post below or above – thanks 🙂 Owen

My Books

Podcast: Promotion

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A Boring Sunday

Published by Owen Jones on 31 March 2015

A Boring Sunday

A Boring Sunday

A Boring Sunday

I really can’t understand Kobo’s attitude. I know they won’t write to me today because it’s Sunday, but they blocked selling Behind The Smile II for suspected ‘illegal activity’ yet haven’t answered any of my three emails asking what they mean exactly. I thought it was only Google and Microsoft who considered themselves above talking to the public. The very least they could do would be acknowledge my emails and say they can’t discuss the matter, but they seem to have chosen the pig-ignorant option.

Kobo is a big disappointment to me. Now I’m wondering whether it’s worth putting my books on Nook.

—

It is exceptionally hot today, so Jem’s mother has put the sprinkler on the metal roof over the table where I sit for a few beers most afternoons. It’s funny, because it has awoken all the frogs and toads that live in the flower pots around the table, but nowhere else. They must be wondering what’s going on with it raining only over the twelve square metre area where they live. It is far too hot for them to venture out into the sunshine, – they’d dehydrate in minutes.

The temperature has dropped five degrees though and there are small eddies of a breeze, perhaps created by the unusual local micro climate.

—

I feel as if the month that I have taken off writing has been a waste of time. My extra promotional activities have not created increased sales, yet I could have been halfway through another book. I will start another book in three days, and I think it will be a sequel to the popular ‘Tiger Lilly of Bangkok’. I won’t say anything about the storyline now, but if you keep coming back, I will reveal how the book progresses right up to publication in six to eight week’s time.

All the best for now on this boring Sunday,

Regards,

Owen

Podcast: A Boring Sunday

 

 

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Gail Our Granddaughter

Published by Owen Jones on 24 March 2015

Gail our granddaughter

Gail our granddaughter and me

Gail Our Granddaughter

Gail our granddaughter, came back today. She had been with her other grandparents since Thursday because we had to go to Naan on Friday and Neem had to go to Phitsanulok today. She is six months old, but when she saw me from fifty yards, a big smile appeared on her face and she threw her arms open wide. I thought she might have forgotten me after four days, she has always appeared to have before.

A few weeks seem to have made a big difference to her memory and her eyesight.

—

I am still talking to Amazon about their handling of VAT in Europe. Basically, they say that the tax is deducted from the list price, so we both pay it, although I pay 70% and they only 30%. However, that is not the point. It is a tax on the buyer, not the seller, although the seller is responsible for charging it, collecting it and handing it over to the government. Under Amazon’s system, I get £2.30 per book rather than the £2.80, I should do, and 50/230=21%, which is the average European rate of VAT. They cannot yet see this.

It is very frustrating, but at least they are still talking to me, Microsoft or Google wouldn’t even have replied in the first place.

—

I am not one for wishing my life away, but I said I wouldn’t start another book in March, and it’s killing me. Still, only eight more days to go. I am not writing this month as I published a book on the tenth and it and others need to be promoted. I also want to uncover other means of promotion, means other than those that I have been using for the last three years.

If you have any ideas, please let me know, because I’m running out of them fast.

Regards,

Owen

Podcast: Gail Our Granddaughter

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Marketing Books

Published by Owen Jones on 14 February 2015

Marketing Books

Daddy’s Hobby

Marketing Books

As you may be aware, I am working on a sequel to a novel I wrote about a year ago called ‘Dead Centre’ about a new type of terrorist organisation. This one is proving to be more difficult to write, but then a lot of the terminology and technology employed in the story is new to me, so the research necessary takes me away from writing and slows me down.
That makes it easy to lose track of where I thought the storyline was going with all the interruptions. It makes me wonder whether it would be better to do more planning on paper rather than just pantsering the whole book.
In fact, I already do a small amount of planning, but perhaps I should do more. At present, I try to have a few chapter titles ahead of where I am as waypoints, but no more than that.
I start chapter fourteen tonight or tomorrow, but after that, I’m not sure where the story is going.
No, that’s not true either. I know the ending, but I don’t know how we’re going to get there yet. It’s like knowing that you want to get to Berlin, but not knowing the way.
And that’s if you’re going by car and you have control over which roads you take, but if you hitchhike then you don’t even have that much choice.
That’s where I am now, hitchhiking towards the end of my book.

I have received a lot more pleas for help from authors recently, but I don’t know what to make of it. Is it a sign that my advertising is paying off, or that authors are finding it harder to sell books so far this year this year?
It’s hard to impossible to tell, because I had a far better January this year than last, but February’s sales are showing signs of flagging.
I think the answer depends on where you’re talking about. My US sales are way down using any metric I employ, but UK sales are up massively and my sales in Australia, while still small, are three times better than ever before.
Penetrating niche markets is difficult and can take a while before you see the benefits. I suppose it depends on why you think that your book or product is particularly relevant to that country or market.
I know from my research that the majority of white visitors to Thailand come from Germany, the UK, Russia, the US and Australia. Since a section of my books is about Thailand and in English, it makes sense for me to niche-market to those countries, but if I ever wanted to have my book translated, German would be the best option, because Germans are the number one visitors to Pattaya, which is the backdrop to several of my  Thai books.
How you go about targeting a particular niche with your marketing is another subject – one covered by hundreds of books, but all it really takes is a bit of thought and lots of work.

All the best,

+Owen Jones

Amazon Image   Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Thai Bargirl in Pattaya, Thailand (Daddy’s Hobby)

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