MY WRITING STORY – WELL, PART OF IT

This story might help motivate other authors – at least, I hope so.
I wrote my first book years ago, typed it up, and left to hibernate in my garage. [Well, to be truthful, my first attempt was when I was about 12 years old – it didn’t go very far.] Then, in about 2010, when we were packing to move house, I came across the file box and sat down and read it. I thought – there’s a story in here somewhere. Self-publishing was just attracting favor, and re-wrote and released that book in 2011. It reached about #9,000 ranking on Amazon. I wrote three or four more books, thrillers and SF, but sales were mediocre. Oh, and the book I wrote years ago and published in 2011 – it reached #63 on Amazon’s top 100 paid books in May this year.

About a year ago I decided to get serious about self-publishing as a business. I found two new cover designers – one for my thrillers and one for my SF books – and had seven new covers produced as a re-branding exercise. I released three new books, adding to my thriller series and completing my SF trilogy. I re-designed my web site and had it re-developed. Twice, to get the result I wanted.

Between October and now I’ve added 5,500 new newsletter subscribers. And recently I’ve added almost 2,000 Twitter followers; this latter is a very new activity for me. Promotions – BookBub – a very popular promotional website for authors – seemed to appreciate the work I’d done, and I’ve had four BB promotions this year [the fourth will be July 18].

I’ve just completed the first book in my new thriller series – it will be a four book series – and it’s currently with my editor. Watch for The Darwin Project.

Remember, this all happened in the last twelve months. I now have eight books and two box sets, and a ninth book almost ready to release.  A reasonable achievement you might think. But wait – there’s more!

I turned 78 this year. That’s not a typo. So believe me, if I can do it – so can you!