Not idle...

In my last post, I wrote that I had reached a decision to remove by work from sale. Well, I followed through with that and have spent the last couple of weeks being a busy little beaver!

I have:

• Sent querying letters to several (probably too many!) literary agents,
• Polished up and submitted a few short stories to prestigious Sci-Fi fiction sites,
• Completed my own reviews of the follow-up book to puppet | STRINGS, which will be called STRINGS | cut,
• Sent STRINGS | cut to a couple of fellow writers for beta-reading,
• Drafted the outline for Book 3 of Dreams are not dreams, which has a working title of cut | LOOSE,
• Noted several ideas for other stories, some short, some which could become novels in their own right.

So, hopefully, you can see that my decision to withdraw puppet | STRINGS from sale wasn't me quitting, but rather a 'reset' or 'reboot' of my approach to publication.

Still here, still writing, still hopeful.

Big decisions...

 I'm in an odd place.

On the one hand, I'm enthused. Since putting puppet | STRINGS on sale, it has been read and reviewed by several people. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive (I'll post a few on the blog soon).

On the other hand, I'm depressed. I have worked hard to publicise the book, yet sales have been very poor. I have run Amazon advertising campaigns (both in the UK and the US), discount offers (via 'Hello books' and others) and heavily posted on both Facebook and Twitter. I have literally spent every spare penny I have (and more), but currently my return is a fraction of a fraction.

Before deciding to take the self-published route, I had queried literary agents in the UK but met with very little interest. This is, I believe, par for the course, but still demoralising.

However, in the light of the positive reviews I have had, by belief in the book itself has been thoroughly rekindled (no pun intended). 

I've decided to pull puppet | STRINGS from sale on Amazon, Kobo, B&N and Google and go back to querying agents again. 

Wish me luck - things could get bumpy!