Darryl Donaghue's Blog

My freebie promo has ended and I can now share some results with you:

11,291 downloads

Highest ranks:

US Store #20 free list, #1 Murder and #2 Women sleuths

UK Store #126 free list #2 English crime #6 Murder (I think, I deleted a couple of screenshots by accident!)

I’m incredibly happy with the numbers. It was all a little surreal if I’m honest. Here’s the graph of the downloads so you can see what happened on each day:

Final thoughts

I’m happy with the advertisers I lined up and, although it’s difficult to really know how readers came across the book and which services actually worked, the services as a whole produced great numbers. I’ll have a more accurate picture of the true results over the next couple of months. A lot of people who downloaded it may never actually read it, however some of those that do will hopefully leave reviews and sign-up for my mailing list if they enjoyed it.

It’s possible the sheer amount of downloads has helped the algorithms somehow, which has prompted the sales pitch. I don’t know a great deal about that side of things, but I’m reading up on it all at the moment.

The next stage for me is to get the sequel finished and, from a marketing perspective:

Write a story for a mailing list sign up incentive. Possibly a prequel novella that will only be available in exchange for an email address
Optimise keywords by searching for smaller, niche categories. My keywords are pretty broad at the moment
Create a professional landing page for the sign ups. The current one is pretty bland
A million and one other things….. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first (and only) book, A Journal of Sin, will be free via KDP Select from tomorrow until Thursday. It was published on December 27th 2014. It spent Jan at .99 (77 sales) and Feb at 2.99 (87 sales). It was free for 7/8 Feb and clocked up 1,112 downloads. It reached the following free ranks :

UK #155, #3 English, #4 Murder, #7 Women Sleuths

US #428, #3 Murder

Sales saw a post-promo boost from around one or two a day to between 4 and 7 on average. I didn’t use much in the way of ads, mostly FB groups and Tweets.

A big thank you to everyone who purchased the book and I hope you enjoyed it.

March Promo

Adverts will be going out as follows:

March 24th: Books Butterfly, BKnights

March 25th: Ereader News Today, Awesomegang

March 26th: Buck books

Awaiting confirmation: eBooklister and BookHippo (formerly Indie Book Bargains).

I’ll post again with results and my thoughts as the promo goes on.

         I went speed dating once. It was a while back and was the most awkward thing I’ve ever done. Okay, that’s not true. The most awkward thing I’ve ever done was sing ‘Hit me baby one more time’ on the shop floor of Toys R Us because I was late for work. We didn’t shift a single karaoke machine that day. That song is nothing without the pigtails.

I went with a friend, who will remain nameless (to save her embarrassment and not because I made her up), and we were asked by the organisers if we were actually a couple. As if people would voluntarily sit on a dating conveyor belt for FUN. How would that conversation even go? ‘Hi, hun, nice day at work? Fancy going speed dating?’ At best, it’s a very public way of figuring out you don’t like each other. After a string of women asking whether being a Detective is just like in the movies and whether I had ever shot anyone, I decided it wasn’t for me. And when the results came in, as I’m sure will come as no surprise, I wasn’t for them either.

A better use for the format would be a kind of Speed Therapy. People attend with a particular ethical or everyday issue they’re struggling with and meet, for only three minutes, a series of people who provide ideas that may help their predicament. When the egg timer runs through, the other person gets three minutes to return the favour. Making it anonymous with an optional curtain of some sort between the two participants may help their confidence in discussing their chosen concern. Fear of judgement stops us divulging our deepest, most broken aspects of ourselves and these are the areas in most need of healing.

Our social circles tend to be a snug fit, generally comprising of people of similar backgrounds, class and political views. Speed therapy has the potential to open our influences up to a range of people from intellectual and spiritual positions we hadn’t even considered. The benefits to that are clear. Whilst you may be surrounded by social ‘yes’ people unwittingly, and unintentionally, reflecting the words you want to hear, these anonymous strangers would have no interest in keeping you the way you are, because they don’t know who you are, only that you’re someone with a problem they may be able to help with.

There’s something here for singletons too. True connection comes from a place of vulnerability. Being truly vulnerable is incredibly difficult to do. Over the years, negative experiences build up and stunt our ability, or willingness, to really open up. Speed therapy would be a far better way to get to know each other. Far better than trying to squeeze in as many well-rehearsed, self-gratifying anecdotes into a hurried three minute advert of how we’d like the other person to perceive us. Surely appreciating each other’s vulnerabilities from the outset is a better indicator of future romantic stability than anything divulged in bland conversations about music tastes and body counts?

          Whisky talk is a new segment on the blog written in honour of the grand schemes and wayward thoughts only the water of life can induce. A toast to those peculiar ideas that swirl around the table as the bottle empties and the mind fills with uncanny certainties about how the world should function, and would, were we were in charge for just one day. And if tomorrow’s sunrise leaves us sore-headed and unable to piece together the shattered notions of our booze-induced revolution? Well, none of that really matters. After all, it was only the whisky talking.

        Let’s start with something deep and meaningful, just the way old JD would like it…

          I went speed dating once. It was a while back and was the most awkward thing I’ve ever done. Okay, that’s not true. The most awkward thing I’ve ever done was sing ‘Hit me baby one more time’ on the shop floor of Toys R Us because I was late for work. We didn’t shift a single karaoke machine that day. That song is nothing without the pigtails.

     I went with a friend, who will remain nameless (to save her embarrassment and not because I made her up), and we were asked by the organisers if we were actually a couple. As if people would voluntarily sit on a dating conveyor belt for FUN. How would that conversation even go? ‘Hi, hun, nice day at work? Fancy going speed dating?’ At best, it’s a very public way of figuring out you don’t like each other. After a string of women asking whether being a Detective is just like in the movies and whether I had ever shot anyone, I decided it wasn’t for me. And when the results came in, as I’m sure will come as no surprise, I wasn’t for them either.

     A better use for the format would be a kind of Speed Therapy. People attend with a particular ethical or everyday issue they’re struggling with and meet, for only three minutes, a series of people who provide ideas that may help their predicament. When the egg timer runs through, the other person gets three minutes to return the favour. Making it anonymous with an optional curtain of some sort between the two participants may help their confidence in discussing their chosen concern. Fear of judgement stops us divulging our deepest, most broken aspects of ourselves and these are the areas in most need of healing.

     Our social circles tend to be a snug fit, generally comprising of people of similar backgrounds, class and political views. Speed therapy has the potential to open our influences up to a range of people from intellectual and spiritual positions we hadn’t even considered. The benefits to that are clear. Whilst you may be surrounded by social ‘yes’ people unwittingly, and unintentionally, reflecting the words you want to hear, these anonymous strangers would have no interest in keeping you the way you are, because they don’t know who you are, only that you’re someone with a problem they may be able to help with.

     There’s something here for singletons too. True connection comes from a place of vulnerability. Being truly vulnerable is incredibly difficult to do. Over the years, negative experiences build up and stunt our ability, or willingness, to really open up. Speed therapy would be a far better way to get to know each other. Far better than trying to squeeze in as many well-rehearsed, self-gratifying anecdotes into a hurried three minute advert of how we’d like the other person to perceive us. Surely appreciating each other’s vulnerabilities from the outset is a better indicator of future romantic stability than anything divulged in bland conversations about music tastes and body counts?

   This week’s book review was written by a British crime writing powerhouse. No wait, this week’s book was written by a British crime writing powerhouse. The review was written by a British crime writing mud hut (and he’s only going to stay that way if he keeps using Real Estate metaphors).

I’m trying to read debut novels by crime fiction writers. Sleepyhead was Mark Billingham’s first novel and he’s written 13 others since. He’s won the Sherlock award for ‘Best UK Detective novel’ and he’s won the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2004 for Lazybones and in 2009 for Death Message.

Sleepyhead introduces DI Tom Thorne and has a very interesting premise. The antagonist doesn’t murder his victims; he puts them in comas. Crime authors speak for the dead and readers are usually given insights into the life of the deceased through conversations by those who remain behind or by examining their belongings etc. In Sleepyhead, Billingham let’s us hear from the victim in the form of short chapters formed from her thoughts as she lies, unable to move, in a hospital bed. We’re able to feel her frustration and fears as she tries to communicate with Thorne and the Doctors throughout the book using no more than twitches of her eyebrow. This aspect of the story is an absolute stroke of genius.

Thorne is cut from the standard fictional detective cloth, so there’s not much more to say about him really. Part of the charm of a detective series is to follow the main character over a series of books, and I’ve no doubt Thorne becomes more interesting as the books go on.

Billingham writes tense scenes very well and creates characters with intense relationships. The book keeps up a good pace right the way through and the story reaches a satisfying conclusion. I’d recommend it you give it a go.

   Last week, I wrote a post about how I prepared for my Kindle Select freebie weekend, so this week, I figured I’d update you all on the results.

   The book was free for on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th February.  With the time difference, that equated to around 6pm Saturday to 6pm on Monday over in Seoul. I’d left the preparation to the last minute as the decision to run the promo was a little impulsive. Despite that, I was more than happy with the results.

   Journal of Sin was downloaded a total of 1,112 times. Due to the time zones (or some other mystical Amazon reason that I don’t understand), the results came in over three days. 229 on Saturday, 788 on Sunday and 25 on Monday. I don’t really have a point of reference to say whether that’s ‘good,’ ‘bad’ or average, but I’m definitely happy with it. I’ll discuss this a little more in another post where I’ll talk about my feelings. For now, on with the facts…

   It ranked really well in the charts. It hit #155 on Amazon UK and #428 on Amazon US. It also did very well in the genre charts – #3 English Crime, #5 Murder and #7 Woman sleuths. All very unexpected. General trends seem to suggest that Sunday’s are one of the best days for book downloads. I think having the promo start on Saturday and allowing them to take a strong position in the charts going into Sunday may have really helped.

   Paid sales have increased since the weekend. It’s at $2.99 (£1.99) for February as I’m trying to find it’s optimum resting price. There are so many ways of looking at how to price an ebook and I’ll no doubt write a post about it in the future once I know a little more about that side of things. The average daily sales have gone up from two or three to five or six. A small change I know, but for someone who wondered if he’d ever sell a single copy, every sale feels like hugging a just-shampooed Wookie.

   It’s hard to know what worked and what didn’t. In my last post on this topic, I mentioned how I promoted the free days including the sites I submitted to and the tweet ‘clubs’ I was a part of. Coming away from the freebie weekend, it’s really hard to tell what worked and what didn’t. Identifying how many times links were clicked and who went onto buy the book is hard to really know. If anyone can help me out with that kind of thing, I’d be very grateful.

   I’m very happy with the numbers and I am deeply grateful to everyone willing to take a chance on a debut author. It may have been free, but you’re spending your time reading it and time’s the most precious commodity we have.

   I’m going to write a final piece about the promotion where I’ll discuss the various thoughts and feelings that popped up throughout the process. Take care ‘till then.

    The jangling of metal cuffs can only mean one thing. Here we are again, in the cells with another suspect to interro–, interview, interview. Old-fashioned bad habits creeping in there. We’ve got to be nice to them all these days, especially this one. I hear she’s a right little Daddy’s Girl. 
 
   Before we see what she knows about the book she’s supposedly written, let’s do a little homework. I fired up the office computer about an hour ago, so it should be coming to life any…second…now. The custody computers have seen better days. I shouldn’t complain too much, with these budget cuts, we’ll all be back to pen and paper soon.  At least that’d keep the luddites upstairs in CID happy. Let’s take a look at her record. 
 
   Lauren Bradshaw was born in 1990 (awww) in Liverpool, England. Her family moved to Cairns when she was young. She studied a Bachelor of Nursing alongside a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her dream is to be a Forensic Pathologist, a goal she is studying towards now. 
 
   Sounds like a clever clogs to me. Let’s find out just what we’re dealing with. BRING OUT THE SUSPECT!

 

Lauren, Daddy’s Girl is your first novel, what inspired the story?

My inspiration for Daddy’s Girl came from my love of certain authors, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, John J Nance. I love the style in which they write, and the detail that they go into. You can almost reach out and touch the characters! The story wasn’t really inspired by anything particular, it was a series of thoughts that took on a life of their own. Ultimately, writing was an escape from my university studies. Fueled by lack of sleep, too much caffeine and a deep loathing of certain aspects or people in my life. That makes me sound a little bit… psychopath-ish. But it’s true. The gratification one gets from brutally hacking someone to death, is… concerning. It is better than swallowing it, burying it deep, deep down inside and letting it fester. Better out than in!

Why did you decide to write a crime thriller?

Crime has always been a great interest of mine. From a very young age I was helping my Nan solve the mystery of who ate the last piece of cake, or I was framing my younger brother for different things. It has always been in my life, and my Dad actually helped me fan the flames of interest. He used to sneak me into movies crime/thriller movies or buy me books that were not what you usually find on an 8 year old’s shelf, but I love it. I would disappear into the book – trying to figure out the killer or killers before I reached the end.

   I find the gritty world of crime very alluring; the sinister symbolism behind a dark shady alley; the creativity of the killer and ultimately why and how they pick their targets. I could spend hours reading over case notes, or true crime novels and still want more. Crime, in my opinion brings out the animalistic tendencies of man. We all try to hide our primal side, but the reality is that we are all animals. Those that succumb to their primal tendencies seem to either know something we don’t… or are missing a good section of the frontal lobe.

Aside from my love of crime, I also love thrillers. Really, I just love the feeling of being scared. I know that’s a really odd thing to like, but that moment when the hair on the back of your neck stands to attention, combined with the sudden cold chill when you know something bad is going to happen. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel… alive. Fear is an odd emotion. We try to suppress it. Try to figure it out, but in the end, we release ourselves to it. Fear is one of the last emotions that you can’t really explain. What scares you the most? Spiders, snakes, a bunch of carrots? That question is an easy one, but if I were to ask you why? That’s a little bit harder.

I wanted to do something that encompassed my great loves and interests, which are crime, thrillers and medicine. So I decided to pick up the proverbial pen and, well, write. Daddy’s Girl is a mixture of those three interests. I wanted to write a book that not only challenged me to look beyond the looking glass, but also challenged the reader. You can sit there and read until your eyeballs fall out, but it’s that book that peaks your interests in the first few pages; the book that made you skip sleep so you could squeeze in one more chapter; the book that made you actually feel something that you go back to. You tell your friends about, and you cherish until its falling apart. That’s what I wanted people to experience.

Or simply put, I’m weird and wanted to share me eccentricity with as many people as possible.

What made you decide to publish your book independently?

 

   I’d done some research and figured out that initially the most important thing was to get my book and my name out there. I could have been published with one of the biggest and best publishing firms out there, but if you don’t know who the author is, its very unlikely you will pick up their book and start reading. I’m a really down to earth girl, and would prefer people to know me, my words, and my work. I think that’s what makes you ‘famous’. Plus independent publishing let me call the shots. I was in charge of everything. Which is a good and a bad thing… Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be offered a publishing contract, but I think that is something I will look more seriously at down the track. With independent publishing I felt free. I was never stressed. I never felt that I had to write something. It was never a chore, everything I did for Daddy’s Girl, was because I wanted to. I didn’t want my writing to turn into something I would resent.


What was the most emotionally difficult scene to write in the book? 

 

   I wouldn’t really say it was an emotionally difficult scene to write, but it would probably have to be Clara’s assault. I didn’t want to just mention it, but then again I didn’t want to base the book on it. It is a large part of the story, and I wanted to reader to experience what I was writing. I wanted them to hear the boot crunching on the gravel; smell the stale breath on the back of their necks; and feel the anger welling inside them. I can’t really say it was a fun chapter to write, but it really opened my mind. Assault for the majority of people is a very scary aspect of life, and I wanted to bring that reality to them.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, I am working on my second novel, Soulless. It’s technically the sequel to Daddy’s Girl, but you could read it independently and it would still make perfect sense, and its going to be a little bit darker than Daddy’s Girl. In addition to that I have jotted down a few ideas for future books. But essentially I am focusing my time, for the next 7 week anyway, on the medicine admissions test. After that I’ll be combining my time between finishing off my nursing and criminology degrees and writing Soulless.

 

  Well, another one bites the dust. It seems like she was telling the truth, which, as we all know, means she’s up to something that we just can’t prove…yet. Daddy’s Girl is available now on Amazon US, Amazon UK  and Xlibris. She blogs and is on Twitter too.

RELEASE THE PRISONER.

    I’m planning on improving my reading habits this year. I spent most of last year writing my novel and reading went by the wayside. Silly really considering how the two hobbies are so intimately linked. Reading helps to fire up the creative juices, shows you what the market is reading and adds vicarious experiences to the imagination’s toolbox. I have never been in prison, on the inside of the bars at least, but by reading about someone who has, I can start to understand a little of their experience. I’ll be rotating my books between crime fiction, non-fiction and something from a genre in which I have no intention of writing, to be chosen at the time.

     Anyway, that’s the general idea, now onto this week’s review.

   Brene Brown is a Professor at the University of Houston’s college of Social Work. Daring Greatly: How the courage to vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead (let’s just call it Daring Greatly shall we?) is the culmination of years of work researching vulnerability, courage, leadership and shame.

    I picked this book up after watching one of her TED talks on the subject of vulnerability. Issues of vulnerability and shame are important in the creative community. The idea of a launching a book petrifies a lot of people so much that they often never start one. This is especially relevant in the digital world where everyone sees, knows and comments on everything. I wanted to find out if her work had anything to offer me as a writer.

     Brown’s key idea is about living a whole-hearted life. This involves having meaningful relationships with each other, nature and our work. The only way to truly have any of this is to be vulnerable and accept that you may fail whilst trying. The fear of failure tends to keep us stuck in the same old habits and afraid to form new ones. Brown suggests cultivating a belief in our own worthiness, connect with others with a sense of love and belonging and to live a courageous life by ‘Daring Greatly.’

    I really enjoyed the book. Some have bemoaned it’s lack of statistical data and ‘evidence’ in the book. Diagrams, tables and pie charts are generally the norm in non-fiction psychology books, but the absence of them here doesn’t let the book down at all. Brown’s research consisted of interviewing candidates about their experiences and to turn that into a dataset wouldn’t do the life stories she gleaned justice. I found a connection with the anecdotes and interview excerpts that I’ve never had to a pie chart. Even those pretty 3D ones.

    This book really did resonate with me. Certain concepts like ‘foreboding joy’ (the feeling something bad will happen whenever something good just has) and the idea of being in the ‘arena’ have had positive effects on how I work, see myself as a writer and my relationships with the important people in my life.

     I highly recommend Daring Greatly for everyone. Everyone has something to gain from reading this book.

I’m planning on improving my reading habits this year. I spent most of last year writing my novel and reading went by the wayside. Silly really considering how the two hobbies are so intimately linked. Reading helps to fire up the creative juices, shows you what the market is reading and adds vicarious experiences to the imagination’s toolbox. I have never been in prison, on the inside of the bars at least, but by reading about someone who has, I can start to understand a little of their experience. I’ll be rotating my books between crime fiction, non-fiction and something from a genre in which I have no intention of writing, to be chosen at the time.

Anyway, that’s the general idea, now onto this week’s review.

Brene Brown is a Professor at the University of Houston’s college of Social Work. Daring Greatly: How the courage to vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead (let’s just call it Daring Greatly shall we?) is the culmination of years of work researching vulnerability, courage, leadership and shame.

I picked this book up after watching one of her TED talks on the subject of vulnerability. Issues of vulnerability and shame are important in the creative community. The idea of a launching a book petrifies a lot of people so much that they often never start one. This is especially relevant in the digital world where everyone sees, knows and comments on everything. I wanted to find out if her work had anything to offer me as a writer.

Brown’s key idea is about living a whole-hearted life. This involves having meaningful relationships with each other, nature and our work. The only way to truly have any of this is to be vulnerable and accept that you may fail whilst trying. The fear of failure tends to keep us stuck in the same old habits and afraid to form new ones. Brown suggests cultivating a belief in our own worthiness, connect with others with a sense of love and belonging and to live a courageous life by ‘Daring Greatly.’

I really enjoyed the book. Some have bemoaned it’s lack of statistical data and ‘evidence’ in the book. Diagrams, tables and pie charts are generally the norm in non-fiction psychology books, but the absence of them here doesn’t let the book down at all. Brown’s research consisted of interviewing candidates about their experiences and to turn that into a dataset wouldn’t do the life stories she gleaned justice. I found a connection with the anecdotes and interview excerpts that I’ve never had to a pie chart. Even those pretty 3D ones.

This book really did resonate with me. Certain concepts like ‘foreboding joy’ (the feeling something bad will happen whenever something good just has) and the idea of being in the ‘arena’ have had positive effects on how I work, see myself as a writer and my relationships with the important people in my life.

I highly recommend Daring Greatly for everyone. Everyone has something to gain from reading this book.

I do not have a like button,
It’s nowhere to be seen,
I’m sure I had one somewhere once,
But it’s no longer on the screen.

When you don’t have a like button,
It’s tough to really know,
When people read and like your posts,
As they can’t tell you so.

As I don’t have a like button,
I think it would be kind,
To write and tell me what you think,
If you do not mind.