I SHOULD OPEN BY STATING THAT Ceeteejackson.com IS THE SOLE AUTHORIZED HOME OF MY WRITING.

Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?

Aye, well. If so, Time is in for a bit of a shock when it comes to getting those lines out into the world of prospective readers!

Ten years ago, when I wrote my first effort, Damp Dogs & Rabbit Wee, it was pretty straightforward and inexpensive to promote. A few kind bloggers said some nice words, and a couple of small book promotion businesses shifted a few copies for me. And that was about it – bish, bash, bosh … 500+ copies sold between UK and USA, just like that.

Dawdle.

Progressively though, with each book I’ve subsequently written, it’s become ever more difficult to attract properly targeted attention. So much so, that my latest book, a year old this week, has sold 169 copies in total – and that’s between the two differently titled versions – A Space Hopper Killed My Hamster / I Loved The 1960s & 1970s.

Even that came at a cost. I was suckered into believing Amazon Ads would place the book in front my preferred demographic of readers aged over 50 years. It takes a few days for the analytics to kick in but eventually, and for a couple of weeks, the figures looked healthy.

Ha! Then I noticed the royalties earned, versus the expenditure incurred was just not sustainable. It would take a huge upturn in sales to break even. So I cut my losses and ducked out of Amazon promotion. The day I stopped paying was the day my book failed to show in the top searches on the website.

And so it has remained.

Conversely, the two books I ghost-wrote for Summersdale Publishers have averaged raking around the 3,000 to 7,000 mark on the whole Amazon marketplace of, they say, @ 44 million books!

The benefits of having a publisher and their promotional budget. 😉🤔

Ah well, that’s another wee achievement marked off my list:
* write for a national music magazine ✔️ (I was Scottish correspondent for Artrocker Magazine that shifted 35,000 copies a month.)

* write and publish a book. ✔️ (I’ve self-published four and had two other promoted by a publisher in the the Hachette group.

* design, establish & co-host a popular 1970s themed website with over 230,000 hits (Once Upon a Time in The ’70s ) ✔️

* become a certified pickleball coach. ✔️(I just fancied it! Now achieved it!)

And that, dear reader, is why you may be seeing / reading less of me in the coming months. I will still blog as much as I can, but with the added pressures on my time, some things will have to give.

I have no idea how much I’ll involve myself with coaching before another ‘project’ / aim / ambition takes my fancy. But I’ll probably tell you, whether you like it or not. 🤣

In all likelihood, I’ll not be able to keep away from writing. I’ll no doubt still complete the amusing fantasy I’ve been working on, in fits and starts, for about six years! I’ll try out my idea for a cozy mystery type story, featuring some of the characters from Damp Dogs & Rabbit Wee. I’ll probably publish my book on limericks in time for Christmas. Well, why not? It’s not going to cost me anything other than time.

But regardless, it still doesn’t stop me hankering for the way we were.

Hi regular readers! Just a quick note: if you are reading this text on any site other than Ceeteejackson.com, it has been stolen by automated bots.
You can read more about how this digital piracy works on this post.