Monday 5 November 2012

Even grown-ups need Crayons

Even grown-ups need crayons

November, November!!! Well I have now hit my target and sold over 1000 copies of Goa Traffic. 1091 to be exact. I am happy. If you told me to define success for Goa Traffic at the start of this whole process I would have said – when I sell 1000 copies- I probably said it somewhere on this blog. It seemed like it would never happen. The paper copy sales have not been great – but decent – so I cant complain – I would have estimated hitting 1000 copies in 10 years time. With self publishing and then Kindle – the whole ebook market has really taken off! I mean if you look at Amazons projected target sales of Kindles it only stands to reason that ebook sales will increase.

I must have mentioned that I am now tracking my website hits as well – Hits to my website have gone up as have sales and I think that is partly due to the fact I have a website (that was the advice I was given by someone reading this blog actually – so –thank you) We’ll see if sales increase even more once H sorts out the mobile site. Blog hits remain sroughly the same each month but my hits on it have always been relatively high. What I don’t get is how I am selling so many copies in the UK and only 2 a month in the USA. Is that because there is so much available in the USA?  – Apparently 235000 + books are self published every year. That’s a crazy amount. No wonder some don’t even surface.

So how do you market your ebook? Tweet me @marissadeluna #ebookmarketing

But books and book selling aside I must tell you about the crayon comment. The other day I went to a Creative Meditation session. Yes - I too was dubious but I really enjoyed it. What is creative meditation? I hear you ask. Well it’s simple really it’s meditating after which you get some crayons and draw what you feel- or write- or sing I suppose if that’s what you want to do.

I enjoyed it. Meditation (which I have never done before) shows you how to switch off if anything and well worth it- Apparently I really did need someone to tell me to stop thinking. We are so busy concentrating on doing, doing, doing that we never stop to 1) do nothing 2) just think about ourselves – not ourselves in relation to this person or that person and 3) do something childish- like use crayons. The feel of a crayon in your hand will take you back and colouring into- not between the lines but anyhow on your blank piece of paper. It may even get rid of any writers block!

Expressing our feelings and emotions through creativity is a good idea- of course we have our writing but sometimes only a crayon will do!