I spent most of October re-writing The Last Chance Hotel. When I sat down to write that story, I wanted it to be dark, darker then anything I have written before. However, what came out was something much lighter because I struggled to get my head into the darkness. The result? I just went with the flow and I thought it was ok. I asked two beta readers to give me their feedback. One said the story was a 4* read for her and fine. The other said she’d have liked the darkness of how I’d intended. She gave me some really get developemental feedback and I felt like I should use it and lock in rather then disregard it and feel like I was putting a lackluster story out into the world. And so I forced myself, kicking and screaming to re-write a lot of the scenes in the story. I took out the ‘fun’ elements and made them ‘dark.’ I got the story done. But I haven’t gone back in to give it a read through and an edit yet because Sandy’s story came back from my editor and I have been working through those. I’m not going to lie, I found the process hard re-working scenes and changing characters. It was taxing on my brain in a way I’ve never used it before. Silly as that sounds. But I got it done. Now I’m letting the story have a nap whilst I go through my editors next round of edits for Sandys story. I’m glad actually, because I’m looking forward to reading The Last Chance Hotel and seeing what I actually sat down and wrote.
I was surprised to have a higher then expected page reads and orders during October considering I have no new books out. But maybe off the back of Tiffanys audio advertisment last month more people added my books to their tbr list? Or maybe someone posted about my books on socials but never tagged me? That is something I will never know. All I know is, I paid no advertising but it was still a pretty decent month.
I did use my 5 free days on Amazon for both The Secret Stalker and The Hucow Hotel. Thats why I have so many orders. I like using them because I always hope to attract new readers into my world. And I think it can work.
I forced myself to not work on my Festive story in order to get The Last Chance Hotel re-written. I feared if I didn’t do the re-write, I may never and I’d hate that. But it was a very high possibility. I really like the concept of the book so I perservered. I just hope this second version is better……
October Results are in:
Orders: 2,109 (I did the 5 free days on Amazon as mentioned above)
KENP: 986,480
Amazon Reviews: 1,533 (4.3) - Based on Book One: The Secret Club in the US
Amazon Followers: 1,530
Preorders Book #5: 63
October achievement: Hitting 1 million page reads for The Secret Stalker. And, I have been consistantly #1 in the UK Amazon Charts for Erotic Thrillers (books) for the entire month for The Secret Club. Having that little red banner for over six weeks is pretty awesome and unexpected.
October lesson: Working with the right influencers can have a knock on effect for months after. Re-writing books isn’t as much fun as writing it from the beginning.
What will November bring?
Re-reading and going through the edits from my beta reader for my festive story.
And actually finishing that story.
Finish editing Sandy’s story and send over to my beta reader
Working with The Author Agency for a back-tour of The Secret Club