Hey,

So there’s a brilliant moment in the spoof UK chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You With Alan Partridge where the self-obsessed host says to one of his guests, “Well, that’s enough about me; let’s talk about you. What did you think of my book?”

What I’m trying to say it, this email is all about you. Go you!

(But it’s really about me wanting to get stuff from you.)

Before we get to that, I started a historical novel on Monday and despite being nowhere near finished with research and needing to do several hours of that every day, I’m still hitting 1,500-2,000 words a day on it, while catching up on various bits of admin. I’ll take that pace for now.

I realise from talking with lots of my author friends that this pandemic has driven some people to crazy (and possibly unhealthy) work levels but others to be completely blocked. I’ve certainly veered from one extreme to the other over the last six months. 

For those struggling right now, check out this podcast where Joanna Penn interviews Mark McGuinness – who is a poet and non-fiction author, but also a practicing psychotherapist and creative coach – on How To Stay Creative In Difficult Times.

For me personally, the formula is quite straight-forward:

1. Get up before anyone else.
2. Don’t check email.
3. Don’t open Facebook or Twitter.
4. For the love of all things holy, don’t read the news.
5. Write before doing anything else.

All those things clamoring for your attention, all those things your brain is telling you are urgent or will “only take a second” are traps that can suck out all the emotional energy you need to write.

I won’t presume to know your personal circumstances, but if you can get your words down before other things encroach on your time and headspace, then it doesn’t really matter what happens for the rest of the day as you have your words banked and have already achieved the very most important thing for your author business.

Writing is rarely urgent in the strictest terms, but always the most important thing, and this contradiction means it can fall between the cracks of everything else unless you force yourself to label it as urgent. 

I have a To Do list on a document stand beside my computer with 10-20 things on it at any given point, and for the last five months I have had writing as the very first thing on it. Every day.

Anyway, while I was working on an email for my historical readers, I realized I’ve been running this newsletter for almost three years and I realized I have never once surveyed you guys – not properly.

Now feels like the perfect time.

I’m no surveyologist, so apologies for any shortcomings in the design. Answer as best you can, and that will help guide the future content of this newsletter – and also my other “channels” like YouTube and my blog/website, Facebook, and so on. The newsletter is the “VIP Area” in my mind, and gets first dibs on everything, but those other channels are very important for me too for different reasons.

Before we get to that survey, let me just blast through a whole a bunch of newsy bits that have been piling up and resulting in questions from you:

• I like the new pricing structure on my writer books (above), which was originally just a discount I was running with the launch of Amazon Decoded. I might keep it for a while and see how it plays out.
• I had some questions so let me clarify: Strangers to Superfans and BookBub Ads Expert are not full-on new editions like the other two. I did give the content a quick refresh to zap some out-of-date parts and add some minor changes, and Superfans did get a cover refresh too so that it was more closely aligned with the others, but the changes are relatively minor. If you are yet to purchase either book, however, you can be confident they are up to date.
• What was overhauled completely was the Resources page for Strangers to Superfans so do check that out. The one for BookBub Ads Expert will be getting the same treatment over the next week or so. If you have trouble accessing either - apparently I didn't make it clear enough in older editions! - just hit Reply and I'll give you the link. No need to furnish receipts or any of that malarkey. We work on the honor system around here.
• Speaking of, the Resources page for Amazon Decoded now has A LOT more stuff on it – just in case you only saw the bare-bones version a day or two after launch. It’s still missing a couple of things (some videos/screenshots of those launch plans), but those are coming.
• I never did any kind of review push on Amazon Decoded. It’s doing pretty well for reviews outside internationally, but could do with some on Amazon USA, where it is strangely lagging behind, in relative terms (if you are so inclined).
• Again, to clarify: new paperbacks are available for Let’s Get Digital, Strangers to Superfans, and Amazon Decoded. You can get those from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and any other bookstore you like, really, as they are available via Ingram now also (sales have just started reporting there, and I’m interested to see how that goes). BookBub Ads Expert will follow shortly, and these are all the newer editions of those books.
• I’ve been asked about audio also. I’m not sure right now (want to get this novel off the ground before getting distracted), but I’m thinking of having a stab at the audio of Digital myself as an experiment. Recording/producing it myself would allow me to do some fun experiments with the marketing. I’ll probably record a chapter or two and see.
• I NEED VOLUNTEERS. Starting From Zero has had a truly amazing beginning with almost 4,000 students enrolling and universally stellar reviews. I’m taking part in an interesting beta around video reviews and engagement, so if you have taken the course and are keen to record a 45-second review for possible use in marketing and whatnot, please hit Reply and let me know. Just don’t get ahead of things and start recording just yet. It all has to be done via a certain app. I’ll give you the details when you reply.

Finally, if you missed last Friday's livestream, you can view the replay on YouTube. I enjoyed the experience, but I think I'll do a shorter livestream next time, and a more manageable topic. Speaking for an hour on something so complex, while trying to manage screenshares and questions is a bit much, I think.

I'm toying with the idea of a monthly themed livestream where I speak on a topic for like ten minutes to introduce it and point you to some cool resources, and then take your questions for like 20-30 minutes. So more of a focus on your questions than my yabbering on. And maybe I can squeeze in more than two gulps of beer next time - my biggest disappointment of all.

Okay, phew. Hopefully that’s all the news I’ll have for a while! Sorry about that…

Regular content will return next week, I promise, but so that I can have some idea of what holds most interest to you after doing like 150 of these emails in the last three years, please answer the following questions as best you can. Note that the options are not meant to be truly comprehensive – I’m trying to establish the overlap between what most interests you and what most interests me also!

That’s it! Appreciate your patience as I ran through all the news and then squeezed you for info as well. I’ll make it up to you next week. For now, I’m off to go look at an old Portuguese fort which promises to have rather dramatic waves crashing up against it. 

It’s quite a hike, it bloody well better!

Dave

P.S. Fiction-writing music this week is one of the most perfect songs ever written - Band of Gold by Detroit’s own Freda Payne - which is the perfect encapsulation of that happy melody/sad lyrics formula that made Motown so successful. (Seriously, listen to any Motown song with that in mind, if you never noticed it…)