Fall at The Manor

It’s been a jitterbug summer/early fall production-wise here at The Manor. Janet’s completed not just one, but a series of Moon Calendars for 2024, and we proofed the latest versions last week (there will be news on that coming from her soon, and I’ll share it once she does). And I’ve managed to make good progress on Book Six, Rhyfen, too. Tinkerbelle wishes welcome as we push toward a 2023 pub date.

Sarah Rosene Conover

But the headline is actually our recent collaboration with our daughter-in-law, Sarah Rosene Conover, who was a sales rep for a nationwide publisher until she she quit to follow her entrepreneurial instincts earlier this year. In addition to starting her own housecalls-for-tech-help service in Black Mountain, NC, Janet and Sarah have been collaborating on several projects since late spring. And earlier this fall, Sarah agreed to join our team as the brains behind marketing the series.

What does this mean for anyone else? Not much, if you’re already sold on the series and waiting for the next title to show up for sale on Amazon. But for the long-term viability of this project, it’s actually the most significant news we’ve had in a while. I’ve published books where I had to write the story, create the art and make the covers, and then promote and sell the covers. Things improved immediately once Janet agreed to do the art, but I’ve still had to handle both the other tasks. Having another gifted partner who can take the lead on the all-important marketing job is just a tremendous boost to the entire effort.

It’s strange to say this, but I think it’s true: Sometimes good things come from disaster. We ought to know: We wouldn’t have moved to the foothills and gotten all this creative freedom if I hadn’t been royally screwed by the former owner of the Charleston Battery seven years ago. Loosing both our market-garden business and our big magazine client during the pandemic killed our finanaces, but Janet and I both benefited creatively from the freedom to devote more time to our projects of choice. So here we are in our sixties, at an age when a lot of people say they feel like they’re slowing down, and we’re each improving rapidly in our chosen crafts.

Expanding the audience for these novels has alwasy felt like a distraction, and the last thing a working writer needs is another distraction. For those of you who don’t know me personally, distraction is always a challenge, and there’s only so much I can do about it. But the real problem is that with five D.C. McElroy books now available for purchase, every time I step away from writing the next installment makes it that much harder for me to get back to work. The canon for this series is huge, and the multi-volume plot requirements can be daunting, so just getting back into that headspace can take days.

That’s not a complaint, mind you. I love what I do. It’s just an occupational hazard.

So adding a collaborator who can spend a few hours a month thinking analytically and creatively about the promotions and marketing side of this business? It’s huge for me.

For those who haven’t heard me talk about this, our goal for the foreseeable future isn’t making money. It’s growing audience. Involving Sarah in this priority is great, but her contribution goes beyond putting our work in front of more prospective readers. It also helps with something far more important and difficult: Learning what works and what doesn’t.

Right now we have three eBook novels that are suitable for promotion and eligible for Kindle Countdown Deals on Amazon (Chene, Ta Nupa and City of the Dead), plus the complete Goddess Daughter trilogy eBook collection. Four is the minimum number of eligible titles necessary to start a monthly rotation of Amazon promotions, and once I publish Rhyfen, we’ll have five. Because we crossed that threshold earlier this year, not only can we now promote more books, more often, we can also promote them in a systematic way that allows more meaningful experiments.

And I think that’s the takeaway. It isn’t just that we’ll be running more promotions with Sarah in charge. It’s that we’ll learn more from each result, and we’ll keep learning.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Anyway, I’m excited about it. Please welcome Sarah to the fight, and thanks for your support.