self publishing blog – MyriadLifeBooks

With all the stresses of the pandemic and life in general, what can be more fun than to sit down and get artistic? As well as being a writer and publisher, I am also a photographer and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to turn some of my images into colouring pages.

Not all images lend themselves to the transformation but I have picked out the ones I think work best. Below is a sample of some of the printable images available via my Etsy store.

They are great for artists or anyone who needs to take their mind away from everyday distractions and who enjoys the scenery Norfolk has to offer.

I am working on a book of these colouring pages so look out for that, I will post via my social media when it is available. I will also add colouring pages to this website so that they can be bought and downloaded directly. Eventually there will be more generic ones such as animals and flowers too. I have a huge number of images to trawl through to convert as I have been a photographer for many many years, so keep coming back for updates.

You can check out some of my photography here via Photo4Me

While I am here, it would be remiss of me to point out that there is a FREE giveaway at the moment here on this very site. If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning a 2022 Daily Planner featuring one of my images on the cover, please hit the subscribe button below. The giveaway deadline date is Friday 7th January and available to UK subscribers only (apologies to my overseas visitors!) Visit the link to see more details.

I try to create a giveaway every month so it is worth subscribing. February may be a good month to do a colouring page giveaway and that would go worldwide as I will create a printable download. Hey, what a good idea! I just thought of that as I was typing. Don’t be shy, subscribe!

Come say hello at Twitter @LifeMyriad

Instagram @MyriadLifePhotoArt

I write short stories as Petra Kidd

Another week has flown by and here I am drinking green tea (part of my new intermittent fasting regime), staring at the screen, still trying to fathom Amazon Ads.

I told myself to be patient and not expect fast results but then I did get a fast result, however, I am always suspicious when things happen too quickly. Experience has shown me that if you get a quick sale, it’s likely to be the only sale for quite a while. It’s some kind of weird law of the universe.

I am still very much in the experimental phase of Amazon Ads. Every day I read my book by Deb Potter – Amazon Ads for Authors 2021 and I watch YouTube tutorials. I have a creative brain rather than an analytical one so I am training myself to understand logistics, statistics etc… From what I can gather the experimental side of it never truly changes. Even the most experienced Amazon advertisers are constantly monitoring and devising strategies.

When I got a sale via one of my ads I felt very smug. It only cost 10p out of my £2 daily budget. Instant success! I have to assume my keywords for that book are good. Having said that, it sold a few days ago and no sales since. So it could just be a fluke. This is the most likely scenario in my sometimes pessimistic mind. So I’ve raised the daily budget to see if that makes a difference. So far, no, but I am trying to be patient. We are only talking a few days.

It seems you have to have your eye on the ball all the time, working out what does and what doesn’t work. It feels fairly daunting at this point but I am determined to succeed. I have worked hard and created around a hundred books already, so I have plenty to experiment with. It’s one thing to create, but another to sell. I concentrate on quality over quantity and I’m devoting equal time to creating and marketing at the moment.

The important thing is to keep an eye on profit. This is tricky when you are experimenting and speculating to accumulate. I made a profit with my sale which is great but I will have lost money by not getting the formula right with other books. So it has to be balanced off.

The good thing is, while I am intensely focused on the mysteries of Amazon Ads, I don’t think about food. The intermittent fasting is working extremely well, far better than I imagined it would. I know this is off topic but in a way it isn’t. As I feel lighter and sharper, the more able I feel to work effectively and absorb information. Intermittent fasting isn’t for everyone but it seems to be working for me, which is great.

One of the YouTubers suggested you need to wait a week to see how your ads do. I’m not finding this easy so I prefer Dale’s suggestion of checking every day. What I don’t want to do, is become too obsessed but it is fascinating to check in to see how many impressions each book gets and try to work out what I am doing right, or wrong. What I don’t want to do is lose too much money in the experimental phase so I think checking every day (not every hour) is a good thing to do.

If you’d like to see some of the books I have created, you can check them out here or at Amazon via MyriadLifeBooks and MyriadLifePhotoArt. Any money raised helps me keep this site going, so please support this indie author by buying one of my lovely notebooks or cards if you can.

If you’d like to share your experiences of Amazon Ads I’d love to hear them.

I will give an update of my progress (at least I hope it will be progress…) next week.

Please hit the subscribe button if you’d like to be updated with my blog posts. Sometimes I even give notebooks away to my subscribers… worth keeping an eye out for!