SIX-MONTHS AN AUTHOR.

I became a published author on the 3rd of March 2023, more than six-months since my first book “The Unwanted Gifts” was released for sale to the public. The publisher Austin Macauley had made it available around the world and provided a trailer for my book with an author’s website. From this I was to grow and market my book and it turned out myself, the author, which I had not realised fully. I thought the book was the product not me. The first month nothing happened, I had posted a handful of times and I wondered if I existed at all. I had gained no followers having decided at an early stage that mixing my writing and authorship under my pen name with my real day to day life was not a good idea as the material I write, whilst reasonable to good is not to everyone’s taste and the scenes I create to ask basic questions about people, relationships and daily life would probably find dissatisfaction rather than favour with people in my locality. A handful of my friends and my family know that I write and the genre that I choose to write in, romance and erotic sometimes with an element of bondage and submission. It is not a secret, but I don’t put it about town shall we say. I have a Face Book Page which is diversifying into a blog and contains all my work. I also have an Instagram account which following my wife’s Instagram headline for my book being “about relationships and exploring sexual intimacy” and having gained 1,850 amorous young ladies as followers from around the world I feel that was probably not the right decision. I wouldn’t want them knocking on my front door attractive as most of them are. In the middle of April, I discovered authors and readers groups and this proved to be not only a good way of marketing my book but also a means of gaining support and learning from people that were experienced and were willing to teach me what I needed to learn and I was able to learn from these people much more than I would probably any other way. I was also able to talk to like-minded people who wrote for similar reasons to me, to get my thoughts on paper and to an audience, that turned out to be compassionate, welcoming and willing to give advice in a relaxed manner, not as if I was being lectured because I had made a rookie error, many of which I have made especially with social media with which I had no knowledge and I had no experience. On May the 14th I was getting somewhere but the effort and the amount of mistakes I had made and some emotional cost because of the nature of those failings meant that when I had a few days in Amsterdam with my wife I was preparing to shut everything down and write only for my personal enjoyment as I had mostly done. I don’t believe I would have done it, I have written all my life, and the only quality I have is stubbornness or tenacity if I am being kind to myself. I have been lucky enough to achieve almost anything I have ever wanted to do through hard work with a large measure of luck. I released several posts about Amsterdam and a reel which I had learned about only days before I went away. I cobbled together a reel through my normal means of trial and error. I connected with several authors and poets who supported me, and I hope I have supported as I hope I have with all my followers, the people I follow and authors in general. When I came back from Amsterdam on the 19th May I had 70 followers and some reach and engagements. By the end of May my page and posts were proving popular, and I had gained 153 followers and equally impressive to my mind figures on reach and engagement having started to post on a dozen or so, authors sites every other day. By the end of June, I had 316 followers and I currently have just acquired my 770th follower although my reach has dropped dramatically from 18,000 to 8,000 in days, which although I have posted less is still quite a drop even over 28 days. This level of following and posting has given me a basis to work from, I originally envisaged 300 followers by Christmas as being achievable and sustainable.

I am now in a position where I have a following and good social media figures, (I don’t pretend to know what they mean but I do know what they achieve for myself and my page) and more importantly, I associate with some experienced authors who I follow who have more experience at writing publicly and are accustomed to having much larger followings. I also associate with authors and poets who are at a similar point to me, which is also good especially when things are not going well, usually for the same reasons as they are finding. I have worked hard, learned as quickly as I can but I was aware that because I like to read as many posts by those I follow and who follow me, and because I still have a life outside writing and a job although this is to became part-soon, I would have to have a long-term plan. Despite having by my original plan exceeded all possibilities with my Face Book Page, I always knew that there would come a time when I had to make decisions about how and what I did concerning my writing and posting if I wanted to do more of the former and no more than I do now of the latter. Like policemen in murder drama’s where they say, “What am I looking for” and the senior cop says “You will know when you see it!” I became aware that it was now the time to change, I had achieved my goal and created a platform to progress further. I had lost momentum in myself, and my posts were in danger of losing what quality they had. I had become a ‘Top Contributor’ in many groups I was a member of, it was time to change my approach. An author suggested a couple of months ago that I increase my posting of other material that I write about landmarks or historical features, or iconic themes. That was always a possibility I had but her advice and the reactions I have got to the pieces I have put on my page have assured me that I am doing the right thing to lessen the number of posts on the groups, increase my own more diverse material and allow myself more time to write short stories, poems and continue writing my “Gift” books.

A month as a writer or author is a very long time indeed, and you can achieve a lot in that short space of time, more than you can in any other business I have experienced. So, here’s to the next three months. Thank you to everyone who have commented on my posts and my decisions and advised me on the way forward, your support is immeasurable. Thank you also to the groups on which I write and will continue to write, they provide the structure for us all to flourish. I hope you enjoy my posts, short stories and now also poems.

My book “The Unwanted Gifts” is available at
amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1035801027/

I have a Face Book Page at michael_fording_author
I hope the book is of interest to some of you.

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