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I'm finding out just what people really think of Alias Jeannie Delaney.
It's a long novel. Three hundred and eighty-five pages to be precise, so people who bought it initially may only be finishing it now, depending on their reading habit or how fast they read. Books 2 and 3 will be of similar length.
Then there's content.
It begins with a bit of an eyebrow raising bang. it's a very gritty and, in places, intense story about a devastating and charismatic bisexual cowgirl who's the fastest gun in the west. The story follows her life and journey to find her true self and some of the chapters are - shall we say - quite graphic in the sexual department, but relevant to the plot. She's persecuted for who she is but I've injected humour into the story to temper the grit and add texture. I think it's worked. I hope so, and people haven't been put off by the content. Readers are telling me how much they love my descriptions of place, and that they feel as though they are there.
I've had such lack of confidence over the years as to whether anyone would want to read it in the first place, then how readers would react to this rather singular, gritty story containing a fair amount of credible swearing, that it's seriously done my head in. So hearing from people who've enjoyed it and want to read the next book is panacea to my mind.
I'm surprised over who's enjoying it! People who I'd have thought would be the last people to want to read it, do so, and that really surprises me. When hubby and I started marketing this first book we had no clue as to how to go about it and who my readers would be. Hubby has learned a tremendous amount about advertising that we put to good use. As to my readership, because Jeannie is bisexual we assumed that the majority of readers would be LGBTQ, feminists and female. Not so. I've had a fair number of men enjoying it too.
When you're advised to place your work into a niche for marketing purposes, that was really hard because it didn't seem to fit into anything, and there were no novels that were anything like mine to see what niches they occupied. They consisted mostly of romantic or traditional westerns. In the end, we managed to find the right keywords for Amazon and we changed the title wording on my Amazon page. The novel went from somewhere in the depths of the basement in Amazon's listing charts up to the attic. I'm feeling much more positive about it now.
I'm now in the depths of finding reviewers for it. In order to be read, one's novel needs positive reviews. I have a few but I need more, and I've managed to contact bona fide reviewers as well as other readers who will happily read it when we put it out for free. PA hubby is also experimenting with various Amazon advertising tactics. He's good at this, and working out Amazon algorithms.
Last but not least, I'm going to be sharing some spoilers. Haven't done that for a while... 😉
Facebook Jo Ballantyne
A charity organisation supporting the LGBTQ+ community.
(I'm supporting Stonewall & they are posting links to Amazon & Alias Jeannie Delaney on their social media posts).
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