My Website and its future

So obviously, today is a huge day, as it is the launch day for Ransome, the prequel to last year's Horizon. Early feedback has been incredible, despite no actual sales today so far. However, that is not why I'm writing this post.

As you probably know, I launched this website in December of 2023 to coincide with the release of Horizon. I had just crossed 1000 followers on TikTok and wanted to have somewhere to give you guys the latest news, upcoming releases, and ultimately sell my eBooks direct. With a bit of tinkering, I managed all of that and here we are.

However, the reality is that the website is not attracting the level of traffic that it needs to. Even with tweaking of the SEO (don't worry, I didn't know what that was either) the results simply haven't been forthcoming. I'm barely getting anyone reading these blog posts, and my daily traffic is almost non-existent.

What this means, is that unless traffic picks up massively in the next 5 months, in December of this year, I will have no choice but to close this website down, as I simply cannot afford to pay to renew the domain name and the store if people aren't using it.

Obviously, I don't want this to happen, but it is the reality of being an independent author. If the funds aren't there, it simply can't happen. I am currently looking at alternatives such as Substack, and have been considering starting a YouTube channel, but this is still in the research phase.

I'm going to be trying to generate some traffic and sales in August, by having a Summer Sale on the website, where all of my eBooks will be reduced across the entire month. If that goes well, I will look to introduce some small merchandise such as bookmarks, stickers, etc.

However, the bottom line is that if things don't pick up, the website will close on December 5th 2024. Hopefully I haven't put you all on a downer, but I always like to keep an open communication with my readers, so I have to be honest with both you and myself.

Here's hoping things get better, and in the meantime, have an amazing rest of your week!

Dave.