How I plan to promote my books (and not piss people off)

I want to make sure I’m not spamming people with dumb shit all the time. I also don’t want to be spending most of my time doing dumb marketing stuff when I could be writing the next book, so I am using only four methods for marketing / social media.

My Website - www.jonathanpeaceauthor.com (you're on it now!)

This is where I will post each week a small update on what I’ve been doing, or a few words like this about the business of writing and selling books as an indie author. You’ll also be able to see the progress on the latest book I’m writing, find contact details and info on each book.

My Newsletter - https://jonathanpeaceauthor.substack.com/

This will be the second most important way I’ll get to speak with my readers. The Louise Miller Files will be a monthly update on the last Sunday. Most posts will be the free ones giving more details about upcoming releases, signings etc (I plan to do some library and bookshop readings again) but for those who subscribe to the paid content, this will include character breakdowns, in-depth pieces about why I write what I write, a look at the times I write in (mainly 80s and 90s), along with Q&As and other exclusive content.

This is going to be my business moving forward, and having paid subscribers is going to be a large factor of that. I really hope you’ll consider it - there will be lots of exclusive content, including the chance to get special editions of the books not available anywhere else.

My YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/@jonathanpeaceauthor

Then there’s my YT channel. I’ve done these before for my tabletop gaming hobby, but now I’m going to embrace the awkwardness of talking to camera and discuss the realities of being an independant author in my 50s. I’d like for this to become another revune stream, all going towards the dream of Resignation Day next year, so I’ll be starting to post on there soon.

The aim is every 2 weeks do a new video about being an author and what the actually means both in terms of the writing itself as well as the business of writing and selling books. Hopefully other indie authors will learn from the mistakes I will no doubt be making. Please consider nipping over there now and subscribing early (it’s free to do so) and hitting the notification bell so you know when I post a new video.

And finally there’s Facebook

I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook, and had successfully quit it about 3 years ago. But my wife, also an indie author, swears by it for promotional reasons, joining several groups and posting links to the books there. As an experiment she created the page for me (FB had kicked me out and stubbornly refused to let me back in for some time) and did a little promotion and I saw a spike in sales.

So, I’ve got the page now and will be using it to post in various book groups.

Pick Your Poison

Feel free to use whichever of those platforms works best for you if you want to keep up to date with my writing - or none at all. If you do stick around, please reach out - let me know real people are out there and not just a number. Leave a message or comment. Send me an email. Let me know you’re there, especially if you become a paid subscriber.

I want to grow a community of readers and discuss all manner of things with you. Books, the state of the world, what you’re reading or watching. Tell me what you like about my books, and what you don’t. Give me your fan-theories about what you think the characters will be up to next, or real world events you think I could tie into the stories.

Let’s talk with each other, and not just be an algorythmic number. That’s what I hate that social media has become, so let’s do something about it.

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https://jonathanpeaceauthor.substack.com/

Re-Launch Timeline

 A picture says it all.

Starting this month, each book will get:

• a new cover
• new internal layout
• another edit
• and ebook, paperback and, for the first time, hardback editions.

Then each month after that, another book will get released as we head up to the launch of the fourth book in the series, 'TIL IT BLEEDS.

Relaunching the novels and my writing career - THE PLAN!

Bit of a lengthy post, this one, a sort of get you all caught up kind of thing, so grab a cuppa, get comfy and lets go.

I re-started this website/blog at the start of 2026 and since then have done very little with it. Which perfectly mirrors my writing career as I've done very little with that as well. CUT AND SHUT was my third novel in the Louise Miller series of crime books which was initially released by Hobeck Books back in 2023 and then once I got the rights back at the end of the year, I republished them all myself in 2025.

  

You see, the plan there was to relaunch the series as I was able to continue with writing the fourth in the series, 'TIL IT BLEEDS. I'd originally started this back in 2022 as soon as I'd finished writing CUT AND SHUT, but at the time I went through another episode of anxiety and depression, brought on by several outside factors, mainly the need to go back into full time employment to ensure the bills were all covered. Having to put aside the full-time writing career which had started to take off sent me back into the depression and as the fourth book deals with that very same theme, I found it impossible to write.

Towards the end of 2024 though, I'd been dabbling with the manuscript, doing a few changes as the story was coming into my consciousness a little more each day until I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had to write it, I had to get this story onto the page - mainly because book 5 in the series was a book I was really keen to get to writing (the joys and pains of having nine books planned out in advance!).

So I decided to relaunch the first three books myself and took a trip to Ossett to take some photos which I could use for the new covers (the ones you see above and are currently available). These were then released in 2025 with the plan of releasing book 4 later that year.

BUT

On February 14th, 2025 my wife was told she had cancer and needed immediate surgery and treatment (yes; on Valentines Day). All our plans went out the window and for the rest of the year it was pretty much touch and go. Lots of tests and scans and chats with various doctors (all of whom were fantastic), and the surgery was booked for April. I took the month off work to look after her (luckily I work from home anyway), and for a while it was going well. As predicted by the doctors. But then an infection took hold, one serious enough that she spent nearly three weeks in hospital.

Needless to say, my focus was shot to hell. I was, and to some degree still am, a wreck. I would spontaneously break out in tears when I was alone in the house, or driving to the hospital. Even now, if I think back to those days, it brings me to tears. Naturally, all thought of writing went out the window and the planned release of the book in September of 2025 passed by, mostly forgotten.

BUT

She came through it all with great strength and resillience and is doing really well now, and for that I am eternally thankful, however, the book was still calling to be written, as was the next in the series. In fact, the first nine planned books were all wanting their time in the sun. This was early new year, 2026, and with everything that had happened the previous year, I'd had a fundamental shift in my thinking and what I held as priorities. I wanted to get back to writing full time, and so decided to relaunch the first three books, with new covers and get the fourth one ready for release.

I'm not going to be doing any great teaser campaigns for the new covers, mainly because I'm basically starting from scratch. There's a current readership, the numbers of KDP readers is growing steadily, and the new covers I hope will give this a boost - but as to doing the traditional "here comes a new book cover" thing? Waste of time.

So here they are.

 

Again, each one uses a photo of Ossett that I took, but each have been enhanced, in ways so much better than the first attempt I did. I am now slowly changing the files and redesigning the spines and back covers. Here's the WIP on the paperback cover for DIRTY LITTLE SECRET - still some work to do on it but it's getting there.

I'll be updating these in Amazon and the other distributors shortly, as well as creating hardback versions for the first time. I'm doing one book at a time with DIRTY due to be launched in March, with SORROW's in April and CUT in May, leaving June ready for book four, 'TIL IT BLEEDS.

Covers have been created for all nine of the books, and these stare down at me from my office wall, giving me the inspiration to write every day, which I've been doing for the last week. 

I've also plans to post on my YouTube channel in the coming months, so look out for that. I'll post a clickable link on here at some point, but you can find me by searching for @jonathanpeaceauthor on YouTube. You can also find me on Facebook now, my wife created a new author page for me, mainly so I can actually start doing some promotion - a dirty word to me, and something I hate to do, but know she's right.

That's it for now - I told you it was a big update. Hope you weren't too bored.

All the best - JP