A Writer’s Tale of Ambition, Advertising and Abject Failure

Ah, January. The month of new beginnings, fresh starts, and the crushing realisation that my writing resolutions might as well have been scribbled on a napkin and tossed into the recycling.

Lessons learned this year so far. Optimism is expensive. Specifically, £611 expensive.

Yup, you read that right. In a moment of (misguided) entrepreneurial zeal, I managed to burn through £611 in a single week on Amazon advertising. When the invoice hit my inbox, I thought my heart had stopped. It hadn’t—it was just revving up for the cardio workout of screaming, “WHAT THE ACTUAL…?”

Naturally, this moment of fiscal folly sparked some introspection. What could I have spent that £611 on instead? Here’s a short list of far better investments:

1. Two lots of Botox to iron out the worry lines Amazon just gifted me.
2. Three lavish meals in fancy restaurants, where I could’ve drowned my sorrows in overpriced wine and things with jus and foams.
3. Six not-so-lavish meals in less fancy establishments—still with wine.
4. A weekend away somewhere delightful, involving no spreadsheets of ad spend whatsoever.
5. E-book and print covers for my next two novels (because I’m still writing despite the financial carnage).
6. Proofreading for those two novels (typos are eternal, unlike Amazon ROI).
7. Donating it all to charity and sleeping soundly knowing I’ve done something good.

Instead, Jeff Bezos and Co are probably toasting another quarter of record-breaking profits, all while I huddle over my bank statements, muttering, “Never again. NEVER AGAIN.”

Adventures in E-Commerce: The £500 Experiment

Of course, Amazon isn’t the only avenue of questionable financial choices. Determined to pocket more profits, two years ago I decided to try selling direct through my own e-commerce site on WordPress. Cue another £500+ sunk into hosting, plugins and other necessities. Sales to date? A glorious round zero.

Meanwhile, Google Merchant Centre insists I’m missing shipping information. Apparently, customers are baffled about delivery times and costs. For e-books. E-books! Instant delivery, nae cost. The solution, naturally, is buried in a labyrinth of jargon that is all Greek to me. Why didn’t I stick to Payhip? It’s straightforward, it works, and—best of all—it’s free.

The Silver Linings (Because There Have to Be Some)

On the plus side, my creative spark hasn’t completely fizzled. In a fit of productivity, I dusted off one of my “almost finished” novels—the ones that linger in the to-do pile like neglected houseplants—and have been revising it with gusto. Revisiting an old manuscript feels a bit like bumping into an ex at a party. At first, you cringe—oh ye Gods, did I really write that—but then you realise, “Hey, this isn’t as bad as I remember. Maybe we could make it work!”

Even more exciting, I’ve embarked on something I’ve always wanted to try: screenwriting. If there’s one thing my life needs, it’s more projects. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be pitching the sitcom to a production company. Or, more likely, I’ll be filming it myself in the living room, with the cats taking on supporting roles (and arguing about their character’s direction).

Either way, it’s a nice change from the endless cycle of novels, ads and existential crises.

In Conclusion…

January successes: scarcer than hen’s teeth. But hey, maybe February will be the month I finally sell a few books, claw back some of my losses and dodge another round of heart-stopping invoices (especially the latter).

Or perhaps I’ll blow my dwindling savings on a “social media guru” who swears blind that Red Notes is the next TikTok—just waiting for early adopter #BookRedNoters to sweep in and clean up.

For now, I’m just grateful for Diet Coke, the support of fellow writers and the ability to laugh at my own misadventures. If you can’t laugh at yourself, what’s the point? Here’s to February—and fewer invoices.

My latest novel, Forever, Maybe, will be published in August 2025. Set in present-day Glasgow with flashbacks to the 1990s, Forever, Maybe is a poignant, character-driven story about long-term love, midlife doubt and whether a marriage can survive the slow unravelling of time.

You can pre-order my latest novel, FORVER, MAYBE (released August 20-25) here