Everything slows down on the blogging front as Christmas approaches

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I'm starting to put my blogs to bed now until the New Year. The fact that many io the areas I blog about slow down dramatically at this time of year only adds to the fact that people's attention is drawn away to other places and things. Christmas is on the way and all of my blogs drop significantly in readership from early December until the start of January. Subsequently I'm starting to switch the blogs off-

Estate agency

This really is a quiet time for estate agents as the market starts to shut down for Christmas. People who have sales going through now want to be in their new home before Christmas. Most solicitors close completely for over a week and everything goes really quiet.

And likewise with my How to sell your home blog - there aren't many people starting to look at selling their home at this time of year.

Retail

Retailers are the opposite of estate agents at this time of year - they are too busy to do much reading. My blogs would bypass many of my potential readers because they are all busy at this time of year.

Mystery shopping

This is another area that goes really quiet at this time. In the same way that retailers want to concentrate on sales right now, they don't want their busiest season to be interrupted by a major mystery shopping programme. And because of this, the mystery shop companies cut back their activity to almost zero until the new year.

You'll see less of me during the next month or so on all of my blogs.

A bit of everything has been happening all at once this week

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A bit of everything has been happening all at once this week. It's one of those occasions where I don't really know which way to turn so I've turned all ways at once! Let me explain-

Work

I've been offered the chance to  step up to the next level until after Christmas. It means going full-time for a few months and this impacting on the available time I have to do other things. But I've  accepted the offer in the basis that many of the other things I do at this time of year will start to tail off.

Fiverr

I came home to 4,500 words of fiverr writing on Friday night. It's mice to get regular sales on fiverr and it means that my gig explanations are hitting the right notes. I'm relatively new to fiverr and I'm finding out that Friday afternoon seems to be the time for buyers to instruct you. About 60% of my gigs have been commissioned on a Friday afternoon. I set aside two hours on Saturday morning to complete the gigs and I've had the first drafts sent off for approval.

Mystery shopping

This does really start to tail away at this time of the year when retailers really want to concentrate on serving customers and making money.

http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/its-time-to-start-mystery-shopping-now.html

There have been a couple of mystery shops and a gambling success but few and far between-

http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/see-how-quick-mystery-shopping-trip.html

Book sales

I've been using my blogs to promote my books more and more recently, especially-

The Mystery Shop Blog - http://mysteryshopperblog.blogspot.co.uk/

How to Sell Your Home - http://how-to-sell-a-home.blogspot.co.uk/

I'm finding that books sales are steady and that interest in the blogs is increasing well at the moment. From here I hope to produce a solid regular income for when the business opens.

homeestates

Fiverr

Seller

I am a writer - I write all the time. I have several blogs, have written three books (so far) and I just love writing. I will write positive reviews or articles or mention you in my blogs in clear English. I'm new to Fiverr but I'm incredibly passionate about what it can empower.

See the different marketing ideas I'm using to sell my books

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I've been looking at ways to expand the sales of my mystery shopping book. It's had some initial interest and I want to capitalise on that interest and turn it into book sales. There have also been a couple of positive reviews already. It's one of those things that every time you talk about it, other people are really interested in what you have to say. It's a topic that everyone has some interest in, either what you do or becoming a mystery shopper themselves. To assist with the book I've started a blog that mixes hints and tips from the book with my daily experiences as a mystery shopper. Each blog entry prompts the reader to take a look at the book. The blog can be found here.

I have also set up a basic promotional YouTube video to help with the book sales. The idea behind these two things is to get people to like the look of what is going on and then go on to buy and read the book. But the next questions I have are-

• How are people going to find the blog or the YouTube video?
• Who is my target market?
• How will I reach them?

The people who I think will be mainly interested in mystery shopping are university students and the mothers of children that are at school. I live quite close to a university city so I thought that the below poster could get me a bit of traction. I'm going to put it up in a few places around the city that I know students frequent. I hope that more readers of the blog might mean more book sales. Finding the mothers might take a little bit more doing. I'm thinking that the forums mothers frequent such as mumsnet might be somewhere to look. I know from sites like Money Saving Expert  don't allow people to advertise their own products on their forums so mumsnet may be the same. Aside from these two areas, it's a case of searching and thinking more about potential readers and how I can reach them.

The poster looks like this-

Wish me luck!

See the free easy tool that's helped to promote my blogs and books

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It's been quite an eventful week in the small world of Amazon Kindle book selling with my book "The Secrets of Mystery Shopping: How to Become a Mystery Shopper" receiving quite a lot of interest and a lot of questions. Amazon don't really give you a great idea of sales figures, as I always find their reports sketchy until the month is over and the money is in my account. This is largely because of Amazon Prime, which gives people the chance to read some or all pages for free and then you, as an author, are given a percentage of the Amazon Prime fund. This is based on the proportion of reads your book got from everything available on Prime.

The immediate, personal feedback has been good, though and I know of a growing number of people that have told me they've bought the book. Friends, family, work colleagues and then their contacts (reached via Facebook) have been buying and I hope it to be my biggest seller yet.

To go alongside the book, I've started a blog. The purpose of this blog is threefold-

1- To promote the book

2- To give people an insight into what a mystery shopper does

3- To give people an idea of the good things that you can get out of mystery shopping

I've seen more interest in this book then any of the others that I have published so I hope that it continues to create a few waves. And I hope that it helps people who are interested in mystery shopping to get a start in the industry. As with all my books, if just one person gets something out if it then I think it will all be worthwhile.

I also used some spare time this week (precious commodity that it is) to produce short animated promo videos for two of my books. I used a website called www.RawShorts.com to produce the videos and many of their templates are free. The videos are as follows-

THE SECRETS OF MYSTERY SHOPPING

HOW TO SELL YOUR HOME

If you don't think that you can use a site like RawShorts, then an alternative would be somewhere like www.fiverr.com where someone will be able to produce you a promo video for as little as $5.

The idea is that they give me a little more exposure for the books and offer a different way for people to find my blog, my books and me.

See the book that will help you on your mystery shopping journey

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My Amazon Kindle book called The Secrets of Mystery Shopping : How to Become a Mystery Shopper was released yesterday. This is one of my books that I have published as I look to generate an income in the run up to opening my own business. The idea is that these books bring in a (modest) income as the estate agency starts next year and I go without an enlistment income for the first few months it takes to get properties on my books and through to sale completion.

The book was available to pre- order on Amazon but there was a little bit of a wrangle between me and them about the pre-order and edits to the book so the pre- order was cancelled and the book launched immediately.

When I uploaded the book file when setting up the book for ore-order, there was no mention of any issues in updating the content in the run up to launch. So when I went through the final edit of the book, checked and updated the contact details of all the mystery shop companies I was ready to upload the final file to the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing site. When I got there, this book was greyed out and I couldn't access it to update. I contacted the help desk and was told that for the 3 days before the release, the book was unavailable to edit - I'd missed the deadline by about an hour! Although I didn't know I'd missed a deadline because there wasn't enough information there to tell me.

I was gutted - the choice was to wait until after it was released and then change the book file -meaning that any pre-orders would be unable to access the updated file. Or to withdraw the pre-order title, republish as a ready to buy book and have my customers read the full experience. This meant that I would lose the ability to set books up to pre-order for a year. I went for the second option as I couldn't see the value in having someone pay for what wasn't a full book.

So, here we are, it's published and I've set up a blog (here) and a twitter feed @mysteryshopper74 to help with the exposure.

It's available on the Amazon Kindle store now, so take a look and see what you think.

Mystery shop feedback - small update!

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A short addition to the blog on my new mystery shopping experience from Friday.

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2015/07/new-experiences-bring-few-nerves.html

I've received the feedback and it states-

• Your report was a pleasure to read
• Excellent feedback

So I'm very happy with that!!

New experiences bring a few nerves

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It sounds really strange after over four years of mystery shopping for ten different companies that I an nervous about the mystery shop I'm due to complete tonight. I haven't kept an exact count that I can easily lay my hands right now but I estimate that I've completed around 1,000 mystery shops and this is the first one since the very early days that I've felt apprehensive and pressured to get things absolutely exact. That's not to say I'm usually imprecise but many of the mystery shop companies I use ask for general ideas -

*was the floor clean?

*were you served quickly?

*was the server well presented?

Now, of course, there is a degree of personal judgement in answering these questions.

The reason for today's apprehension is that I'm shopping for a new company. As part of the terms and conditions of any mystery shopping exercise, I can't publish details anywhere - including blogs and social media. So I won't go into much detail but I can say that I've signed up with this mystery shopping company and I'm undertaking a new assignment with a new client.

One of the main differences is that this new mystery shop company operates a different reporting system. Just about all of the reports I've filed need an online form completed and 90% of it is tick boxes - yes/no answers to questions along the lines of those I've stated above. This new company is looking for a narrative version of the visit. I'm not afraid of narrative itself, as it is along the lines of what I'm typing right now, but its a clear narrative of the visit stating only the facts that I need to create.

I find it helpful when I'm apprehensive about something, to talk or type it through and just the typing of today's blog has helped me a little. The unknown can be a little daunting but it's just a case of reading through the instructions thoroughly and being as prepared as I can. And there are lessons here for when I start the business. Conducting my first market appraisal for myself or agreeing my first sale on my own will be exciting and nervy experiences but being prepared will get me through it. I've always worked well from a script or structure and I'll make sure that I have this set up for when I start operating as an estate agent.

It's been a while, and will be a while again

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Well, it's been a while since I last blogged on here and it will probably be a while until I blog again.

What's happened since I last blogged?

Not a great deal, actually.

Nothing has progressed with the business since I last blogged. I've not finished my new book, I've only done a handful of mystery shops and I've made no real progress in the way of setting up the business.

The 245 days concept is out if the window, and I'm probably looking at opening the business a full year after I initially intended. The extra year will be spent in setting up areas that will bring me in an income to sustain my family and my living standards during the initial months of the start up when there is little or no income.

The upcoming hiatus will be brought about because I'm gong into hospital on Thursday for an operation. It's an op on my eye and is the latest (and hopefully the last) relating to a longstanding detached retina issue. It will mean that I'll be off work for about a fortnight and won't be able to use a computer or smartphone screen for about a week.

With the eye fixed, I'll be back stronger and I can concentrate on setting up the potential income earners that will give me more confidence in letting go of permanent employment and taking the plunge into self-employed!

A regular schedule is starting to emerge

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I'm now falling into a regular schedule in my new role at work. It's my second week in my new role, with my new hours and I've mainly got two days in the week off, starting this week. I've divided this up to one day earning money and the other for setting up the business.

This will start this weekend or next week with finishing off the garage conversion into my home office. It's probably the best first place to start movng towards having the business up and running. When it's decorated, made to look like an office and weather proof, I'll have a space to be able to sit away from the hustle and bustle of family life for periods of time to concentrate on getting stuff done. Plus insure I'll find more things in the garage to sell on eBay, to bring in a little more money.

Yesterday was a money-making day with mystery shopping at the following-

2 supermarkets

A specialist retailer

A toy retailer

A museum

An entertainment provider

A bookmakers

In all, the fees earnt were more than I would have earnt in a similar day at work, and it took me less time, got me some products and was more interesting.

Today has been a day for getting things done around the house. I've cleaned windows, painted a ceiling, touched up other paint, changed a photo frame and sorted out the porch. I want the house robe fully up to scratch with all maintenance issues before I start the business, as I won't have spare time to devote to this then.

I've also listed several items for sale in eBay and Amazon today - unused video games and books I've already read.

Time to look in the mystery shop websites to see if there are any available ships for my days off next week!