All Blog Posts Tagged 'promotion' (64)

Folk Fest

I'm booked at a semi-local festival this weekend, one dedicated to, of all things, the Morel Mushroom. The weather is supposed to be non-cooperative, as usual. If it's outside and I'm signed up, Mother Nature is almost guaranteed to rain, sleet, or do a great imitation of Hemingway's three day blow. I practiced putting up my handy-dandy canopy by myself, since my "chauffeur" is fishing in Canada. Should be great.

It's often a little like Seger's descriptions of being on the road:… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 15, 2009 at 9:03pm — No Comments

Trends in Marketing

It's entertaining to watch trends in any aspect of life, I suppose, and being a writer, I observe various fads and fancies in the writing business in order to decide what works for me and what doesn't. There is the rush to do book trailers, for example, and of course, blog tours. Lately, it seems that interviewing the characters in your books as if they were real is the hot thing to do.

If I had to be totally honest (and I try to be here), I think they all sound like fun. Certainly I… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 12, 2009 at 10:34pm — No Comments

A Wasted Day...or Not

I went to an Authors' Day celebration at a library 83 miles from my home on Saturday. There were nine authors there, a few Friends members, and very few others. The only sale I saw was two of the authors selling each other their books of poetry.

In one sense, it was a wasted day. Still, I think of it as an investment. The people in that town (well, some of them) now know my name. They know about my book. They even have a bookmark, so that if the stars align just right and they decide… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 11, 2009 at 7:00am — 2 Comments

Note to Self

It started with a note from someone else, an anonymous writer who found my webpage and wrote to say how much she liked MACBETH'S NIECE. She didn't have to do that, but it was more than welcome in my life at this moment. Talk about throwing someone a lifeline!

Which reminds me of my promise to myself that I would let authors know when I read their books and found them worthwhile. I don't think it matters if you're on the top of the bestseller list or just starting out, specific,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 1, 2009 at 10:14pm — 3 Comments

Go Ask Alice, I Think She'll Know

Do you ever feel like you're in Wonderland, with the White Rabbit pulling you along and urging you to hurry, even though you're not sure where you're going or why? That's publishing.

There's always something looming that might be done, should be done, must be done. There's always a deadline. Yet it's hard to say whether it makes any difference if you get it all done and on time. No one knows for sure what works.

Keep up your website and blog on all the sites you can… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on January 19, 2009 at 10:39pm — No Comments

A Writer's Week

Little did I know when I embarked on this new career as a writer how much of my time would be spent on tasks OTHER than writing. This past week I did the following:

- Contacted a bookstore to determine the status of my payment for consignment books, then deposited the check when it arrived,

- Mailed a copy of A Real Basket Case to a Japanese publisher interested evaluating it for publication in Japan,

- Participated in a 20-author library signing event,

-… Continue

Added by Beth Groundwater on November 15, 2008 at 3:07pm — No Comments

Little Old Bag Lady, Me

Okay, I'm not very little, and I'm not that old. But I've got the bag thing covered.

My presentations have become more varied as time passes. Libraries and groups that liked the Mystery Talk want me to return, but I can't keep doing the same speech over and over. I expand my topics periodically, but new libraries and groups may still want the original speech. In order to deal with the "which speech am I getting ready for" problem, I have developed the Bag System. For each new topic I… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on October 17, 2008 at 10:15pm — No Comments

Book Promotion Ideas

In another post from my "real blog", http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/ , here's some advice on additional types of promo an author can do besides bookstore signings:

During my chat stint in the EONS Book Gallery Meet The Authors event, a fellow author asked for book promotion suggestions other than signings. I realized that my reply might help other authors, so I decided to copy it here:

There are lots of ways to use the Internet to promote books, as evidenced by this… Continue

Added by Beth Groundwater on October 8, 2008 at 9:06am — No Comments

SPECIAL OFFER for authors: video press releases

Hello fellow authors and friends:

If you expect to be sending out press releases online between now and December 30th, then please read on for a SPECIAL OFFER from a friend of mine.

I am good friends with one of the partners of 24-7PressRelease.com. Michael and I have worked together in the past and he has been very good to me over the years. In return, I like to send him new clients, particularly because I love their always expanding… Continue

Added by Cheryl Kaye Tardif on October 4, 2008 at 6:21am — No Comments

A Web 2.0 Book Launch Party

Because my friends live all over the world, I knew only a handful would be able to attend my book launch no matter where it was held. So I decided to recreate the traditional launch party experience on the Web.

Entertainment for the October 1-3, 2008 event includes video welcomes from David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, James Rollins, and Douglas Preston, a reading by a professional voice actress who's also a New York Times author, standup comedy from one of my author friends - even… Continue

Added by Karen Dionne on October 1, 2008 at 5:24am — No Comments

The Whole Blurb Thing

My wildest dream right now is that a famous author, a highly regarded reviewer, and a national newspaper will all call me within the next month and say, "We hear you have a book coming out. Can we please, please, please write a blurb for it?"

Blurbs seem to be an essential these days, but if you don't know anybody with a big name in the industry, it's hard to ask for one. I know lots of writers, but very few who write what I write. So does a historical murder author use an… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 25, 2008 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Getting Noticed

All the advisers recommend it: find a way to get noticed. They're not wrong, but it isn't easy to do. They have suggestlons, of course, some that anybody could have come up with and others that nobody would want to.

"Dress in an attention-getting way." With perfectly straight faces, I've heard people advise that you dress like your character for signings and appearances. With a not-so-perfect face, I try to be politely non-committal. Maybe some can do that, and maybe it's appropriate… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 9, 2008 at 10:23pm — No Comments

In the Flesh or On the Net?

There's a lot of discussion these days of virtual book tours vs. get-in-the-car-and-drive events. I know not what others may think, but as for me, I show up in person when possible.

A name on the net is just a name. A picture helps, live-chats help, and web cams help, but you matter more when they've met you, when you feel more like a friend and less like a presence. It's psychological, of course. We all like to feel that we're important, and when important people travel to visit us,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 5, 2008 at 10:39pm — No Comments

The black hole of promotion

As many of you may know, when promoting a book, there is no instant feedback. Usually we're promoting a book that we:

wrote years ago
sold a while ago
edited a few months ago
forgot about once it was turned in for final line edits
and now have to revisit to promote it

The entire time we're promoting it, we don't know if the promotion is effective because we won't get a royalty check for a few months, so it's hard to determine if the… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on August 21, 2008 at 9:27pm — No Comments

All That Well-intentioned Advice

People are always starting sentences with, "You should ...." I'm amazed and sometimes amused at the advice I get. The other day someone told me that I should "ask around and see if any bookstores will let me do a booksigning."

I never would have thought of that on my own!

I get all kinds of advice about using the Internet to become famous. Some of it is in the form of emails that promise I'll get thousands of hits a day. Some is from people who have a friend of a friend who… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on August 5, 2008 at 10:49pm — No Comments

Author J D Rhoades guest blogs on the topic of Marketing vs. Connecting

How often have you been invited to sit down with a published author and asked your opinion about anything?

Here's your chance, your invitation to chat with this week's MURDER BY 4 guest blogger J.D. Rhoades, author of BREAKING COVER, published in July 2008 by St. Martin's/Minotaur, and the Jack Keller series of thriller novels: THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND, GOOD DAY IN HELL, and SAFE AND SOUND, also from St. Martin 's.

His article… Continue

Added by Marta Stephens on July 25, 2008 at 10:04pm — No Comments

Authors With Egos

Most of the people I've met in the writing profession are wonderful: intelligent, helpful and fun to be around. But there's a minority who amuse and sometimes irritate: those who believe they wrote the only book(s) that will ever matter.

Most of us recognize that we're in a business where tastes vary. Along with those who love my book, I've met people who damned it with faint praise or dismissed it altogether. One woman told me recently that it was too much work to read a historical… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 21, 2008 at 11:08pm — No Comments

"height of his/her powers"

I've come to realize that whenever a book jacket describes the author as "being at the height of his (or her) storytelling powers" it's the publisher's way of saying: "This book sucks but this writer wrote a lot of good novels in the past so we had to buck up a huge advance, and now that the author is resting on their laurels we're praying this book at least breaks even." Oh, and another piece of jacket copy to keep an eye for is when they say the writer is "at the top of their game." Beware… Continue

Added by Johnny Ostentatious on July 12, 2008 at 11:00pm — No Comments

About a Writer's Confidence (R)

Exposing one's writing to the world is more terrifying than all the chainsaw massacre movies put together. Emily Dickinson said it: "How can you print a piece of your soul?" And yet, there is a compulsion in those of us who write to share that writing with others. We are tentative at first, but we can't resist handing that "piece of soul" to another person, hoping that he or she will say, "This is good." Often we're even okay with "This isn't too bad."

My first time story: I shared… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 23, 2008 at 9:48pm — No Comments

Out-of-the-blue Publicity

Yesterday a newspaper reporter called and asked if she could interview me for a feature article. Let me think about thatYES!

Marketing campaigns are tough, competition for print/radio/TV is fierce, and beginning authors aren't big news. So how did I score a feature article? Friendship. You see, a woman in the church choir I direct has a daughter in a slightly larger town who was my friend in school, way back when. The woman bought my book, read it, and then handed it off to her… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 20, 2008 at 10:28pm — No Comments