Mystery Chats?

[Christine Duncan]

I did a couple of chats this last week--one with Novelsisterhood on coffeetimeromance and another on eons--that was sort of a chat--sort of an "event." It was unexpectedly fun, but I wondered how effective all of this is. Do you do chats to promote your mystery book or even to talk about mystery books?
Where?

[Beth Groundwater]

I, too, participated in the EONS chat, and I hope it was effective. A couple of readers said they were going to read my book as a result of the chat, and I can only hope they'll follow through. Basically, I think for your first book, you have to respond to whatever promotion opportunities are thrown your way. If anyone asks me to participate in a chat or be a guest blogger or whatever, I do it, unless it conflicts with another event.

A type of event that's proving effective for me lately, though, is in-person visits to local book club discussion groups. Since my book is set in Colorado Springs, with scenes in local restaurants, the Garden of the Gods, etc., people who live in the area are enjoying reading it. I'm doing about one book club visit a month now, and the invites are coming via word-of-mouth. I only sell a few books at each meeting, but often members have already bought copies and bring them for me to sign, or they've checked it out of the local library to read. The high rate of requests and checkouts has led the library to buy 18 copies, so I've made sales that way, too.

[Christine Duncan]

Hi Beth,
I did book club groups and talk at senior citizens centerswith the first book--but that was years back--so I'll have to figure all that out again--any hints would be appreciated since we live in about the same area.

[Beth Groundwater]

I started with the book clubs associated with various branches of PPLD, contacting the librarian POC to see if I could talk to the group. That, and going to friends' book clubs, got the word-of-mouth rolling.