Promotion

This is a blog about promotion, not a promotional blog. (Well, OK, I'll work in a little--what do you expect?)

We're just starting out to promote our short story anthology, ALL THINGS DARK AND DASTARDLY, and I'm wondering if I've learned anything from promoting my mystery novel (CHOKE) for nearly 8 months now.

Here's what I've done for CHOKE:

Lots of guest blogs

Signings at book stores (3)

Appearances at libraries (2)

A radio interview

Requested reviews, some of which have happened

(This requires giving away a lot of books)

Attending two mystery conferences since publication

Announcements on most of the lists I belong to

Twitter

Facebook

My own blog

Speaker at a local writers' group

Mention in a mystery newsletter

I attempted to get an article in my hometown newspaper to promote a local signing. That was a fail, but the town where I was signing ran my article. And the hometown paper later did an interview of me.

The most successful, as far as I can tell, were the local writers' group, one of the library gigs, the mystery newsletter mention, and the store signings. It's possible that some of the other things worked, but just not immediately so that I could measure them. I don't know if we'll try all these things, or different ones, but we'll sure try.

Now, we need to figure out how to promote the anthology. We're starting out with a few blog posts (http://www.cncbooks.com/blog/2011/10/14/crossing-over/ and http://spec-fic.rainyofthedark.com/?p=201 so far, more to come we hope), a radio interview in a couple weeks, and a signing lined up on December 3rd, 2-4 PM, at Hill Country Bookstore in Georgetown. We're attending Austin's Comic Con next week (booth 428). There will be more about that here closer to the date. Here we go!