Hill Country Book Store Signing

Hey friends, the All Things Writing gang will be in Georgetown tomorrow at the Hill Country Bookstore form 2-4pm. We will be selling and signing copies of our book All Things Dark and Dastardly! We'd love to see our friend, family, and fans there, so come on by.

We will have chocolate....

Also, this is a great chance to walk around the historic square at Georgetown and do some early Christmas shopping!

Hope to see you there.

It's that time of year

I'm falling behind! This blog post is a day late. And, as you can see, I don't have a well thought out topic.

Since my daughter and my 14-month-old grandson came for a week, and my son-in-law for the Thanksgiving weekend, I pretty much took the whole week off. It was worth it--at the time. But I woke up to hundreds of emails this morning, and a late blog.

Now there will be email catch-up, blog catch-up, neglected manuscript catch-up, and, somewhere in there, Christmas shopping. It's a good thing the days are getting longer--oh wait! They're getting shorter. That's not right.

I do think I'll buy a lot of books for Christmas presents, besides giving my own as gifts. It's an easy package to wrap and ship and everyone reads. OK, not everyone does, but they should.

Is it a civic duty to give books to people, even if they might not read them? Is it the socially responsible thing to do? Reading stimulates the brain, raises IQ, and staves off senility. I have no studies to prove my statements, but I make them anyway, hoping they're true.

If you need something light to read while you're waiting for your ordered books to arrive, try this:

http://www.darwinawards.com/

Just pick one or two at random. Surely the Darwin winners aren't readers!

Illustration public domain from wiki commons

Finding Ways to Promote Your Book--Women's Day Ad

I'm always looking for new ways to promote my book, Nephilim. Or any of my other work for that matter. As authors, much of that falls on our shoulders! There are lots of ways to advertise without spending a dime. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, webpages--these have become the staples of book promotions. Recently, I did a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book and absolutely loved it! Yes, it was something I had to pay for, but it did get my name out there in places I wouldn't have begun to think about, and it garnered some honest reviews about Nephilim. Has it helped sales? I'm not sure yet as I haven't gotten my publisher's statement for October.

Another great opportunity that my publisher provided me with was the chance to place in ad in Women's Day Magazine. Again, I had to pay for it, but Women's Day is a highly circulated magazine and can be found everywhere. My book, Nephilim, had a spot in the Halloween issue and also in the new Christmas issue pictured above.

 I really like the layout of the latest ad, too! Will it generate more sales? Only time can tell me that!

What have you done as an author to promote your work? How far would you go? What's too far? Since many of the followers of this blog are independent authors, I'm curious to know what promotional tools have worked for you outside of social media. Please drop a comment and share with the group!

LAST MINUTE BLOG

I'm posting this just before dashing out the door to meet an airplane. Just after dashing to WalMart for a baby car seat, rear-facing, and a lame attempt at installation. We're hoping our daughter, the baby's mother, will make the necessary adjustments.

I'm sure this is how Steve felt yesterday, making a mad dash to be on time for our radio interview, but getting lost and not quite making it. Mary Ann and I filled in and Hopeton Hay made sure we got Steve mentioned!

Hopeton ushered us into a studio room and I remarked that it was a different one than where he recorded my solo interview a few months ago. When he said this was the "live" studio, my heart stopped. Live? We're going to broadcast live?

Neither Mary Ann nor I had enough time to get as nervous as we could have, and I think it went off OK. As soon as we get the recording of it, it'll be here!

Mr. Hay, by the way, is unpaid, as are all the on air personalities at KAZI FM 88.9. It's a non-profit, community based station, run by people doing it for the love of it. I'm glad Hopeton loves mysteries and interviews authors on his Sunday afternoon show!

(Hint: books make great holiday gifts! See sidebar for ideas.)

Your Fans and You

So, as you probably noticed by now, we all went to Comic Con last weekend. While there, our booth was right down the aisle from several of the cast members of Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show. Specifically the characters Harmony, Clem, Cordy, Drusilla, and Spike. I resisted as long as I could, but soon found myself standing in line to pay $30-$40 each for a set of their autographs.

Don’t judge me.

Anyway, here’s my point. I walked away from that aisle with five signatures, and five completely different impressions of these people. For example, Cordy (Charisma Carpenter) was very nice, and sweet, and she smiled at me politely, but I really got the feeling she couldn’t wait for me to be gone. Spike (James Marsters) on the other hand, seemed to connect with everyone he talked to. At three minutes before he was supposed to sit on a panel, he didn’t seem concerned in the least that the woman in front of me didn’t have any money for an autograph and just wanted to shake his hand and talk to him a few minutes. He thanked her like she was the first fan he ever had, and he found something in her words he could use to bond with her. On a related side note, Clem (James Charles Leary) was so cool I could write an entire essay on him, but I’ll save that for another day.

So how does this relate to you? Well, most likely you are a writer of some sort. Whether you just blog, have an unhealthy twitter addiction, write short stories for magazines, self-publish, or have a best-selling novel out there, someday you will meet at least one fan face-to-face. They may be someone you went to high school with, or someone who flew across the country to stand in line and shake your hand. Either way, a chance encounter for you will be a Significant Emotional Event for them, and they will remember the nuances of that moment for a long time. Treat them like the gold they are. You touched them in some way, and your words affected them enough that they think a few seconds with you or an autograph has real worth. When you find yourself in that moment, do your best to prove them right.