Branding? Don’t They Do That To Cows? by Christine Duncan

In my never ending search for a way to market my mysteries, I keep coming across the concept of branding. The idea seems deceptively simple yet I find it hard to narrow it down to one sentence. Part of it seems to be that everything you do should be done with the idea of getting your name out. So use your name.

Are you on Twitter as Reader, on Dorothy L as Agatha C. and on your blog as Anonymous? Then you are not taking advantage of branding. You need people to see you and recognize you on all these places (and where ever else you hang out) so that they will be interested, remember your name, buy your books.

Along with this goes the rather old fashioned idea that you don’t do anything in public (the internet, your facebook page, your bookgroup) you can’t write home about. Don’t go on Goodreads and offend folks with your bad manners and language. Don’t go on Facebook and badmouth your publisher, your bookcover or your granny. Moms of the world are applauding loudly. Haven’t they been telling us this all along?

In other words don’t brand yourself as an idiot.

And if there is something unique about you and your work–trumpet that. But not so much that folks get sick of hearing it, if you can figure out where that dividing line is.

Some of this seems like plain common sense to me. Then again, I AM a mom. And we’ve all heard of folks who have had bad consequences from behavior online that was less than well thought out.

But it all seems so artificial. And I’d rather look for a way to really connect. Branding. Like a brand name. Like a product. Like I’m not really a person at the other end of the blog-o-sphere from you. It makes me feel like that cow.

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Holiday Promo by Christine Duncan

I know a lot of writers who are revving up for the holidays. Some of them are offering their books as gift-wrapped bundles at special prices. Some of them are doing special holiday contests on their blogs. Many romance writers seem to do this one, and often it involves readers going on a bit of a blog tour as the writers do a group contest. One woman I know is gearing up to sell her books at Holiday craft sales.

I have done the holiday contest thing. It was fun, but I didn’t really see an uptick in sales. As for the special price on both of my books, gift wrapped, I don’t think my publisher would be too happy.

I haven’t done the holiday craft shows mostly because the only local craft shows that I know about seem to involve art juries deciding who gets to participate. Still I’m going to look into it, because the writer who is doing it seems to have a pretty good success rate at it.

So what am I doing? I’ll be doing a podcast on Monday at 5:00 central on Murder, She Writes and I’m hoping to do a bit more blog touring. I’m still trying to arrange some local things.

The thing is, not much in the way of advertising is going to influence my buying patterns this year. I’m going to be fairly practical and very frugal (read that as cheap.) In a year where many of us had to stretch to pay the mortgage, I’m thinking I won’t be alone. But hey, I’m always open to any suggestions on promo.

Social Networking–again by Christine Duncan

Again, all of my on-line book discussion groups seem to be filled with talk of where to network. This time, we are all exchanging our Twitter names and the groups are filled with people who can tell you what ap to use to update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the like all at once so you don’t have to take the time to go to all.
It is so very…efficient. And I admit to using aps like Ping.fm and Twaitter when I’m busy so that they will do the work for me. But I miss the interaction this way. I don’t really connect with people if all I’m doing is doing a quick update of my status. I have begun calling the whole deal MYFACE, because it is all so narcississtic. Yet I do it. And there is no doubt in my mind that I’ll get on Twitter again, probably today and tweet: Read My Blog, I got a Great Review on Myshelf, or just–Read My Book.
I really liked June Shaw’s comments about promoting on this blog. I believe we need to promote. I just miss the people part of it. Sigh. Is there a solution?

Blog Tour Posts

Just in case I haven’t griped enough about the blog tour I’m doing, I have found another drawback to the whole thing. It is difficult to come up with so many different posts that showcase my writing voice. Now don’t get me wrong–I have no illusions that I have an unbeatable voice. But I do have a voice and if I am doing one of those, 3 ways to conquer writer’s block type posts, I am so bored myself that the voice is lost. (This is not meant to put down the people who can write those kinds of posts–only an awareness of my own limitations.)
After all, the point of doing a blog tour is show readers that they will want to read my stuff. I myself, started reading Donna Andrews and a couple of other mystery writers because I liked their blog posts. The ones I liked and whose books I searched for, talked to their readers about everything under the sun and did it with humor and grace.
So I know I can’t get away with a post that just says read Safe Beginnings And although a lot of my blog tour host sites are aimed at writers, the posts that I’m just now finding out to be effective don’t have as much to do with writing as with revealing something about my writing and me. (which sounds so ego-centric, doesn’t it?) Why I wrote the books, interviews with the character, and facts about domestic violence in our society tend to make me more passionate and I think that’s why it works better. On the other hand, standard interview questions about me (Ms. Duncan, have you always wanted to write?
Um, well, yeah, doesn’t everybody?) don’t work for me. I become tongue tied–or writing blocked or blank posted or something.
If you are just now planning a blog tour, I recommend that you spend a week trying the whole thing out and test posting. You’ll see what I mean. Meanwhile, I’m back to agonizing over guest posting.
Who knew this would all be so complicated? A real book tour (given some money, which I don’t have) is beginning to look good.

Blogbook Tour Update

I’m beginning to think a blogbook tour is actually a mental health challenge. If you make it through without being certified, you are good for life. If not….well there are some nice facilities for mental rehab nowadays.
Today’s post was supposed to be a calm update about my blog tour which kicked off Sunday. I was going to tell you how I got it all together, had all the posts written, the links up, and was now just waiting for comments.
You guys all know me better than that now, don’t you?
First off, the book is not out yet. We were waiting to get the blurb from a review, but then the reviewer needed it edited. Then the reviewer’s editor wanted a live link on Amazon or Borders or some other online bookstore, which ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN UNTIL THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED which we don’t want to do until we have the review. (it is on Fictionwise and Amazon as an e-book with my other pub, but that apparently wasn’t enough.) You see the circle?
Okay, so no print book yet since I can’t see my way out of the circle and neither can my publisher apparently. But I do have the tour lined up all the way into the beginning of June. And I have the posts written (okay, most of them. You folks who are waiting for the first week of June posts–I’m working on them. As soon as I get this post written and the one written for MakeMineMystery for the last Thursday in May and the intro post for our guests here, oh and I have to tweet and put updates up on Facebook and myspace and crimespace bout Linda Faulkner visiting here tomorrow. Okay, it’s not probably going to happen today–but I’m working on it.
I do have the first part of the tour schedule up on my website. and I’m going to list it on Goodreads and FB events and anywhere else.
Should we have a pre-order link do you think? Maybe something tasteful up on the pub’s website? Or just keep going on the blogtour until the book is actually out?
I can practically hear Narelle. Breathe in, Christine.

Tweeting

I’m in a bad mood today. First off, Twitter is slow. Glacially slow. Most updates are taking 15 minutes or more to show up. Which wouldn’t matter except that I’m trying to figure out all the Twitter apps. I use Ping.fm to update twitter and a couple of other sites like facebook and myspace. But not often because it somehow seems easier just to tweet.
I also use Twitterfeed. That’s easier because I haven’t had to do a thing since I set it up. Basically, it feeds the first few lines of this blog to Twitter when something changes–like when a post is new. So everytime we write, Twitter is getting the feed and tweeting it for us.
But I keep seeing the Twitter ap on Firefox(what is it, Twitterbar?), thinking maybe I should use it to speed myself up. The problem with anything on Firefox is they keep updating the dang things and expecting me to do the update. Way too time consuming.
And for a while I was using Netvibes, which is a blog aggregator because I could update Twitter there while I was checking all of my favorite blogs, but that took forever to load on my slow dial up connection.
I keep hearing good things about Tweetdeck. It is supposed to help you find groups, I guess.
Here’s the thing, folks, I don’t have time to keep up with all these applications that are supposed to save me time. And I’m kind of wondering if I even want to anymore.
But then again, I’m a bit of a geek. So I’ll probably keep it up. Sigh, anybody know of an app that will write a blog post for me?

Promo, Promo, & More Everlasting Promo

As I get closer and closer to the print release date for Safe House the promo tasks begin to seem overwhelming. It didn’t help that I was locked out of Twitter this week for having clicked on the wrong direct message.  I had to start a new account, find all the people I had tweeted with before, and start over. And I thought social networking sites would save me time connecting with others.

I have also been sending out ARCS for review.  This is also a time consuming process, just figuring out who to send to and when. Some review sites, like Foreword and Kirkus want ARCS months beforehand, some want them on publication (Midwest Book Review is one of them.) Meanwhile, I’m looking for blogs who will host me for a blog tour, and putting together an email press kit to mail to book stores in my area to try to arrange signings and talks.  Which means I need to figure out what to talk about and how not to stammer and stutter my way through the talks. I have started a database list of radio shows that I will also send to.

I have said publicly and on other blog posts that this time I was giving myself permission to take time to promote and to not be obsessed.  I LIED.

I am a perfectionist.  I am not able to cut myself that much slack.   I am more and more aware that authors have to sell this book to be able to get the next one published.  And my next book is my favorite so I really want to get it published. So I want to do it ALL. If I only knew what it all is and how to do it.

What are you doing for promo? And why do you think it’s a good thing? C’mon, give me a clue–I could use one.

Stop Me Before I Print Again

As many of you know, I am gearing up for the print release of Safe House, the second book in my cozy mystery series.  This past week (month, eon) I have been sending out ARCS.  But first I had to print the darn things up myself, since getting them made somewhere was NOT in the budget especially this close to Christmas.  (If you are at this point in your promo and want directions, just leave me your email addy–I’ll send you the directions.)

Then I had to print up things for the media kit, like the sell sheet (important because it has all the info on the book there such as ISBN, what kind of book–trade paper, hard bound etc, and publishing date .)  I printed out a press release, my business cards, and a bio.  The bio was a real fun project because my husband wanted me to include a sentence that said something like this: Christine Duncan is a Colorado mystery writer whose books are set in a battered women’s shelter, but her husband wants the world to know, it’s not because of anything HE did!

At this point, I have been printing out so much stuff, I don’t know how to stop.  I am looking for another full-time printing project.  I have carefully considered printing out some t-shirts.  This is complicated by the fact that 1. I don’t have the cover art for the print book yet.  (I’ve done a t-shirt for the e-version)and 2. the only place I would wear such a t-shirt is out running, and right now, any shirt I wear running is covered up by a sweat shirt and 2 hoodies to keep me warm in a pretty typical Colorado winter.  Add to that, I usually see more foxes, bunny rabbits, and even deer  in my run through the park, these cold winter mornings than I see people, and you see the usefulness of the t-shirt.   Just about nada.

I would do bookmarks, but oh yeah, see point #1 above.

The other thing that struck me again, this week, is just how much has changed since the last time I did this.  Many places where I sent ARCS for the first book are out now–such as the Drood Review.  Anybody with any suggestions besides the obvious:  Booklist, Library Journal, Foreword,  Mystery Scene? (Oops, violated the rule of three there!)

Apparently some parts of promo could be addictive.  Who knew?

Remedial Class on Social Networking 101?

Okay, I get that we should network on Goodreads and Facebook and Crimespace and whatever.  I do it.  And I would do Goodreads and Crimespace anyway, because I like them–I want to find more books to read for my own reading list. And I want to talk about mysteries, so it makes me feel virtuous to actually like what I’m supposed to do.  I even kind of like Myspace-which is a good thing since I “met” Narelle and Michelle there.

I could do a whole other blog post on my feeling about how we’re all promoting to each other on these places.  But if I did that now, it would be to avoid how uncomfortable I feel with this whole promo thing.

For instance, what do you say when people add you as a friend on social networks and mention your book and say–”Oh, it looks good”–or “I’m thinking of adding it to my TBR list.”  I’ve been just saying thanks.  Frankly it blows me away a little but mostly I don’t like it when people go on and on about their books.  We’re not all sitting on Facebook waiting for someone to promote to us.  Is there something that sounds a little more articulate than just thanks that falls short of making people feel like they’re reading one long ad?

One author I know, thanks the “friend” for adding “this S/F writer” to their friend list and then recommends all of her own books.

This is one of those line drawing things where we have to decide personally what promotion we’re willing to do and what we can’t.  I can talk about why I wrote the books or how to promote, or the ins and outs of e-publishing in front of honest-to goodness-real people, something I never knew before I got published.  If you had told me I could do public speaking, I’d have fainted away at the very idea.  But I do it.  (Nobody is actually telling me I’m good at it, mind you-but I don’t faint.)  I can do radio interviews on the same subjects but I view it with pretty much the same air of shock.

Yet, I still don’t know how to respond when an acquaintance says, “oh, by the way, I will be reading one of your books.”  Other than, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.  And off in the distance where I’m hoping I can’t be overheard, a heart felt “Whooooeee!”

I’ve had people tell me they liked my mysteries and had less trouble responding.  My mama did teach me some manners.  I can say thank you.

I’ve seen other authors just say sincerely, “Enjoy!”  Or “Hope you like it” They sound genuine and sweet.  The words never cross my mind at all.

I don’t talk much about writing to offline friends or acquaintances.  The conversations we have are more apt to be about gardening, our struggles with our faith or our kids.  So any mention of writing usually takes me out of the blue.  Recently, my BFF introduced to me someone as a writer, and I stared at her.  Yes, I knew she knew I did that.  I’d told her.  Hadn’t I?

So how do you respond when someone talks about your books?  How do you promote on those social networks?  And where did you learn it?  Can I take a class?

Promotion: A Whole ‘Nother Thing

Since I now have a tentative publishing date for Safe House, my second mystery to come out in print, I’m gearing up for promotion–and finding that the whole ball game has changed since the first book, Safe Beginnings came out.
First off, learning how to promote after the solitary act of writing requires a whole different mindset. You have to be available on so many fronts when you promote. Bigger publishers put the book out for review and maybe (if you’re lucky) get you an ad somewhere. My publisher is small so it’s all on me. I have to decide if I will make the advanced readers copies (Help!) that I send out for review myself or if I will go to Lulu and have them made (Anybody got an opinion?). I have to keep track of deadlines. Who requires the book four to five months before publication–or no review? Who will take it after publication?
I’ve already had a mystery website or two contact me about getting a page on their sites for advertising. I have to pay for that from my own pocket of course. Just as it’s up to me to get a website, maintain it, have a presence on mystery related groups like yahoo’s mystery most cozy and on mystery forums like Crimespace and to blog regularly enough to keep my name in some search engine somewhere. And should I do a blog tour? What about chats?
This is apart from lining up booksignings and discussions in the real world and having a life and a job and a family. Like most writers, I knew all of this going in. But I wanted to write anyway.
But this world of promotion and push is a long way from the world of creativity and craft that we usually talk about here. Is writing too commercial now? Could you write if no one ever read it? Or is that just defeating the purpose?