Getting in the Mood by Christine Duncan

I was out running this weekend, mp3 blasting away in my ear, and it happened. I heard my first Christmas carol of the season–and promptly changed the station. Now I know, Thanksgiving is over, Black Friday is done. (I ought to know; I stayed until 6 A.M. Saturday morning and came home with only a mattress pad to show for it.) It is officially the Christmas season.
And I am in no mood for it.
So I’m going to do what has worked all those other years when my head wasn’t in gear with season. I went to the library today to scout out books with a Christmas theme. In previous years, I snagged Fannie Flagg’s A RedBird Christmas in audio form because the author read it herself and it was wonderful. I also like Anne Perry’s books, like A Christmas Journey. It works like a charm every time.
This year, I have one of Debbie Macomber’s books (don’t ask which one, I haven’t opened it yet,) and I have Sherryl Woods’ A Chesapeake Shores Christmas in audio to listen to while I run. It said something about Christmas miracles. I figured I probably need one.
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The Written Word is Dead? by Christine Duncan

It happened to me again. Someone made a comment to me about my books and then told me how glad they were the books were available in paper as they absolutely hate e-books. Maybe, the reader said, if she were a kid, she would get a kindle. But she preferred the written word.

What is an e-book but the written word? Aren’t you reading written words right now? And why do people have to be so…snarky about it?
This in a week where I read (in e-form) that ebooks sales jumped 115% in January.

Frankly, although I freely admit to getting most of my news off the radio, I was immersed in written words this week to get news of Japan and Libya. They were words from Internet news outlets, and I was thrilled to death to be able to read them although I cried for the victims of the Tsunami.

Writing isn’t dead. We still have a need. The written word is not dead. And change is not all bad. C’mon people.

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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Can Promo Really Help? by Christine Duncan

I saw a post on Facebook the other week from a publicist responding to an author. I never really saw the author’s original post but I gather from the answer that he/she was lamenting because his* book was coming out this fall in the middle of a recession.
No one would buy it.
The publicist’s response was somewhere along the line of with the right advertising, books will still do well.
Maybe. In the best of all possible worlds.
Frankly, I’m thinking twice before I buy a .35 chocolate covered cherry when I stop by the 7-11 to pick up the newspaper on Sundays. (I have to buy the Sunday paper–the TV guide is in it and my husband and son are addicted to that thing. The candy–eh, I don’t need the calories anyway.) Advertising is NOT affecting my buying habits right now. If I can’t find a book at the library or in the rare really-gotta-have-it mode, at the used bookstore, I’m not buying right now. It doesn’t matter if you are throwing in freebies; it doesn’t matter if it is something I’ve been lusting after for years. I did go to see Harry Potter at the theater though it had NADA to do with advertising–at least, this year.
So here’s my question, what are you doing to get your book sold and do you really think it’s helping? Sending your book off to Oprah? Selling the book out of your cubby at work or maybe on some downtown street corner? How is it different than what you did before for promo?
Do you think publicists help?

*Okay, enough of this PC pronoun stuff I’m going with the Trad male pronoun. You feminists in the crowd can keep in mind that I am a woman myself. A lazy woman, but definitely female.

Rejection by Maryann Miller

I had one of those rare experiences recently that only happen to a writer once or twice in a lifetime.

A rejection that didn’t hurt.

 I was talking to an editor who had to turn down an idea I have for a book, but he was so nice about it, it was hard for me to remember he was saying “no.” That was such a pleasant change from the rejections that would send me reeling…

 “How dare they not LOVE my book?”

 “My life is ruined.”

 “It’s a conspiracy. I know it is.”

 Sounds a little paranoid, I know, but for a long time the only thing I had to attest to my credibility as a writer was my basic insecurity.

 Writers are insecure for a lot of reasons. Some of us were born that way, but for others it’s accumulated over the years like a fringe unbenefit.

 Not only do we have to deal with the possibility and reality of rejection on a continuing basis, we also have to work in a professional vacuum. We don’t get to discuss the latest Idol reject at the water cooler, or get some direct feedback on the day to day ac­complishments of our job. Nobody here to pat me on the back except my cat, and he’d rather sleep in front of my monitor.

 Sometimes this isolation is so intense, I feel like I’m in the middle of a desert, and one kind word about my work can be as refreshing as a drop of nectar.

 This morning I got a whole six pack of refreshment. Not only did this editor give me one kind word, he gave me another, and another, until my head was practically swimm­ing in nectar.

 We all know that we write because we think we have something to say, hopefully, something important and meaningful. Even when we get discouraged, we seem to still be drawn to the keyboard, if the cat will let us,  to impart some other words of wisdom or finely crafted prose.

 But if that was all there was to it, we wouldn’t care if our words ever saw print. And I have yet to meet a writer who didn’t care. It’s good to want to say all those nice things, but the whole process would undeniably be meaningless if no one was ever going to read what we write. 

The added bonus comes when someone reads the work and thinks it’s good. Or bet­ter yet, great, wonder­ful, fantastic and ter­rific. 

Family members don’t count since they may be more than a lit­tle prejudiced, especial­ly if they think dinner may hang in the balance.

 

Maryann Miller
www.maryannwrites.com

 

A diverse writer of columns, feature stores, short fiction, novels, screenplays and stage plays, Maryann Miller has won numerous awards including being a  semi-finalist at the Sundance Institute for her screenplay, A Question Of Honor.  Her work has appeared in regional and national publications, and the Rosen Publishing Group in New York  published her non-fiction books for teens, including the award-winning Coping with Weapons and Violence  In School and On Your Streets. A novel, One Small Victory, was released from Five Star in June 2008. Play It Again, Sam is a July release from Uncial Press as an e-book. Other experience includes extensive work as a PR consultant, a script doctor, and an editor.  She is currently the Managing Editor of WinnsboroToday.com, an online community magazine. She has been writing all her life and plans to die at her computer.

 

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.

Precious Things

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My copy of Wind in the Willows was given to me by my father when I was very young. He loved that story, and soon I did too. When I was young, I could never understand why Toad wasn’t allowed to behave how he wanted. As I got older, I understood, but I secretly sympathized with him. I never understood the chapter ‘Piper at The Gates of Dawn’, and used to skip it, until I got older, ater’s first appearance, and then had to give the book back. I saved up my lunch money to buy my own copy – a cheap, £1.99 copy, tiny, with flimsy pages. I’ve often thought of swapping it for a brand new copy, with an introduction and notes, but there too many memories of escaping into its onion skin pages when the world was cold and dark to get rid of it.

I bought my copy of Danny The Champion of the World at a jumble sale, when I was around 9. It’s not as quirky, or as funny as Roald Dahl’s other books, but it’s my favourite. I read it again and again. It’s kind of gentle and strong, and makes me cry. When I bought a brand new box set of Roald Dahl, I got rid of my tatty copies of James and The Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – but I couldn’t throw away my copy of Danny. I loved it too much. Every time I hold it, I remember running out of the house, finding a tree to sit under – or preferably in – and nd now I think it’s beautiful. I still have the same book. It’s old and battered now, and I think if my house was burning down, that’d be the first thing I saved.

When I was 14, the school offered us a choice between studying Jane Eyre or Great Expectations, and we were offered a choice of books to take home and read for one night. I chose Jane Eyre. I’d got to Mr Roches disappearing into Danny’s world.

I bought my copy of a Christmas Carol a few years ago. It’s bound in faux green leather, with gold tooling. Its pages are facsimiles of the original edition, with the illustrations and page headings. It’s exactly the right size and feel to sit on the sofa with, a cup of hot chocolate by my side, sobbing and laughing my way through, just before Christmas.

Books are precious.

Books in the news

. There were a few news stories about books that caught my attention this week. One was HMV saying it was losing money, and they blamed it on their books division, Waterstones
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7776873.stm. I used to live and work in a town without a bookshop, but now I work in Twickenham, which a lovely, tiny little Waterstones. It’s just the right size for a lunchtime browse, the staff are friendly and helpful, and they have books there I’ve never seen in larger Waterstones. It’s an utter joy for me to be near a bookshop now, as nothing quite beats wandering a bookshop, glancing over titles that catch your eye, and picking up books you’d never have noticed in Amazon. I’ll be heartbroken if HMV closes it, especially as personally, I think their sky high DVD and CD prices are to blame, not the books.

Then there was the article about what people say they read to impress others. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7776046.stm. Apparently many people lie about they are currently reading to impress others, and the most impressive thing to read is Shakspeare. Personally, I’d be impressed by any man who admitted he does read, instead of loudly announcing he’s far too busy to be bothered by such a waste of time as books. (In case you will be impressed – I’m currently reading 3 books – The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory, Sovereign Ladies by Maureen Waller and Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir. I’m on a bit of a Tudor kick at the mo.)

And finally, an interview with one of my favourite authors, Philip Pullman. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7774176.stm. The questions are put by readers of his books, and its a very illuminating and fascinating interview – especially when he is asked about readers intrepreting his books, where he says ‘Once a book is in your hands, ITS INTERPRETATION BELONGS TO YOU. You can read it in any way you like, and take away any meaning that makes sense to you. ‘. That’s exactly what I always thought about books too!

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?

Meme??

I’ve been tagged by Helen Ginger to tell six book related things about myself.

1. My to-be-read pile consists of E-books, audio books on the Mp3 and paper books by my couch in the living room. I don’t know how people get through chores and workouts without a good audio book to focus on during the boring/grueling parts and a back lit e-book is the ONLY way I can read in bed, since my eye doctor insists I not sleep in my contacts.

2. I am a contributer to Robin Bayne’s devotional book for writers, Words to Write By

3. I HATED Nancy Drew books as a child. (Something NO mystery writer ever really admits to.) My older sisters left a stash of them in the attic and I tried to plow through them, but I never even figured out what a “roadster” was, and my brothers laughed at me when I asked.

4. On the other hand, I loved Louisa Mae Alcott and Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and still do.

5. I wanted to have a bookshelf in every room of my house–but managed to restrain myself when it came to the bathroom.

6. I was one of those disgusting parents who read to my children in the womb.

Okay, who to tag, who to tag?

All right, fellow Coloradan, Beth Groundwater,
Karen Duvall
Lillie Ammann
Georgie B
Jean Henry Mead
Robin Bayne

Okay, Taggees, this is your challenge, should you decide to accept it:

The rules to play are easy:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random bookish things about yourself.
4. Tag sixish people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know he or she has been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.