Getting Your Books Out There

Both my computer and I were out of commission last week, me with a stomach bug and insomnia, the PC with a sticky switch, a bad memory, and other age-related ailments. I take comfort knowing that something in my house is showing more signs of age than I am. Anyway, since writing wasn't an option, I worked on publicity.

Many unpublished writers imagine that the end of the writing process is seeing their books in print. Or if they think about selling their books at all, they imagine book signings where all they have to do is show up and smile. Someone else, surely, will make posters and do the advertising. And the readers would love nothing better than to skip a night of vegging in front of the TV to meet an honest-to-Pete author, right? They'll show up in droves.

Nothing is more discouraging to the finishing of a second novel than the realization that hardly anyone is buying/reading the first one. And chances are, as a first-time novelist, folks who've never heard of you aren't going to go out of their way to help you get that book under the noses of readers (at least until they read it and love it themselves). You've got to start thinking in terms of advertising, marketing, incentives, and name recognition.

I'm no expert on publicity. Even after 4 published books, I find I'm still experimenting with what works. Yet, I could probably write a year's worth of blogs on the subject. One thing I do know--you have to get out and meet your potential readers. Join your local Sisters in Crime chapter. Team up with other authors to do joint book tours and signing events. Volunteer at your local library or senior center to speak on a topic you know well. Go to one or 2 book conventions a year if your budget can stand it. Go anywhere you think potential readers will congregate.

Remember, readers hang out in cyberspace all the time. Join listserves like DorothyL. Get yourself a Facebook profile, at least, and actually post to it once a week--don't just let it sit there idle. You don't want readers who do find you to give up, seeing that the last time you posted was Christmas 2006. Network through it with other writers (though, be friendly--stalking will NOT sell your books). You can also list your events there and link them to your website. Put a Facebook badge on your website so you can be found.

Write a weekly blog on a topic you know well. Link it to your website and have it send an update to your Facebook page each time you blog. Use the site www.booktour.com to list your signings, then link that to your website.

These are just a few avenues of publicity open to the writer and these won't break the bank. They DO take some creative time away from your writing, but unfortunately, marketing isn't a luxury. The more creative you can be about it, the more you can keep to your budget and the more you sell.

My project this week? I put up a fan page on Facebook for my most popular character, Miss Maggie, called "Miss Maggie (Magnolia Shelby) & Friends." My intention is to post recipes from the books, my signing and speaking events, news about my next book, a link to this blog, and whatever else I can think of that might be interesting or series-related. The more entertaining I can make it--and the more active I keep it--the more fans I hope to pick up. If they haven't read my books, maybe they'll give me a try.

If you'd like to take a look at Miss Maggie's page, click here or on the badge in the lefthand column. You don't have to be a member of Facebook to browse through it.

Enjoy!

Peace,
Elena

A Parody That's Good For The Heart

Time for a break from my usual yawp about writing.

My protagonist, Pat Montella, loves to cook. Since so many other authors have food-related blogs, I feel obligated to add my voice to the cacophony.

Here's something Miss Maggie likes to sing while Pat's whipping up a batch of fagiole. The song is from that famous movie Gentlemen Prefer Beans:

A beet in the pan may be quite continental
But legumes are a cook's best friend.
A beet may be canned but it won't taste like lentil
in a three-bean soup,
Or navies in brown sugar goop.

Meat goes cold and meals grow old,
Even cheese will grow mold in the end.
But lima or kidney, from Stockholm to Sydney,
Legumes are a cook's best friend.

Peace,
Elena

Memorial Day

I posted this last year on Facebook for Memorial Day. It's just as appropriate this year. They're still haggling over the fate of the Wilderness Battlefield. We're still fighting wars.
____________________

In my first book, Pat asks Miss Maggie if she's against all the development around the Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia. Miss Maggie says she's against the very grass, because the grass grows over battlefields, heals them, and stops us from being able to picture what really happened there. We forget how awful war is and we do it again. I stole Miss Maggie's thoughts from Carl Sandburg in his poem "Grass":

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
...
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What is this place?
Where are we now?
...

Last night I heard that Walmart is building a 141,000 sq. ft. superstore right in Miss Maggie's backyard, on the Route 3 dividing line between Chancellorsville and Wilderness, right about where the rear of the union line was located. If you want to find out about this latest fiasco of greed over meaningful history and what you can do, check out www.civilwar.org/walmart08. At this point, it looks like Walmart's going to win.

Up on this side of the Mason-Dixon, we around Valley Forge have been fighting the building of a hotel and other development on top of the Continental Army's commissary site during the winter of 1777-78.

What is it that makes local officials want to give away the best of our historical sites--the places from which we and future generations have the most to learn--to money-grubbing giants who won't even have the grace to leave a few dollars of their profit in our own local economies? Why do we do this to our most sacred American places?

Maybe Sandburg's poem has another side -- maybe we WANT our history covered. Most of it isn't as pretty as we'd like. Especially the battlefields. Then again, if the grass didn't do its work, I'm betting that humankind would have given up war long ago.
_________________

Peace,
Elena

Please Don't Kill Off Miss Maggie!

Last week, PBS's Independent Lens aired the documentary "Young @ Heart" about a chorus of seniors, average age about 81. The trailer for this film (link below) begins with a solo by a feisty 92 year-old woman. When I saw it I thought of Miss Maggie--that is, Magnolia Shelby, the 91 year-old sidekick character in my series.

My first novel, By Blood Possessed, was originally going to be a stand-alone, that is, I wasn't thinking of a continuing series when I wrote it. Still, when an editor says "We love your book. You're going to do it as a series, aren't you?" answering no isn't an option.

Putting a 91 year-old in a single book is no big deal, but a series is another matter. I considered taking a couple decades off of Miss Maggie before publication. Problem was, much of Pat's early motivation in the book comes from the fact that Miss Maggie is a nonagenarian. And frankly, much of Miss Maggie's character grows from the fact that she experienced so much of the 20th century. But I never dreamt that Magnolia would become such a popular character, and that more fan mail would mention her than Pat, often with the plea "Please don't ever kill off Miss Maggie!"

So I told myself, I'll just make the timeline of the series move rather slowly. That way Miss Maggie won't age quickly. At the same time, of course, I have to balance "Cabot Cove syndrome"--how many murders should one expect in a small village within one year? But hey, folks, this is fiction. If you want entertainment, you have to help the author out by playing along.

In her autobiography, Agatha Christie said that her biggest regret about Hercule Poirot was that she'd made him elderly to begin with. She didn't feel as strongly about Miss Marple, I guess because she was supposed to be old anyway. Think about it, Miss Marple is described as a white-haired woman wearing Victorian garb (black-lace mittens!) in 1925, yet she's still solving crimes nearly fifty years later.

The most difficult aspect I find of writing about the elderly is trying to remember how physically fragile they can be. A simple fall can end up being fatal. In Miss Maggie's own mind, she's still young. In fact, Pat often remarks that living with her is sometimes like minding a precocious tot. But Miss Maggie also takes stairs one tread at a time, her legs get stiff if she sits too long, she's supposed to stick to a heart-healthy diet, and she takes meds. I have to be careful to keep these physical limitations consistent. She obviously isn't going to go running after the bad guy. That's actually what makes her appealing to me. She has to solve problems with brains alone.

So take a look at the "Young@Heart" trailer. If I'm half that alive in 35+ years, I'll be happy.

http://www.youngatheartchorus.com/film.php

Peace,
Elena