Brutal Season the fourth book in my Seasons Mystery Series made its digital debut on April 10, and long before the release I was working on marketing and promoting, hoping to give it a big boost when it launched. So much of a successful book launch depends on luck, popularity, and marketing skills, and not every writer - certainly not this one – excels in the marketing department. Still, I did my best to develop a plan for this book.   After finishing the writing, and my own self-editing of the manuscript, things were set in motion for getting some pre-pub ducks in a row - cover art design, editing, requesting blurbs from other authors and getting ARCs to them, and formatting. Then I made a calendar of when each task would be completed. This process started in mid-January, and I jumped ahead several months to choose a release date, giving the various professionals plenty of time to hatch their individual duck. Once there was a working cover image, the book was listed for pre-...

Note: Contest 1 closes midnight March 9th . Contest 2 closes on March 17th. Scroll down for more details. Many writers don't enjoy the marketing and promoting side of the business of being an author. Myself, included. Those first steps in the overall process - the writing - creating characters - coming up with a plot - finding the perfect setting - and then ending up with a finished novel - are the most satisfying. As Neil Gaiman, who writes the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline , and The Graveyard Book  says, “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” Still, we have to promote if we want our books to rise in the rankings at Amazon - the giant retailer that controls so much when it comes to book sales and a force in the business that we can't ignore. There are millions and millions of books listed on Amazon and where does ours land in that mix? Unless an author i...

I have to admit I am not a hoarder of book advertising merchandise. Every month charities inundate our mailbox with with canvas totes, mailing labels, note pads, pens, calculators, blankets, pins, calendars, greeting cards, even nickles and dimes. However some readers love them. And they must be somewhat successful or the charities wouldn't keep sending them. 1. Should you include merchandise items as part of your marketing strategy?   It depends.   Do you make personal appearances (pre-quarantine and hopefully again post-quarantine)? Do you go to conventions, writer meetings, book clubs? Do local independent bookstores or libraries allow you to display items along with your book? Do you have a mailing list? Do you hold contests and raffles and giveaways? Can you afford it? There may or may not be a return on investment. You may want a few instead of hundreds. The allure of  Free Stuff Christmas is only three months away, so they also make terrific present...

After we write our book and get a publishing contract, or publish it ourselves, the really hard work of marketing and promoting takes over our lives. We invest in some advertising and do a lot of social media marketing, but sometimes it feels like we're throwing wet pasta at the wall to see what will stick. It's often a crap-shoot when it comes to seeing a return on investment in terms of actual sales, not to mention all the time we put into these endeavors - time that we are not using to write that next book. When it comes to getting books into the hands of readers, most publishers and indie authors target book stores. After all, that's where people go to buy books unless they buy from online retailers. But what about other brick-and-mortar stores? For a short time I was connected with a group that held signings at Kroger grocery stores in 2012.  When I first heard about those, I was surprised at the idea of selling books along with the lettuce, but I thought, what t...

Photos by Cara Lopez Lee An arborist came by our house yesterday to diagnose our ailing orange tree, and he informed me that the aging tree has too much unplucked fruit, too many branches, and not enough food. I never met a citrus fruit or a metaphor I didn’t like, so let’s see if I can untangle my thoughts on Amazon the way I untangled excess branches on my little tree today: When my memoir, They Only Eat Their Husbands , was first published in 2010, I listed more than 50 promotional ideas, all of which one pro or another insisted were musts for authors who craved success. I knew I’d never get to it all, but I did what I’m doing with my orange tree: starting with one task today, scheduling another tomorrow, another next week, and so on. Perhaps the most critical thing I’ve learned about marketing is that if you and your product are not yet famous, your first task is to narrow your targets: target audience, targeted marketing ideas, targeted networking, etc. You cannot...

On my book tour, friends invited their friends to parties and threw me into the mix as an attraction. Photo by Cara Lopez Lee Before I landed a publisher, I established a platform for my memoir, They Only EatTheir Husbands (Conundrum Press, 2014). In fact, my original publisher said my platform was part of what decided him to sign me—on top of my killer manuscript of course. My book was about my life and loves in Alaska and my solo trek around the world, with a theme of moving from dysfunctional relationships to self-actualization. Successful entrepreneurs have taught me the importance of focusing on a narrow target market rather than trying to appeal to everyone. My goal for my memoir has been to target readers interested in: travel, women’s empowerment, alcoholism, and abusive relationships. I’ve sought to achieve that goal through less conventional events and tours. In that vein, I started Girls Trek Too, which was both an adventure blog and a series of independent-travel...

There’s a saying: Go big, or go home . That’s great to say if your goal is to pump someone up, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with “going small.” Going small can actually help you in many activities, to include marketing your book. Buy Local image by Stuart Miles with FreeDigitalPhotos If you want to market your book, start in your own backyard. Why go local when marketing your book? Well, you know the area, you more than likely already know people who could be a benefit to you and your book, and you might find yourself paying little to nothing for the endeavor! Where do you start when “going local”? There are several places, depending on your hometown: Contact Local Media, Big and Small Newspapers When I first moved to SW Louisiana to pursue my MFA, I didn’t tell people that I was a published author (long short story). When it was discovered, almost immediately, I was being interviewed for our local newspaper. The press would be good for not only me a...