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...

This month I'm exploring names and their uses in writing. Today, in particular, I'd like to focus on names of places.  Whether you realize it or not, what an author chooses to call the name of a place does have an effect. It can be a way to steer a reader to or from a particular genre. Kat and the U.S. Marshal  by Celia Yeary is one example of a Western romance, accurately set in Old San Antonio, Texas. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule and any genre. What comes to mind is the movie, Cowboys and Aliens , a surprising, yet successful combination of Western and science fiction, set in the 1873 Arizona Territory, yet featuring a strange combination of aliens, spaceships, Apaches, outlaws, a gold mine, and more. For the most part, though, you want to stick with the name of a location that makes sense. For example, it wouldn't do to name a city Chicago, when the story actually takes place in England, or in a time period before America was even discovered.  The...