Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Allotriophagy (and a dose of what's coming up... so to speak)

If you've been following me for a while, you may know I'm galloping along through a Great Escapes virtual book tour (February 15–28) for the newest book in my Silver Rush series, THE SECRET IN THE WALL. Heads up: The tour includes a raffle, in which I'll be giving away copies of the book and Starbucks gift cards. You can enter the raffle on any of the stops, or on the main page of the tour, through the 28th. 

Speaking of Starbucks....

... In an interview I did for the Cozy Up With Kathy blog site, I bumped up against a question that was new to me: "Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry."

I readily confess I lean heavily on coffee and eatables at the "snackety-snacks" end of the food spectrum. My dependence on snack items to get me through the day now has me wondering if I suffer a bit from allotriophagy.

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This alarming 19th-century word is defined in The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard as "a strong urge or desire to eat food that is abnormal or unhealthy." Now, I don't think my particular cravings are "abnormal"—I don't have an urge to ingest baking soda, for instance, or dishwashing liquid (yuck!), examples given by the Psychology Dictionary for allotriophagy. Still, maybe I should keep a closer eye on my afternoon potato-chip binges...

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... In the meantime, I want to let you know that I'll be speaking with mystery author Donis Casey about my newest book in a Poisoned Pen Bookstore virtual event on Monday, February 28, 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Everyone and anyone is invited! The links are as follows (note that you don't need to be a "FaceBookie" to watch; there's a YouTube alternative):

• www.facebook.com/thepoisonedpenbookstore/live
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTbRuLNmD8EhT4WrGGMVW-w

If you're curious to hear me chat about my book (and maybe witness my cat take a stroll across my desk in front the camera), please join us!

Shoes, clothes, bookmarks, business cards ... into the suitcase

I'm getting ready to head off to attend Mayhem in the Midlands in Omaha, Nebraska. I try to plan ahead, but always, there is the inevitable last-minute "toss into the suitcase" business. At least, this time, I've remembered to include a camera and a notebook (so I don't have to scribble random notes on random bits of paper). My plan: take some pics and some notes and post next week with "tips" gleaned from the conference.

People sometimes ask me: Why go to a conference if you don't have a new book out yet? Isn't that a waste of time and money? In my view, it's never a "waste." I always come away with more insights into the business and with more books to read (natch!) by authors new and familiar. And, most of all, I get to submerge myself into the "world of mystery books and those who love them" ... readers, librarians, authors, booksellers ... (am I missing anyone?? :-) ).

I look at it this way: Some people drop a bundle on Disneyland, and get a charge out of riding Thunder Mountain and seeing the Magic Kingdom. Me, I get a charge out of being around books and talking with/listening to the people who read/write/sell them.

If you are going to Mayhem, be sure to look me up and say hello. I'm in three (!three!) panels on Friday, covering historical mysteries, strong women protagonists, and settings.

I will be well-armed with bookmarks, LEADEN SKIES chapbooks, and chocolate, and I don't want to take ANY of it home (after all, I have to make room for the books I buy!).

Virtual Promo . . . where's the data?

Initially I thought I'd blog about the new Star Trek movie (summary: I saw it Friday, and it was GREAT!), but my attention was snagged by a comment on an e-list regarding blog book tours and their effectiveness. Personally, I'm planning to do one myself, but as a "data geek," I have to say I'd love to see some numbers on whether they "work" or not (numbers showing effectiveness of any marketing efforts on behalf of authors being hard to come by).

Eureka!

Head on over to Southern Review and check out item #17. It seems that Jack Kilborn (aka J.A. Konrath) planned a 100 blog tour for his new horror book, Afraid. He managed 96. (Quite an impressive feat, IMHO. And I begin to wonder: Does this man sleep? Eat? Prepare dinner or do the laundry? When does he write??) The article contains a little table showing selected dates on his virtual tour and his amazon.com numbers for that day (or maybe the next day, not sure which). In general, the numbers trend upwards, meaning his book rises in rankings. Of course, I start to wonder things such as: Which blogs on what days? Does day of the week make a difference, or the topic covered, or . . .

Okay. I could drive myself crazy thinking about this.

Still, it's very interesting.

Along this line, fellow mystery author Beth Groundwater is more than halfway through her 16-stop blog tour (she's doing 23 posts, but some of her stops are two-parters), and I know she's collecting data as she goes. I'll be very interested to find out what she has discovered!

Here, there, everywhere ...

Although this title could refer to my state of mind these days, I intend it to refer to signing and event venues.

This topic is on my mind because of
1) the cold calls I've been doing
2) Jane Kennedy Sutton's recent blog on book signing venues
3) a library event I did just the other day with a panel of mystery authors (that's Dana Fredsti sitting next to me in the photo below. The other panelists were Mark Coggins and Margaret Grace)

Libraries and bookstores are, of course, the obvious venues. Sometimes it's difficult (at least for me) to think outside the box on all this, particularly when there's a new release approaching like a freight train. But I do believe it's good to be open to the possibilities that come one's way and check out what other venues folks find. In addition to Jane's excellent blog post about this, check out Susan Wittig Alberts' post on "Finding Your Niche and Filling It: Tips for Marketing Your Mystery."

I'm also going to recommend the book Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel by Jeffrey Marks. He has a chapter on "Finding Your Niche" that has some great suggestions. In addition, Marks' Murder Must Advertise website also has a page called Fresh Ideas where authors offer marketing suggestions from booksigning tips to podcasting and an entire little subsection on Twittering.

So, cozy "craft" mystery authors frequent craft shows. Authors of mysteries featuring canines "dog" specialty magazines and dog shows. Historical authors might consider historical societies and genealogy groups. Personally, I've often thought I should check out the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS), what with the "Old West" aspects of my mystery series.

Others thoughts? Anything that you've tried that's worked well for you? Venues are only limited by your imagination!

Oh, those cold calls

I'm a tad behind the curve, I think, with Leaden Skies coming out in July, but I finally settled in to doing a serious round of calling to set up events for the first month and a half after its release. For many of these, I'll be part of a "group event" (usually two or three, sometimes four authors) ... which is a great way to go about these things, in my view.

I don't know about other authors, but I really have to psych myself up to pick up that phone and call. (Usually requires a cup of coffee at hand, a pad of paper and pen for taking notes, and a bit of chocolate for encouragement and courage).

Sometimes the calls go well, and sometimes not so. On the plus side, I had three great chats today: One with the chief librarian at Lake County Public Library in Leadville about my trip up there in early August (it's all coming together, little by little), another with the editor of Colorado Central magazine (the monthly magazine for people who choose porches over porsches) and a third with Chris from Clues Unlimited Mystery Bookstore in Tucson.

Then, of course, there are the not-so-great calls. But I try to be philosophical: If someone isn't interested, that's okay, It does no good to brood. Just move on to the next one on the list.

For some great tips on how to approach newspapers and so on, I recommend reading Tips for Book Reviews by Betty Webb, on the Murder Must Advertise site. Great advice, no matter what kind of books you write!

Promo ideas gleaned from Malice Domestic

Today, my tidbit from the Malice Domestic convention has to do with promotion.

Whenever I go to conferences or other authors' events and signings (virtual or brick-and-mortar), I'm always looking for ideas and trying to gage what works and what doesn't. At this year's Malice Domestic, I had a lively post-conference conversation with new Poisoned Pen Press author Rachel Brady (her debut mystery Final Approach will be out October 2009) about different promo approaches we saw during the convention.


One of the things I always do is check out the "giveaway" table and pick up bookmarks, chapbooks, flyers, pens, calendars, sticky-note pads . . . whatever authors provide in the way of promotion to readers. I like bookmarks (they're pretty cost-efficient) as does Rachel, but when it came to trying to remember (without peeking), which ones grabbed our attention, the only ones that we recalled were those that were a little different: a bauble hanging from one end, for instance, or a different sort of design.

The other interesting promotional opportunity that the conference provided was the "Malice-Go-Round" in which attendees sit at tables (anywhere from one or two to seven or eight per table) and authors who had a book come out in the year preceding the conference moved from table to table having, at most, 90 seconds to "pitch" their books to the attendees. Authors moved in groups of two or three in an orderly way through the 20 tables. Yes, that's TWENTY tables, TWENTY times to do a pitch and connect with readers. Needless to say, I collected a ton of bookmarks, postcards, and some candy.

When Rachel asked me what stood out for me during this event, I responded promptly: "Chocolate!" But, when pressed, I admitted that I couldn't remember which authors provided the chocolate treats... After talking about it some, Rachel and I agreed that the authors we could still recall in a positive way, three day later, were those who made an effort to "see" us as individuals, not just possible buyers of their books. And, you can tell, believe me, when someone is so focused on pitching and getting you to GO TO THE BOOKROOM AND BUY THEIR BOOK that they don't "see" you. The other quality that played out positively were those authors that were simply themselves ... and here again, it's a gut feeling thing as to whether someone is donning an "author persona" or not, but particularly in situations like this where a bazillion authors are flowing past in rapid-fire order, "gut feeling" can count for a lot.

So, three promo tidbits I took away from the giveaway tables and the Malice-Go-Round:

• Be yourself.
• Engage readers as people, not just potential buyers.
• Provide the little "something different" in a promo piece that will set you aside from the rest.
• Finally, chocolate alone isn't a sure-fire way to impress yourself on readers' long-term memories (alas).

Leaden Skies gets nod from author Stephanie Barron

Wowzers! I'm interrupting my musings about Malice Domestic to share this blurb from Stephanie Barron (author of the Jane Austen mysteries) re: Leaden Skies. I'm walking on air ... without the benefit of JetBlue!

Parker’s deft evocation of a lost era in Western American history—the life of the mining boom town—and her complex characterization make Leaden Skies an absorbing read. Her final, cliff-hanging sentence will make every reader desperate for the next installment in Inez Stannert’s epic tale. A riveting historical mystery.
—Stephanie Barron

BCP

BCP is not "bizarre charged particles" (a la science) nor "booze, crime, [and] politics" (a la Leaden Skies) but

Blatant Chocolate Promotion

You see, I give away chocolate when I promote my books (if there's any left over after a signing, they often don't make it home!). So, I'm wondering what kind people like.

Hence, the survey. Over there, to the left. No, further to the left, under my photo. (If you're like me, you probably focused on the chocolate photo and went no further .... :-) ).

Yes, yes, I know, this is a lightweight post. But it's the weekend, and I'd love to see the numbers.

For tomorrow, I have an Absolutely Marvelous Map (AMM) to share with everyone. So be sure to check back then ...