Lori Rader-Day's Blog, page 14

Big winners announced

Out of all the lovely people who signed up for updates from me and were therefore in the drawing for a prize pack, I chose—my sister-in-law, Krista Wulf Day!

Now. Most of the people who signed up for emails from me were indeed family and friends, so it makes sense that a family member won the prize. But I felt a little bad about that, so I tried the random number generator again, and drew a second name for prizes, just to be fair. And—got someone I know from high school, Tim Veatch. (This might be the first time his name has ever appeared on the internet.)

Since there are basically only a handful of people I don’t know in the entries at this point, I’m sticking with it. Congrats to Krista AND Tim. I’ll be shipping you your prizes soon.

You know I have your addresses.

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New and muchly improved website

Welcome to the new and improved LoriRaderDay.com.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about my new site. The trees. Oh, the trees. And the lines from my book? Can you stand it?

Tremendous thanks to Karen Barry of Austin, Texas, the genius behind my new design. Let me tell you a little story about this design to give you the full picture. When Karen and I first started talking about what I wanted from my new site, I was clear about one thing. Mystery pages often rely on black and red as their source colors, and while I love black and red—another crime writer and I decided to call them DARKNESS AND BLOOD, our signature colors—I wanted something different. Ominous and dark, OF COURSE, but not black and red and not, especially, a black background with white text.

If you have a black background with white text, that’s your deal with the devil, but I find it hard to read and sometimes have to click off pages I really want to read because I am going blind. You take whatever you want—or not—from that.

Later, when Karen had an early draft of the site to show me, she warned me that, if I didn’t like the colors she’d used, we could certainly play around with other options. But I loved the colors, the same ones you see today.

Here’s the part that I think you might find interesting. After I said I loved the color scheme, Karen told me that the colors had actually come from zooming deep, deep, deep into my author photo and pulling samples out of the flecks of color in my eyes. THE FLECKS IN MY EYES. How’s that for charming-slash-creepy? I knew we were destined to work well together, and apparently my eyes have some violet in them, a la Elizabeth Taylor. Va voom.

Now that the site is up, I hope to blog here more regularly. Truthfully, I have a lot more to tell you these days. For one thing, I’m sitting next to a short stack of Black Hour advanced reader copies right this very minute. And somewhere in Philadelphia this very minute, there’s a stack of 100 or so of them, getting pressed on librarians from across the nation at the American Library Association’s Midwinter event. There’s a copy sitting at the Random House (Seventh Street Books’s distributor) booth with a “staff pick” placard from an RH library marketing staffer named Kelly, who just launched herself into my top five people of all time.

***Edited to add: Sign up for updates from me by midnight Eastern Standard Time Wednesday, January 29, and be entered to win a BLACK HOUR prize pack, including an advanced reader copy of the book! Sign up is on the homepage at loriraderday.com. Make sure to look for and follow-through with the confirmation email you’ll get so I can include you in the drawing!

Lots more happening in the next five months. Five. Months. That’s all, until I can finally share The Black Hour with all of you. Thank you to Karen for the beautiful site, to Scott Blackwood for introducing us, and to all of you for coming along with me.

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Self-preservation in the face of self-promotion

Today’s my day over at the Debutante Ball, and our topic is self-promotion. Hoo, boy. I mean, I found some things to say, but I suppose I could also try to, you know, say something helpful.

I wasn’t lying over at the Deb Ball about my conflicted feelings about self-promotion, but the truth is: I do it. You have to. I’m just getting started, of course, but since the first of the year, my promotion plan is a real thing. My release date is July 8. Here’s what I’m doing today, on a day off from work:

-Emailing my in-house publicity team about things like reader discussion questions for The Black Hour  (which is now available for pre-order for Kindle and Nook, and available for pre-order at your nearby local independent, just ask, yay!) and edits to my brand-new website, which launches in a week.

-Emailing the web designer I hired to get the last edits in place for the launch.

-Emailing the publisher’s marketing staff about advance reader copies (ARCs) and the e-ARC.

-Emailing an e-ARC to someone who said she’d read my book and maybe say some nice things about it, if she likes it.

-Getting up the nerve to email another author to ask that same favor.

-Emailing with other board members of my local Mystery Writers of America chapter about things we’re putting into place this year.

-Keeping an eye on Facebook and Twitter for myself and for the MWA chapter mentioned above. Also, being goofy on Facebook with friends.

-Having a secret, side conversation on Facebook with one of the other authors published by my publisher, setting up a drinks thing and also an event for the MWA chapter mentioned above.

-Reposting my Debutante Ball post here.

-Later I have to check my conference schedule and make sure I’m registered where I want to be, and have hotel rooms and flight arrangements for everywhere I’m going. I’m going a lot of places. There’s a spreadsheet.

All while my book document (the next one) is open in the background, in the hopes that when I finally close all these windows open on my desktop, I’ll get some writing done.

This is all self-promotion. Or self-flagellation, I’m not sure.

But this is where that self-preservation things comes in. In all of these acts, I’m being myself, the most generous, appreciative, open, friendly self I am. It’s all you can do. And you shouldn’t wait until you’ve got a book coming out to embrace your kindest, most helpful, most inquisitive/receiving/listening-instead-of-talking self.

Look, we all want short cuts. I feel pretty strongly about this path, though, as the long way home that is totally worth taking. You want quick tips? Be yourself. Be honest. Be generous. Be appreciative. Say thank you. Someday, pay it back.

OK, I think I’m just about to uncover that Word doc under all this other stuff. Time to get back to the only other self-promotion tip I can recommend: Keep writing.

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How to write significant detail and my plans for a meltdown

Over at the Debutante Ball this week, we’re talking about craft topics.

Not, like, crocheting—which I can totally do, by the way—but writing craft topics. You can click on over to see what the other ladies are talking about, but I liked my post on significant detail enough that I’m reposting the link here.

How to wield significant detail in fiction writing.

I’ve been a little absent here because that promised new site is almost ready to launch. EXCITING TIMES. But I promise after the new site is launched, I will make a concerted effort to keep it fresh. And listen, there are less than six months left before The Black Hour launches. For real. Like: it will be an actual book in actual bookstores and libraries.

I’m not freaked out yet, but I hear the distant rumble of an approaching storm and that storm is me hiding under the covers for about 48 hours.

Things are good. I have no complaints. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, and I get to do it. I know how lucky that makes me. So I’ll have my little freak out, oh, let’s say sometime this spring, pencil it in, and then I’ll come out from under the covers and get back to work.

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Congrats to the BECOMING JOSEPHINE winner!

Congrats to Kip Wilson Rechea, the winner of a copy of BECOMING JOSEPHINE by Heather Webb!

Kip has chosen to have her copy put on order at her local independent bookstore (I LOVE THAT OPTION!!), so it will be waiting for her for an event Heather’s doing in Concord, MA, Jan. 12.

You can see if Heather’s visiting a bookstore near you here. If not, you can always rely on Dr. Amazon. She makes house calls, and not yet with creepy-ass drones.

Congrats to Kip, and thanks to everyone who commented!

 

UPDATED TO ADD: Heather is still giving away copies of her book on Goodreads.com. Go check it out!

 

photo from http://plentyofcolour.com

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CONTEST: Win BECOMING JOSEPHINE by Heather Webb

This week is the launch of my friend Heather Webb‘s debut novel, BECOMING JOSEPHINE—and, to celebrate, I’m giving away a brand new copy of it to one lucky reader here on my site!

Simply post a comment on this blog post before five p.m. (Central) Friday, January 3. I’ll draw a winner ASAP and email the winner for shipping information. I’ll purchase your book from your online store of choice and have it shipped to you (U.S. addresses only, please), or you can select to have your book purchased and waiting for you at your favorite local independent bookstore.

Heather and I are among the 2014 class of The Debutante Ball, and it’s been a blast working on the site with her and the other Debs. We’re all so excited to finally get to launch one of our books. BECOMING JOSEPHINE is the first of our five books to hit the bookshelves. Guess which book is last? Wah-wah. THE BLACK HOUR.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading Josephine already, and you’re in for a treat. The Josephine in question, if you don’t already know, is Josephine Bonaparte. If you’re a history buff, you might know how the ending turns out, but I bet you don’t know all the twists and turns her life took before she met a dude named Napoleon. Little guy? Complex? If you like historical fiction, don’t miss this one.

So, happy launch day, Heather, and happy commenting (and reading) to the rest of you!

 

 

 

 

 

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How to quit writing

Today’s my day over at The Debutante Ball. Take a look at how I gave up writing in five years of easy, daily lessons.

I’m working on a new design for the site. In the mean time, I sort of forget that I should write some content over here. Will try to do better for those of you who’ve stuck with me. I’m at The Deb Ball every Monday, though, and the rest of the week we have a great crew of debut authors. Come over. Don’t be shy.

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Flying my nerd flag for my book cover

Guess how much I love the book cover for THE BLACK HOUR? You won’t be able to guess. REALLY nerdy.

Just read about it.

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How to find your writing tribe

My post at The Debutante Ball today is about finding your writing tribe. I found mine. How can you find yours? Five tips.

 

 

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