An Amazing Start
I’m sitting here in awe. Awe at my co-authors for their intelligence. For their guts (bravery if you want). I am, of 
course, talking about the other authors of Tales From The Mist, the anthology I’ve been working on and have just published with eleven other authors. And I’m wondering how I could have been so stupid not to have thought of or done this same thing with my own book’s release?
It is, of course, the pre-hype and reviews and quotes we are getting for the anthology. It’s amazing!! Yes, we wrote an amazing book filled with terrific, creepy to scare-the-pants-right-off-you stories. But, if I may be a little modest just now, Magic In The Storm isn’t a bad book. It’s a fun story, not badly written. I’ve gotten some very good reviews of it – months after I released it. And that’s the kicker. I started asking for reviews when I released it. I should have done so about a month, maybe even two months before hand. That’s what we did with the anthology.
Not only that, but my co-authors, with contacts in the horror genre asked people they hardly knew – other horror writers – for cover quotes. Those quotes carry a lot of weight! Those quotes are like gold! I could have done that for Magic In The Storm. I’m friends with a number of big name historical romance authors. Why didn’t I even think of doing that?
Well, to be honest, even if I had thought of it, I don’t know that I would have had the guts to impose on friends like that. But I should! The worst that can happen is that they’d say no, right? There wouldn’t be any hard feelings on either side. And if they said yes, I’d have amazing quotes with which to promote my book!
Another outcome of asking those horror writers to give quotes, is that not only did they give quotes, but one of them, the very kind and generous TW Brown, is even hosting a number of us on his own blog! He’s giving us his backing and his fan’s attention. That is invaluable! That is so incredibly generous, I’m pretty astounded. We’ve also gotten a lot of help from Penelope Anne Bartotto at her blog The Library at the End of the Universe (I love that name!! I want that name!) who not only wrote a fantastic review of each one of our stories, but the book as a whole and then will be hosting/interviewing each one of us over the next week (where we will be giving away a free copy of the book each day – my turn is on the 11th, please come by and say ‘hi’). That sort of support from fellow authors is, again, invaluable in the launching of a book.
So, clearly there are two lessons to be learned here: 1)write a fantastic book; and 2)get the support of other authors before you launch your book. Tales From The Mist isn’t even officially published yet, and we’ve had terrific sales! I can’t wait to see what happens on the 17th when it’s officially published!
