Choices
My shipment of print copies of my latest novel arrived recently, and I have been busy fulfilling the obligatory mailing of copies to winners of a contest I ran on Goodreads.com.
Much of my time between January 1 and now has been trying to promote this book, which brings me to the subject of this post: the difficulties of being a relatively unknown--did I say relatively?--author, and managing time between marketing my work, and actual writing.
I have learned through experience that word-of-mouth is the most effective way of promoting novels. That means social networking. One can spend endless hours doing this, which I also know from experience. There is no shortage of gurus ready to give you advice for a fee, but what I have seen of their advice is largely common sense. There comes a time when you just have to come to the conclusion that your best self-promotion is to keep producing good prose, and someone will eventually pay attention. Which brings me to the subject of what I'm writing now.
The new book returns my heroine of two other novels, Andy Blake, a Windsor Ontario detective who returns to her home in the north after twenty-five years on the job. The Ontario Provincial Police snag her to work in Sault Ste. Marie. For followers of Andy, I can tell you she will have problems in her relation with her love interest, Grant Stacey. You'll have to wait to see how, if at all, she comes to terms with the rift.
Does this means I'm entering the realm of Mystery Series Writers? I don't know. I like Andy, and that probably gives you an answer.
So, back to work on the new book.
I'll worry about selling the last one tomorrow or the next day!
Much of my time between January 1 and now has been trying to promote this book, which brings me to the subject of this post: the difficulties of being a relatively unknown--did I say relatively?--author, and managing time between marketing my work, and actual writing.
I have learned through experience that word-of-mouth is the most effective way of promoting novels. That means social networking. One can spend endless hours doing this, which I also know from experience. There is no shortage of gurus ready to give you advice for a fee, but what I have seen of their advice is largely common sense. There comes a time when you just have to come to the conclusion that your best self-promotion is to keep producing good prose, and someone will eventually pay attention. Which brings me to the subject of what I'm writing now.
The new book returns my heroine of two other novels, Andy Blake, a Windsor Ontario detective who returns to her home in the north after twenty-five years on the job. The Ontario Provincial Police snag her to work in Sault Ste. Marie. For followers of Andy, I can tell you she will have problems in her relation with her love interest, Grant Stacey. You'll have to wait to see how, if at all, she comes to terms with the rift.
Does this means I'm entering the realm of Mystery Series Writers? I don't know. I like Andy, and that probably gives you an answer.
So, back to work on the new book.
I'll worry about selling the last one tomorrow or the next day!
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