Thursday, September 6, 2007

The Heir of Autumn

Up late again last night turning pages through the end of The Heir of Autumn. Man, am I glad I stayed with it. All the good things I talked about in the "Should I Stay" post held. But talk about ramping up the tension and the stakes! These guys know their stuff.

I won't give away the end, but I loved it. It's satisfying for the single book, but also left me wanting to read the second one to see what happens next. Very nicely done, Todd & Giles. Of course, when I do finish The Mistress of Winter, I'll have to wait for the third installment to be available. And here I thought having books to anticipate was over after The Deathly Hallows.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Shameless Self-Promotion

No, I'm not shamelessly promoting myself. Although it is, and always will be, all about me. I'm thinking about the new emphasis on an author being a publicist too. Okay, it's my book, I should be willing to do what I can to make sure people know about it. I'll set up book signings and tell all my friends and family and so on.

A big part of the last Pikes Peak Writers Conference was about marketing. And there are books and blogs and who knows what else out there on how to market your own book. Some of the suggestions were:

--The aforementioned book signings
--Get your local paper to review it
--Get an interview on a local morning show
--Set up a website or blog so you have a 'community' who will be interest
--Come up with promotional tie-ins to the book. Say it's about a candy maker. You could run a contest with the first prize of a basket of chocolates or a set of candy molds, etc.
--Send notices to any email loop you're a part of about releases, signings, etc.

Those are only a few of the ideas. So when is enough too much? When do you reach the tipping point of just pissing off the people you're trying to get to buy your book?

Yes, I'm thinking of someone in particular. No, I'm not going to say who it is. I was actually planning to buy the book. It sounded like something I might be interested in. But I'm already sick of it, and I haven't read one word.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

September Goals

--Revise MMG, submit to DL and query at least 12 others [Phase 1 complete]
--Play with TNN a little more [did some mental work on it]
--Stay current on AL submission. [DONE]

I'm going to try Ali's weekly goal idea and see if it works for me. For this week, I will read through MMG and put it in order of Phase 1. And stay current on any submissions I get for AL or the PPW NewsMag. Oh, I have a PPW meeting tonight that I need to attend.

That's it.