Tuesday, May 18, 2010

An Unusual Development

I've been writing mysteries for years. However, my first published books were two historical family sagas. From there I started writing mysteries, but I also wrote some other genres and one romance with supernatural elements called Lingering Spirit.

That book was one of my first e-books published by a house I broke ties with a few years back.

Through the years, I've had some interesting experiences with publishers: two died, one never paid any royalties even though I knew books had sold, one I really liked decided to quit the publishing business, and early on, I had dealings with a couple of crooks--one skipped the country, the other landed in jail.

Oak Tree Press is now the publisher of my Rocky Bluff P.D. series, An Axe to Grind being the latest. The publisher put the two books on Kindle and asked if I had any other books that she could put on Kindle. Of course there were the previous books in that series and I had this romance, Lingering Spirits.

I sent it to her and she fell in love with the book and put it on Kindle. It's had moderate sales. Every time I ran into her at a conference, she told me, "I just love Lingering Spirits."

Now, she's decided to put it out as a regular book. That's kind of backwards from how it usually works--the book out first then the e-book (except for E-publishers who usually do both at the same time).

I just received the page proofs and went over them. The first few pages made me cry as I read them. Hopefully they'll affect other readers the same way.

Now my problem is, how do I promote this book? I'm so used to promoting mysteries, this is kind of a challenge.

Oh, I'll sell it right along with my mysteries when I do in-person events, but except for Facebook and Twitter, not sure how to approach the on-line promotion.

As I titled this blog, it is an unusual development.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

4 comments:

Cheryl Corbin said...

Marilyn, here are a few things you can do to promote your print book online.

* Start accounts on the book tagging sites (Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, etc.) and make sure each has a proper description of the book and/or the back cover copy

* Submit the book to review blogs

* Ask friends and family to post reviews of the book on Amazon and to tag the book with the relevant keywords

* Hold a giveaway on your website where readers earn entries to the giveaway for mentioning your book on Twitter, Facebook, and posting book reviews.

* Put links to all online stores that will carry the book on your website.

* Create a book trailer for the book and mention it on all the social media sites you're on.

Good luck with the promotion and congratulations on the print release!

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

Thank you for your great ideas, Cheryl. I have some information about the book on my own blog http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

Jacqueline Seewald said...

I also believe that blogging may help with book promotion,Marilyn, especially since the novels will be available through online ordering. Congrats on finding a good publisher. And definitely try for as many reviews as possible which will also gain exposure. Have you tried your local newspapers? See if they will do a feature article on you.

All the best,

Jacqueline Seewald
THE INFERNO COLLECTION, Five Star hardcover, Wheeler large print
THE DROWNING POOL
A DEVIL IN THE PINES
WHERE IS ROBERT?

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

Thanks for those good ideas too, Jacqueline. My local newspaper is very good about giving me publicity. I have a nearby bookstore that will give me a signing. And I already am blogging about it wherever I can including my own blog http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com