Let's Discuss Promotion

https://www.amazon.com/Trash-Harem-Tempe-Crabtree-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B096KZDPH8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Trash+Harem+by+Marilyn+Meredith&qid=1637158830&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

During the pandemic, many of the events and ways of selling books was prohibited.

For my new book, I was a guest on a lot of blogs. I actually enjoy writing new material for blogs.

I did manage to still do a bit of that kind of promotion: Our local art gallery of which I'm a member never closed. I was invited to speak twice at their general meeting and able to sell my books. The audience was small, masked, but very attentive.

The art gallery also held their annual holiday boutique and I had a table with my books. Though not as well attended as those before the pandemic, it was great fun and I did sell books.

In our little foothill community, the annual Apple Festival was cancelled two years in a row, but this year they held a smaller one day Fall Festival. I did well selling my books and the most fun was seeing old friends.

I've done two book signings for new books in the fellowship hall at my church. Not a big attendance, but I did sell copies of my new books and others too. 

Many writers did Podcasts, but I haven't tried that yet. Mainly because I live in a busy household with three grandkids, not sure where I would do one and if it could happen uninterrupted.

I've had .99 cent sales for older books in my series--the RBPD series and the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series which did well and resulted in people buying other books in the two series. Which is the whole idea of doing this kind of promotion. It takes a lot of work and finding places that don't cost much to help promote. 

Though there have been two big book fairs I was invited to participate in, both were far away and meant being away from my husband who needs to have someone to help.

I did attend one conference away from home and my husband stayed with my daughter and husband. Most writing or mystery conferences are not the best for selling books (unless you are a big-name author), but the are a great place to learn new things about writing, what's going on in the writing world and other tidbits. But most of all, it's wonderful to be with other authors. For me, a writing conference lifts my spirits and gives me the incentive to keep on writing.

So tell me, what have you been doing in the way of promotion and what have you planned for the future?

Marilyn

Bears, Mountain Lions and Clowns by Marilyn Meredith

Perhaps you've read or seen in the news, or on the Internet, about the clown who has been turning up in various small towns in the San Joaquin Valley. It began on October 1 in the town of Wasco.

Of course copy cats followed immediately. Sightings have been reported in Bakersfield, Visalia and believe it or not, in my little town of Springville. Yes, it's true, I heard in an email message from our local resident sheriff.

And to make life interesting, before we learned about the clowns, our neighbor reported seeing a young mountain lion down by the river that runs behind our houses. We knew there was some sort of predator roaming because the feral cat population has diminished drastically.

That's not all--along with these events came the news that a bear or bears have been sighted under the bridge in town and on one of the nearby roads. Others have reported bear scat in various places.

Of course the mountain lions and the bears have always been here, and that's what makes living in the foothills interesting.

But a clown? There has to be a mystery here.

And if you'd like to read more about what goes on in my little town, all you have to do is read one of my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries, since I've liberally borrowed from my surroundings for the setting of these novels.

The latest is River Spirits. And no, Tempe has never dealt with a clown, but she has had encounters with plenty of other wild life--human and animal.

P.S. I doubt I'll ever run into the clown since he/she only appears at night. I seldom go into town after dark.

Marilyn

Write What You Don't Know

I decided to use my day on Make Mine Mystery as one of my blog stops on my tour for my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Spirit Shapes. Coming up with new topics to write about has been a challenge. For this one, I thought I’d go against the usual advice of writing what you know.

Truthfully, don’t most of write about what we don’t know as well as what we do know? J.K. Rowling didn’t know about wizards, magic and a school of wizardry, she made most of it up. Same thing with the Twilight series, did the author have first-hand knowledge about vampires and werewolves? What these authors did know is how people act during all sorts of disasters and calamities, and how much a person will do to reach a goal. As an author we use what we do know and our personal experience and build on that with our imaginations and any necessary research.

We take what we do know and use it to write what we don’t know. With today’s technology we are able to research anything and find out at least enough to make us sound like we know what we are writing about.

In my own case, I’ve never been a resident deputy sheriff like my heroine Tempe Crabtree. But I have known several, interviewed one, and talked to others. I have relatives and friends in law enforcement and for the most part, I know they are like all the rest of us.

I’m also not an Indian like Tempe, but again I have friends and relatives who are. I can research Indian legends and lore to use in my mysteries.

When it comes to haunted houses and ghosts, I have had some personal experience, but that was the topic of another blog.

Of course it’s much easier if you do know what you’re writing about, but when you have a good story idea, let your imagination go wild.  Do the research you need later. And remember, less is more. I’ve read too many stories where the author was so knowledgeable about what he or she was writing, the story suffered because of too many facts.

Marilyn Meredith

Blurb for Spirit Shapes: Ghost hunters stumble upon a murdered teen in a haunted house. Deputy Tempe Crabtree's investigation pulls her into a whirlwind of restless spirits, good and evil, intertwined with the past and the present, and demons and angels at war.

To buy direction from the publisher in all formats:


http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Spirit+Shapes
  
And of course, Amazon.

I've been putting up different photos of me on each blog, so here's today's:

Middle daughter Lisa and me

 Bio: Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series. She borrows a lot from where she lives in the Southern Sierra for the town of Bear Creek and the surrounding area, including the nearby Tule River Indian Reservation. She does like to remind everyone that she is writing fiction. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and follow her blog at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Contest:

The person who comments on the most blogs on this blog tour will have the opportunity to have a character named after him or her in the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery.

Tomorrow I’ll be visiting here: http://rabbiauthor.com/

Off on Anothr Writing Adventure...

Not having enough to do, she said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I've decided to put an older, out of print book of mine on Kindle.

Previously, I swore I'd never do it because I hate learning how to do new things to do with formatting etc., because I usually foul things up and have to do it all over, and over, and over. But I kept hearing what great results people were having, how many books they were selling etc.

I have two books that have been sitting dormant with a publisher and at first I thought I'd ask for the rights back, but then I remembered I had another novel with a publisher who has gone out of business (For very good reasons) and I could start with that one.

It took a while to find the book on my computer--it was in a Word Perfect program and I have three versions. When I did locate it, I copied it to Word. When I started looking it over, I realized it needed some major editing. First, because there were some errors that came to surface by just doing the spell and grammar check. Second, once I got into it, I saw it needed some updating with things like computers and phones that aren't attached to a cord, and of course cell-phones. I've only gotten to about Chapter 8 as I write this, so no telling what else I'll run into.

What's interesting about this book, is it began as a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery--long before I knew it would be a series. And as I kept writing about Tempe in subsequent books she changed. Another thing about this particular story is rather than being a mystery it's more of what I call Christian horror. Horror because it is really scary--with definite Christian elements. It could also be called Supernatural Horror--because it's  full of the supernatural--the scariest kind.

So way back when, I knew it didn't fit with what Tempe had become (it took me several books before I found the first publisher for this series) and so I made some drastic changes beginning with the location of the book. It's still in the foothills of the Sierra, just farther north, above Modesto in an imaginary town. The names and descriptions of the characters changed--though not the two major characters occupations. There are still a lot of similarities which Tempe fans will recognize, but the main theme of the book is much different and I think will appeal to a different audience.

I really need to be writing my next Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel which I've started--but I'm going to finish this project first. I have someone who will format it for me and a cover artist lined up, so I'm committed.

So, if I don't turn up in my usual haunts, you'll know I'm submerged in fixing this scary book for Kindle.

Marilyn

How Much Do You Relate to Your Characters?

Reading what Sue Grafton said about her heroine being her alter ego and perhaps doing what Sue might have done had she not gotten married young and had children made me think about the heroines in my books.

My immediate conclusion is I'm not the least bit like either one.

In my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series which I write as Marilyn Meredith, Tempe is Native American, has one grown son who is in college, married to a pastor, and is a deputy sheriff. I'm not like any of those things, not Native American, had 5 kids, much, much older, married to a retired career Navy man, and I was never in law enforcement.

The main heroine in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series, which I write as F. M. Meredith, is Stacey Milligan, a police officer, has one son who is now six, married to a police detective and is in her late twenties.

The only things I have in common with either of these gals is the fact that they are strong, independent women--which I like to think I am too. Oh, and I've lived in a beach town much like Rocky Bluff and I now live in the mountains much like Bear Creek.

What I do think I have in common with all of my characters is that I've had many experiences similar to those in my books. I know how people feel in all sorts of situations because I've been there too. When I create a character he or she is probably going to resemble someone I've known in one way or another.

So tell me, how much are you like your characters? Or if you are primarily a reader, is their a fictional character you really relate to?

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com/

The Lure of the Mystery

Why do we like puzzles and mysteries? Are we all police wannabes? Do we have a secret fantasy of being Sam Spade, Tempe Crabtree or Philip Marlowe? Have we watched every episode of Columbo? There is an innate need to know that makes us want to know whodunit.

And some of our favorite writers can make us work for it, creating a complex tale that taxes our investigative abilities! That's part of the joy of reading a mystery, though, isn't it? Do we fall for the red herrings sprinkled through the story? Or do we toss away a vital clue, served up to us on a silver platter, because we think it's a ruse to throw us off the scent? Do we figure it out, just after the writer gives us the answer? That's the goal of the mystery writer -- to hold the reader's interest, keep him or her thinking and trying to figure it out right to the climax of the reveal of the killer.

It's fun to abandon discrepant awareness and drift into the 1930s world of Hercule Poirot. Or to explore the newest forensics techniques for lifting fingerprints, tracking DNA or crime scene investigation. Is your preferred story a traditional cozy mystery, a modern, high-tech story, or even a futuristic detective with access to technology today's investigators can only dream of having?

Another reason we like mysteries? The bad guy always gets caught -- maybe he or she can't be prosecuted, but our detective figures out what s/he did and how it was done. And that's a very satisfying feeling!

So, grab a mystery by your favorite author and enjoy the journey!

Libby McKinmer
www.libbymckinmer.com
www.twitter.com/LibbyMckinmer
libby@libbymckinmer.com