Plugging your book? Don’t turn me off

Hey, fellow authors on Twitter and Facebook. You know what really bugs me about some of you?

Incessantly posting “Buy my book” with links to where I can purchase it. I’m supposed to buy your book because you’ve flooded my feed with your advertising? Yeah, right! You’ve just turned me in the opposite direction. Every time I see your name, I automatically scroll down.

Another turnoff is constantly begging for reviews of your book. Jeez!

Don’t you understand that all this energy you’re expending is counterproductive? It’s like going on a date with someone you’ve just met who pulls out a wedding ring an hour into the evening. Your first thought is to run.

Why not advertise your book once, maybe twice or three times, then keep your name at the top of my mind by posting something interesting? A post about how you came up with your book’s title. A blurb about what real-life person inspired you to create your protagonist. A contest with one of your books as the prize. A review of another author’s book, an interview with an author, or news about the publishing world and your take on it.

Then plug your book again.

There are so many things you can come up with that would make me want to read further posts from you. And, down the road, when I feel I know you, I might want to buy your book.

And, better still, why not spend some time reTweeting some of the more interesting posts in your Twitter feed? Make some friends. They may return the favour and RT your posts to their 20,000 followers.

All this takes time, I know. But everything worthwhile does.

Clue into the fact that social media is about giving, not just getting. It is about building a community.

#bookmarketing #ImajinBooks #SafeHarbor #socialmedia

Piggybacking to market

I’m going piggybacking with friend and fellow journalist Al Emid.

Al’s second book, Financial Recovery in a Fragile World, which he wrote with Robert Ironside and Evelyn Jacks, came out earlier this month. It’s an advice book that tells readers how to survive and thrive in uncertain financial times.

Safe Harbor, my debut novel, is a murder mystery with a financial advisor as its central character.

The two are clearly quite different. But they’re also opposite sides of the same financial coin.

Al, whose articles have run in the Globe and Mail, the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen, and a slew of other publications, suggested that we do a joint book sale and signing when Safe Harbor comes out in paperback.  We could split the costs, which would mean savings for both of us.

Then we realized there could be many more advantages, such as tapping other markets. I will hopefully benefit from introducing Al’s friends and colleagues to Safe Harbor. They may buy it. They may talk about it as well. And people I know can buy Financial Recovery and learn how to get their financial houses in order.

It’s called piggybacking: teaming up with a non-competing partner to our mutual benefit.

And because our books are so different, there’ll be a humorous side to our venture that will help build the buzz. Maybe we can come up with a catchy slogan to promote our sale and signing. How about Markets Can be Murder?

Once again, it’s about people sparking ideas off people. About networking and building communities.

I’m now counting the days till Safe Harbor‘s debut. Fifty-three to go for the e-book. Eighty-four for the paperback.

And, yes, I’ll be having my very own book launch too!

More on that later.

#booklaunches #RosemaryMcCracken #ImajinBooks #TheKnowledgeBureau #AlEmid #FinancialRecoveryinaFragileWorld #books #SafeHarbor #mysteries

As the plot thickens

Some writers swear by approaching a novel with a detailed plot in place. They have it all worked out, all the twist and turns, the setbacks, the climax, the denouement, right down to the book’s final sentence.

If that works for you, great, but I need to begin with character: the character of my protagonist and the characters of a few key people around her. I have to get to know these people so well that they become intimate friends. I know the music they listen to, their favorite colors, their favorite foods. I know exactly what they would do in certain circumstances. Then I can start to construct a plot for them.

Brainstorming ideas for Safe Harbor, I asked myself, “What is one of the worst things that could happen to Pat Tierney?” The answer immediately popped into my mind: “Michael, something to do with Michael.” Since Michael, Pat’s late husband, is dead, something could only happen to her memories of him. Maybe Michael wasn’t the icon of the perfect husband she’d made him out to be. Michael…Michael had a child from another relationship during their marriage. Voila! I had the opening of Safe Harbor, the chapter that set the events of the novel into motion.

I could do this because I knew Pat very well. I’d already written another book about her called Last Date. It was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada’s inaugural Best Unpublished First Crime Novel Award (a.k.a. The Unhanged Arthur) back in 2007. Now resting in my bottom desk drawer until I breathe life into it again, Last Date is where I first got to know Pat, her family and some of her friends.

Once I had an opening for Safe Harbor, I knew where the story would go. I didn’t know all the places it would go through or all the characters Pat would meet along the way, but I knew how it would end up.

Some would say I waste a lot of time by not plotting out the novel’s major developments beforehand. And I suppose I do. It takes me about two years to write a book, and some sections have to be thrown out as I meander my way to the climax. But I contend that nothing is wasted. Some of those flights of fancy, now relegated to that bottom drawer, may take on lives of their own one day. The time I spent working on them is time spent getting to know my characters.

I’m nearing the end of the (untitled) sequel to Safe Harbor. In order to get there (I know how it will end), a certain character has to do something and I’m not quite certain what that will be. So I’m coasting for a bit, trying to get to know this character better. I’m writing character sketches of him. During quiet moments, such as when I first wake up in the morning or when I’m taking a walk, I focus on him, then let my mind drift. If something doesn’t come to me…well, I won’t let myself think about that.

Maybe I’ll be able to sit down one day and hammer out the plot, and all the subplots, of a Pat Tierney book before I start the opening chapter. That could very well happen. But if it doesn’t, I’ll continue feeling my way along, frequently retracing my steps, slowly making the plot thicken.

#writing #plot #UnhangedArthur #LastDate #character #SafeHarbor #novel #CrimeWritersofCanada #murdermystery