Update - What’s Austin up to?

I know I’ve been mired in industry happenings lately, and the broad view of how they affect all of us, but I was just reminded that I started this blog as a journal of my personal journey. So I think it’s time to let you know more of my progress.

I’ll start with an up close example of how the chaos at Borders has affected me. I was scheduled to do a signing Friday night at the Borders superstore in Waldorf, MD. We always send posters and brochures for the stores to hand out days before I arrive to raise awareness of the event. We also call to verify the date and that they received said posters and brochures. Well, when I got there Friday nobody knew anything about a signing.

The girl on duty went into the back and returned in about a minute with the envelope with the posters and brochures. They were embarrassed and would have been happy to do the signing, but the manager hadn’t ordered any books and I wasn’t about to set up with the ten or so copies of my books in the store. I met the new General Manager (moved from Annapolis Borders 3 weeks ago) who apologized profusely. I have to conclude that losing layers of management and shuffling managers around stores will cause more events to slip through the cracks unless I am even more vigilant.

Meanwhile we’ve made a lot of progress in preparation for the June release of Russian Roulette, the next Hannibal Jones mystery. We have lovely new bookmarks, and have ordered both a mailing list of mystery readers and the post cards I’ll be sending. Coasters and a print ad are in the design phase. I’ve received blurbs for the book from some great friends: JoAnn Ross, NY Times bestselling author of the High Risk Series; Robert Randisi, Founder of the Private Eye Writers of America; Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of the Ellie Foreman mystery/suspense series; and Jon Jordan, publisher of Crimespree Magazine. I also mailed out 25 review copies of the new book to various newspapers, magazines and respected reviewers. 25 more when to some of the top rated Amazon.com reviewers.

We’ve scheduled a giant private release party in June, and a second public release party in a Borders store in Maryland. More details to follow. I’ve ordered a dandy new book trailer that I’ll be showcasing soon. And I’ve scheduled my appearance at Bouchercon in October where my wife and I will shamelessly flack the new book.

And you shouldn’t think I’ve abandoned the writing side of writing. My collaborator, Meloney Crawford Chadwick, and I have written some dandy material for the urban fantasy work in progress. It’s a slower process with two writers pruning, trimming and polishing each other’s contributions but at this point we have more than 17,000 words that we’re really proud of (that’s about 65 manuscript pages, or about 20% of a novel.) Our scenes dovetail nicely - better than I would have expected. An outside would be hard put to see where her work ends or mine begins and that’s as I think it should be. We continue to grow the project organically and I am quite happy with what we have so far.

So there’s my progress report. Next week, back to kibitzing about the publishing world.

Blurb Me!

Blurb Me!

By attending writers’ conventions and being personable I've been able to get some pretty nice folks to write blurbs for some of my books. Warren Murphy and Ken Bruen have blurbs on my published works, and people like Libby Fisher Hellman and David Hagberg have given me blurbs on manuscripts that are still making the rounds. In the same vein, I've written blurbs for other authors whose work impressed me. I always thought this was simply one good way to give a book s little more credibility, but now I'm no longer so sure.

I recently learned about a company called Blurbings LLC that offers writers the chance to buy and sell book endorsements. In other words, they traffic in blurbs.

Blurbs for cash? From who? After all, getting one unknown writer to endorse another unknown writer probably doesn’t do much for either one. On the other hand, some might say that this company has simply put a price on what mainstream publishers and agents ask authors to do all the time.

Yes, most of my blurbs have come from writers with whom I have made friends, and that may make them seem less impartial. I got David Hagburg’s kind words only because we share the same agent, although he assured me face to face that he would never give a blurb for a book he didn’t think was very good. But it’s fair to wonder to what extent all these blurbs represent friends being nice or favors being traded. In any case it sure can’t hurt to have a published author praise your work - although before you plunk down your $19.95 you should clearly understand that there’s no real evidence that blurbs actually help sell books.

I must admit that when I pick up a piece of fiction I may be swayed by whose blurb is present. If a writer whose work I love praises a book I am more likely to buy it. But I wish there was a way to know if the author landed the blurb himself or if his publisher requested it. One seems somehow more valuable than the other to me.

The bottom line is that I feel as if blurbs are worth less now that you can buy them, much like reviews which can also be purchased. I will still offer this favor for authors who really impress me, and still ask it of my heroes, but that’s more for my ego than with the thought that it will help my book sales.

But I’m curious. What do you think of blurbs on books? Do you ignore them, or do they help you make the purchase decision?