I've been trying to get some buzz going for the imminent release of Russian Roulette and things are happening on line. You'll have to pardon my ego while I share my good fortune.
First, the Crime Critics website posted a very nice review of Russian Roulette, the very first advance review published. Crime Critics is one of the best mystery review sites on the net, and I'm flattered that they plugged my newbook so soon.
The same week I recorded a short promotional video for Russian Roulette, in which I personally explain my new novel. It's on You Tube and several other web sites.
Also, I was interviewed by mystery author Jean Henry Mead on her website, Mysterious People. She is an excellent interviewer who prompted me to reveal some new sides of my work.
And the lovely video trailer for Russian Roulette went live a couple days ago - it's down below this post. By now I'm sure you've found it on this page. Circle of Seven Productions does the BEST work!
Russian Roulette was not my only writing effort to turn up on line. A blog post on The Stiletto Gang highlighted the new journal called “The Writer's Journey.” This new manual for authors is a collection ofwriters' essays on the craft and business of writing fiction. It'salso obviously a journal with pages left for authors to write abouttheir own journey. Thirteen writers contributed to this manual,including yours truly. Aspiring authors can e-mail me at ascamacho@hotmail.com to learn how to get an autographed copy of the manual from me.
While monitoring the internet for my activity it is sometimes surprising what Google Alerts will turn up. I found out that you can order copies of The Troubleshooter in India. I had to do some research to figure out what Rs 1143 is in American money.
And finally, the trailer for Blood and Bone turned up on a web site for African American Scholarships. Maybe someone will use it for a fund raising event. Check the posting on African American Scholarships.
Will all this internet activity really translate into book sales? I'll let you know.
Showing posts with label russian roulette. Show all posts
Showing posts with label russian roulette. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Free Food Bribe as a Marketing Tool
I promised to try to keep you aware of my writing and promotional progress. Well, I’ve made some progress, at least with the latter.
Did you know that there are 47 bookstores in this country that specialize in mystery fiction? That’s after you eliminate the ones that focus on collectible and antique books, and those that are only on line without a brick-and-mortar store. I’ve just sent each of them a letter informing them of the imminent release of Russian Roulette and respectfully asking (alright, begging them) to order a few copies. I told them all about the 50 review copies I sent out, the new web page, the print ads in Mystery Scene and Crimespree Magazine, the professional book trailer from Circle of Seven Productions, the 5,000 piece postcard mailing to mystery readers, the planned blog tour and on line radio appearances, the book giveaway for fans who post reviews on the internet, and all the cool blurbs I got.
I also promised them a pizza party for their staff if they sell 50 or more copies of Russian Roulette. Yeah, I’m shameless. We’ll see if it works.
Meanwhile, my lovely wife Denise has finalized arrangements for the gala launch party for Russian Roulette. She has arranged a very classy affair at the Farr House in Fairfax, VA. The venue often plays host to weddings, bridal showers and fancy luncheons. This Colonial Revival style home in the heart of Fairfax has been party central in these parts since the Farrs’ marriage ceremony in 1915. It was updated in 2001 but retains many of the period details, like Georgia red pine floors. The aforementioned lovely wife has arranged for hors d'oeuvres and wine to be served on June 6th from 2 pm to 6 pm. I have arranged to have copies of Russian Roulette available, a full week before they appear in any stores, for anyone who would like an autographed copy.
Why am I telling you all this? Because each and every one of you is invited! Hey, it’s free food and wine folks! Click here to RSVP for the literary event of my year!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Keeping busy, getting reviewed
It was a weekend of ups and downs but with good points throughout. The weather was awful Friday night so the St Charles Town Center was empty, which means almost no one wandered into the Borders Express there to pick up one of my books. It happens that way sometimes, but I did make more plans for the big release of Russian Roulette and thanks to my good friend Beth I did have some excellent barbecue at a Waldorf eatery.
On the other hand, my class at the Chesterfield County Public Library Writers Workshop was well received Saturday, and the short book signing afterward was very successful. BTW, tomorrow I’ll do another library gig, but it’s not just about me. I’ll be at the Howard County Central Library with several other contributors to “New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers.” Between 7 pm to 8:30 pm we’ll each read a bit of our contribution to the anthology and sign copies of it afterward. If you're nearby, the library is at 10375 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia, MD.
By Sunday the weather was downright beautiful, so Fair Oaks Mall was packed and I signed enough books at the Borders Express there to make up for Friday’s disappointing showing.
Even better, I was alerted to the very first published review of Russian Roulette. I sent an advance review copy to Thomas Duff (aka "Duffbert") who is one of the Top 25 Amazon Book Reviewers. He wrote back in due time to thank me for the book and let me know that he posted his review to Amazon, Twitter, and his blog. Now the review won’t actually appear on Amazon until the book leaves pre-sale status and becomes available, but you can read it now.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Brad Meltzer, Super Genius
Yes, I know I said I’d keep you posted on my personal progress here and so I will briefly mention that we have arranged for print ads in Crimespree Magazine and Mystery Scene to announce the release of Russian Roulette in June. I’ll also admit that my internet provider has had some serious issues preventing me from updating my web site for a couple weeks. We’ll have that fixed by next week and at that time I’ll announce the big book giveaway.
But what I really want to talk about today is my hero, Brad Meltzer. Brad has written some serious best sellers. Before that, he wrote some of the best comics in history, including the “Identity Crisis” storyline in Justice League of America. I also learned at the Virginia Festival of the Book’s Crime Wave Luncheon that Brad is the best keynote speaker I’ve ever heard. But beyond all that, Brad is my hero because he’s at the cutting edge of book promotion.
Ten years ago Brad had what some say was the very first professional author web site. He set that up for his first published novel, Tenth Justice. He posted a lot of the things I’ve tried to emulate, like sample chapters and character interviews. It wasn’t super high tech at the time, but since no one else was doing it, it was pretty spectacular.
Over the years he has stayed at the leading edge of book promotion. He made not one, not two but three videos for his latest thriller, The Book of Lies. One of them has Christopher Hitchens and Joss Whedon in the cast (yes, the guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The video itself is a fine piece of writing, about a theoretical missing book of the Bible.
Of course my book trailer for Russian Roulette will be produced by Circle of Seven Productions, the company that invented the things back in 2002, and I’ll be debuting it soon. It won’t be nearly as impressive as any of Brad’s but I’m starting small like he did and following in the great man’s footsteps. It’s good to have such a great and successful example to follow.
But what I really want to talk about today is my hero, Brad Meltzer. Brad has written some serious best sellers. Before that, he wrote some of the best comics in history, including the “Identity Crisis” storyline in Justice League of America. I also learned at the Virginia Festival of the Book’s Crime Wave Luncheon that Brad is the best keynote speaker I’ve ever heard. But beyond all that, Brad is my hero because he’s at the cutting edge of book promotion.
Ten years ago Brad had what some say was the very first professional author web site. He set that up for his first published novel, Tenth Justice. He posted a lot of the things I’ve tried to emulate, like sample chapters and character interviews. It wasn’t super high tech at the time, but since no one else was doing it, it was pretty spectacular.
Over the years he has stayed at the leading edge of book promotion. He made not one, not two but three videos for his latest thriller, The Book of Lies. One of them has Christopher Hitchens and Joss Whedon in the cast (yes, the guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The video itself is a fine piece of writing, about a theoretical missing book of the Bible.
Of course my book trailer for Russian Roulette will be produced by Circle of Seven Productions, the company that invented the things back in 2002, and I’ll be debuting it soon. It won’t be nearly as impressive as any of Brad’s but I’m starting small like he did and following in the great man’s footsteps. It’s good to have such a great and successful example to follow.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, February 23, 2009
The new who reviews
These days, the writing life is taking a back seat to the marketing life, because a lot of the most important promotional things have to be done before anyone sees your book. For example, I compiled a list of 25 places I’d like Russian Roulette to be reviewed and almost all of them said they wanted the books 4 months before publication. That’s why I spent my few spare moments last week sending out review copies.
The Washington Post Book World was at the top of my list. Sadly, the Post stopped publishing the separate book section. But when I called the paper to find out where to send their review copy I found that they still want books sent to “Book World.” It turns out that the section will live on as an online product.
I’m cool with that. Most people I know read the paper on line anyway. And maybe they will do what most internet reviews do and add a link to the book on Amazon.com so people can order one right away. That’s why my original list included a few internet-only reviewers. I also have five or six personal friends who review for a variety of publications. Naturally, they got advance copies.
That got me to 30 review sites, and I had 50 review copies. The more I thought about the whole internet review issue the more I thought I was missing a bet. Everybody I know who doesn’t buy their books in a bookstore goes to Amazon.com. So I went there. I looked at the profiles of the top reviewers, selecting the ones who focused on mystery novels. I sent them e-mails, and sent books to those who said they’d like to read Russian Roulette.
Who knows? Those reviewers may turn out to be more influential than the newspapers and magazines I mailed to. And at least I know they will take a look at the book.
The Washington Post Book World was at the top of my list. Sadly, the Post stopped publishing the separate book section. But when I called the paper to find out where to send their review copy I found that they still want books sent to “Book World.” It turns out that the section will live on as an online product.
I’m cool with that. Most people I know read the paper on line anyway. And maybe they will do what most internet reviews do and add a link to the book on Amazon.com so people can order one right away. That’s why my original list included a few internet-only reviewers. I also have five or six personal friends who review for a variety of publications. Naturally, they got advance copies.
That got me to 30 review sites, and I had 50 review copies. The more I thought about the whole internet review issue the more I thought I was missing a bet. Everybody I know who doesn’t buy their books in a bookstore goes to Amazon.com. So I went there. I looked at the profiles of the top reviewers, selecting the ones who focused on mystery novels. I sent them e-mails, and sent books to those who said they’d like to read Russian Roulette.
Who knows? Those reviewers may turn out to be more influential than the newspapers and magazines I mailed to. And at least I know they will take a look at the book.
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