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!

Weekend update and Big Book Giveaway!

Friday afternoon at Borders in Washington Dulles International Airport was another fun time of ups and downs as the store filled up after a landing, then thinned out for a while. I got to send my novels off to Zimbabwe and Ghana, among other places.

Saturday I hopped up to Baltimore to read from my story in Maryland Writers Association anthology. It was an intimate little group at the Roland Park Branch Library, but since I'm a fan of many of the other authors in the book I get a kick out of hearing them read their work.

The big news today is that my web site is finally back on line. A lot has changed since the last time you saw it, including a featured review from Tina Vicini who I talked to at the Love is Murder mystery convention. Tina Vicini was one of the few people who knew right off the bat that my character was named after the Hannibal who marched over the Alps to attack the Roman Empire. Not everything works just right yet, but the two most important things are in place.

The most important thing for me is the link in the middle of the page that allows you to e-mail me. This is how you can send me feedback about my writing, and I will always respond. You should send your friends to that link so they can ask to receive my newsletter. That way they'll always get the latest update on my travels and the progress of my writing.

The most important thing for YOU is the Big Book Giveaway link. Click that and you will find out how you can get an advance copy of Russian Roulette. You'll not only get to read my latest novel before everyone else, but you'll get it for free!

The e-future of Fiction

I have not been a strong proponent of e-books, mostly because they don’t appeal to me. But since I received a nice review from a Kindle reader a couple days ago I’ve been rethinking the issue.

My pal and fellow mystery writer Joe Konrath is a Kindle bestseller. He says that e-books are the future and as always, he’s hard to argue with. His new horror novel, Afraid, is available for both the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader for $1.99. That’s way cheaper than most, but it may be worth it. The book is the #1 Kindle download in the horror fiction category and #11 overall, without advertising or a book tour.

It’s nice to move numbers like that, but will authors make any money? Royalties are in no way uniform, but here’s an example. Literary agent Richard Curtis says that Simon & Schuster contracts offer a royalty of 25% of net receipts for e-books. Notice, that’s not 25% of the sale price. But even if the web site retailer takes a 50% cut of a $10 book, it’s more cash in the writer’s pocket than the usual 7% or 8% he’d get on a $15 trade paperback. Of course, Joe Konrath’s not getting rich on a $1.99 download, but he IS getting new readers who may well look for his other books.

BTW, the Kindle gets all the press these days, but my novel Blood and Bone has long been available on Fictionwise, an e-book retailer that Barnes & Noble recently bought. Sony and Google are teaming up to give Sony Reader users access to the books in Google’s book digitization process. B & N is giving away an e-book reader application for the BlackBerry. And Amazon will make Kindle books available on the iPhone and iPod.

I don’t think e-books will replace hard copies any more than iPods have eliminated CDs. And I must admit that I will always want to feel the pages under my fingers. But I do think that e-books will be a dominant force in the marketplace at some point, and we writers should be happy for any technological change that makes it easier and less expensive for readers to find and own our work.

So it was nice to see that Readermouse in Louisiana not only gave The Troubleshooter five stars, but made a point of saying in the review that there were no format problems with the Kindle version.

Quick tip for Writers

Budding authors would do well to remember to read their prose aloud to try to hear how a stranger might interpret their words. Remember, if a sentence can be read two ways we can count on a reader to see it the OTHER way. One way to help avoid this problem is to be very careful with the placement of subject and object, and be aware of the immediate antecedent of any modifier. For example, how would you read this sentence?

"She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off."

Right. The funnier way.

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.

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.

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.