It’s not every day–OK, it’s never happened before–that I get to feature someone on the blog who played an instrumental role in helping me get published. There’s a dream guest of mine who would also fit this description–but today’s dream guest came in at an earlier leg of my journey.

I was querying agents with a 180,000 word manuscript. How did I get requests from agents despite that enormous pink elephant in the room? Because I’d read Elizabeth Lyon’s book, The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit, and she’d taught me how to write a query letter and a synopsis.

Pure and simple.

Of course, I did many of the things wrong that Elizabeth is going to warn more savvy writers than I was against in her post below. But it didn’t matter. I was getting requests, and soon one of those requests was going to lead me to slice 60,000 unnecessary words from my very first novel, and I was hooked on the process.

Thank you, Elizabeth. And here’s to all our writing roads being paved smoothly…with golden stories.

How do I know when my novel is ready to query?

Brace yourself. Stop sending out queries. Am I serious?

All writers are blinded by subjectivity. Few books are ready for publication but the writer is the last one to know this.

Let’s assume that you have done everything you’re supposed to in order to have a completed, ready-to-publish manuscript. That means you’ve done several critical actions first:

• Finished your novel,
• Revised it multiple times,
• Gained feedback from a critique group or a circle of readers,
• Read Manuscript Makeover then
• Revised it another 3 or 5 or 12 times.

In addition, to gain marketing savvy you may have boosted your chances of winning in the marketing game by:

• Attending conferences to gain a quantum leap in understanding of the industry
• Meeting agents or editors and pitched your book (trial runs on marketing)
• Entering contests, and
• Bagging publication of short stories.

You may be thinking, “That’s a huge amount of work. I’d rather be writing.”

Consider this: why should you expect to gain the prize—a contract, money, and recognition, if you have not fully pursued the education and apprenticeship that are pre-requisites in other professions such as playing in a symphony, practicing law, or performing brain surgery?

Let’s say you have done most of the above items. You may even match the following demographic profile:

On average, novelists who break in have 4 novels sitting in a drawer. On average, they have spent 10 years of writing, studying, and marketing. On average, they have a million words under their belt.

To flip this serious blog around, many writers do see publication of first novels (or memoirs—equally difficult to write and publish), after spending only a few years, and some do nothing that is advised and still succeed. Every writer’s trajectory is different.

When you’re ready to query, sometimes the only way to find out if your book makes the grade is by jumping in. Test the market. First, you’ve got to write the query that gains a request to see your pages. Read The Sell Your Novel Toolkit. The query should be 5 to 7 paragraphs, the shorter the better. I’ve seen 3 do the job. If you are sending the query in the mail, your pitch must fit on one page—and don’t forget that SASE. Most agents now want e-mail queries. Some require submission via forms on their websites.

Edit and revise that query till you are sick of it. One writer I know spent 40 hours, literally, on her query. A successful query, in my opinion, gains 3 positive responses out of every 10, and that is what her query produced.

Now, test your query’s effectiveness by sending it to 6 agents via email. If you get rejections, revise your query. Be Teflon coated and let rejections slide away. If you get requests, send exactly what is requested and no more. If you get a request to mail your manuscript or a partial, add a 1- to 3-page synopsis—and an SASE.

Next, send out another batch of 6 or 12 or 30 queries. Rejections? Revise your query; subject it to scrutiny by critique group members or your resident OCD critical friend. Change the order of paragraphs. Amp it with stronger verbs and a stronger hook. Shorten the sentences. Draw your hero in a way that shows original and three-dimensional characterization.

Since many agents (or their assistants) read only a few paragraphs of a query or a few pages of a novel before they hit the delete key or slap the form rejection into the SASE, consider hiring a professional editor to do a critical read-through or a full editing and evaluation of 50 pages and a synopsis.

Obviously, I’m a big believer in using professional freelance book editors either prior to querying or after you know that your novel is apparently not making an agent yelp “Eureka!”

When have you reached the flick-it-in time? You’ll have to decide. Maybe after 30 rejections. Or 50. Or when Catnip walks over your keyboard and won’t let you send more.

History is rife with novelists who believed in their work and were soundly rejected only to self-publish, or to find that one enthusiastic agent after 400 rejections. Some of these books later became bestsellers and award-winners. Traditional mainstream publishing is often too elitist, passing up books that deserve publication; books that are fully professionally written and simply do not guarantee the bottom-line return the publisher is seeking. A plague on all their publishing houses.

So what if your novel is ready to be published? In that case, make it happen. You deserve to complete the circle from idea to creation to a book you can share. We are artists; we deserve an audience. If your marketing gets you an agent and a sale, you’re in. If not, with print-on-demand and e-book technology, the costs are relatively small (do your Google homework) and the satisfaction immense. With completion, you can move on to your next novel, at last returning to what is most satisfying: writing.

Elizabeth Lyon is a freelance book editor for over 20 years. She is the author of Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit, A Writer’s Guide to Nonfiction, A Writer’s Guide to Fiction, and Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore.

Manuscript Makeover was featured in “The Writer” as one of the “8 Great Writing Books of 2008,” and as “perhaps the most comprehensive book on revising fiction.”

I am thrilled to welcome Carolyn Rose back to the blog with a post that is about as topical as it gets. I was lucky enough not only to read the book Carolyn has recently published (great, harrowing read) but also to meet Carolyn in person last summer. Writing simultaneously shrinks and expands the world, making it a place of books and book lovers, and this is one of the great joys in life for me.

What works to sell books in this brave new world? Carolyn’s going to tell you what she learned when she began to experiment.

This spring, after years of rejection and weeks of anguished inner debate, I independently published a suspense novel called An Uncertain Refuge.

Jenny Milchman was kind enough to let me blog about my decision to e publish, and recently invited me back to provide an update on how the book is doing.

An Uncertain Refuge, priced at 99 cents in its e-book form, went hot on Kindle and Nook in mid May. By the end of August, it had attracted 500 readers, mostly Kindle owners. In September, however, more readers clicked the “buy” button and I sold nearly 1100 copies. Again, mostly Kindle owners. As of October almost 700 more readers downloaded the book.

I am awed and amazed by that September showing and the October pace because I did very little in the way of promotion—partly by choice and partly because I had no choice.

First, I lacked the guidance, support, and experience of an agent and/or editor. Second, because I self-published, I was locked out of many contests and review opportunities. Third, I live on a limited income and hold down a job, so I have almost no promotional budget for ads and travel and very little time to devote to chasing opportunities around the Internet.

So, because the jury still seems to be deliberating about what sells books by barely known authors, I decided to experiment with An Uncertain Refuge. After all, I had nothing to lose and no one to account to for success or failure. I made two lists—what I was willing to do within my budget and time limitation, and what I wasn’t.

I wasn’t willing to tweet endlessly, post on Facebook constantly, badger friends and relatives, or leave shrill or self-serving posts on various forums. A little BSP goes a long way, and I didn’t want to alienate readers or writers. I also wasn’t willing to spend too many hours on networking sites that I found confusing, that sucked my time, or that seemed geared mostly to non-writers.

In addition, I wasn’t willing to dip into my savings to buy postcards or bookmarks. They’re pretty and make a nice display at events, but I didn’t think the expense would pay off. And, because I released another indie book this month (A Place of Forgetting) and my husband has one just out through Krill Press (Shotgun Start), I wasn’t willing to update my website and business cards until later in the year when I could add those books. too.

But, I was willing (and eager) to be a guest blogger for other writers, to post on various sites to get the word out, and to give away copies of the book in paperback form. And I was willing to seek out reviewers, to post occasionally on writer/reader forums, and spend a few minutes a day chatting with others in the Writers’ Café and other sites.

I was also willing to keep the price low and to give the book, and my low-rent promotional strategy, time to show results. Thanks to the changing landscape of publishing, to digital and print-on-demand formats, I don’t have to worry about my book being pulled from the shelves and remaindered. Promoting a book is no longer a sprint to the release date and the crucial time window after that, it’s a now a marathon.

Given all of that, here’s what I think worked and why.

First, I wrote a pretty good suspense story with layers, a strong female protagonist, complex and conflicted characters, and an ending that leaves things in doubt until the last minute. (On the negative side, An Uncertain Refuge deals with the raw issue of domestic violence, so it could be a tough read for some.) I used two sharp-eyed, nit-picking editors to root out typos and tell me when I piled on too much description. (Despite that, a friend called a few days ago to gleefully report that she’d found two typos.) And I hired professionals to format the manuscript for e-book (Kimberly Hitchens of Booknook.biz) and paperback (Patty G. Henderson) formats.

Second, I set the price low to attract impulse buyers. I took the focus off money and put it on increasing the number of readers. When I first published, my aim was to raise the price after Labor Day, but now I post that the e-version will be 99 cents until the economy bounces back. (And, skeptic/realist that I am, I’m not banking on that being real soon.)

Third, I picked up several nice reviews and a few mentions from writers I’m acquainted with and from strangers who read the book and put up posts.

Fourth, and probably most important, the also-bought factor came into play. An Uncertain Refuge sold enough copies that it made its way to the front row of the “readers who bought this also bought that” sections of books making strong showings. Their rising tide lifted my little ship.

Will An Uncertain Refuge continue to find readers at this pace? Or is this just a flash in the pan?

Who knows?

But I’m thrilled with the reader response so far, so thrilled that I’m giving away two copies of the paperback to lucky winners drawn from those who drop by and share their ideas and comments.

Carolyn J. Rose grew up in New York’s Catskill Mountains, graduated from the University of Arizona, and spent 25 years as a television news writer and producer in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. She has published many mysteries and lives in Vancouver, WA, with her husband, radio personality Mike Phillips, and a motley collection of pets. Her hobbies are reading, gardening, and not cooking.

By now many of you will have seen this article.

The responses I’ve read all seem to lie along two lines. Either that Amazon is a much needed breath of fresh air, coming along to shake things up that badly needed shaking, or that monopolies are frigging terrifying and get out of my bookstore, Jeff Bezos.

My take is neither of those. Or, it’s both of those. Plus.

I think that Amazon has been positively e-volutionary when it comes to indie authors, taking a stigmatized land of vanity presses and turning it into a place where authors may *prefer* to go because they do better there. Indie publishing has also made way for gems that got missed, for whatever reason, by traditional houses.

What I find curious, though, is that Amazon’s print arms, Encore, etc. are starting out to run in much the same way as the big 6. There are inflated advances (such as Penny Marshall’s $800K–Stephen King once apologized for upping demands for a multi-million dollar advance from Scribner, saying that advances were meant to give a writer time and space to write, not to balloon the coffers of an already wealthy person). And delayed responses to agents who submit. Sounds a lot like business as usual.

I hope that Amazon can continue to make real changes where they need to be made, and not simply aim to achieve a monopoly. Monopolies are indeed scary and frankly, I think that there are things being done right and I don’t want any babies thrown out with bath water.

What things are being done right?

Independent bookstores and chains. I have attended events recently at the 86th Street Barnes & Noble that have blown my mind. I’ve met an author long revered and took my daughter to see an actress who in some not tiny way has changed her life. This Friday there’s an event with a master of screenwriting that allows hopeful screenwriters an opportunity to get their scripts read. I also discovered two chains during our recent cross country travels that I wish we had here.

And let’s not forget those publishers that *are* doing right by their authors. Amanda Hocking left indie publishing to sign with St. Martins. My own experience, and it’s early days yet, has been more thrilling than I ever could’ve imagined. These people know how to do things right. Not everything, and it doesn’t work for everyone. But when it does work…wow.

Just as the only rule for writing is that there are no rules, I believe that the only sure prediction is there are no sure predictions. In the future I wonder if the major publishers will bring out more of the bestselling authors–the top 10% of their lists, which historically has carried the rest–while midlist authors or authors with quirky, hard-to-fit books may decide to go the indie route. Or perhaps there will be a mix in both categories.

Author Parnell Hall sings it best. Wave your e reader, get your book signed. Choice. Isn’t that what America is all about?

Another author starting another post with another wonderful quote. This post could be called An Ode to Libraries. The details Leslie Budewitz manages to capture–you can tell she’s a wonderful writer–brought me back to my own days of riding my three speed bike all summer long in search of books. Or of being sick at home and sending my game-but-unsure parents in search of the just the right book whose title and author I couldn’t recall. “It’s about a girl…and she’s really a witch…and there’s something with a tree…” Thank goodness for librarians. And for libraries–as Leslie is about to tell you.

“I have always imagined that Paradise would be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges

My first memory of a library is the Parmly Billings Library in Billings, Montana. The city was named for Northern Pacific Railroad president Frederick Billings, whose son Parmly was the only family member to live there. When Parmly died of pneumonia at 25 in 1888, his parents gave the city a building site and seed money for a library. Built of local sandstone in the Romanesque style, it served as the library from 1901 until the late 1960s. I thought it was a castle.

By the 1960s, even with several additions, the castle was so crowded that most books were kept in inaccessible stacks and brought out by request. Except for the children’s section. There, Curious George and Mike the Steam Shovel reigned. The Borrowers spun their magic, and I could easily imagine walking through a wardrobe into Narnia.

Libraries needn’t be grand. The castle was eventually replaced by an old warehouse, which offered space and parking, and didn’t seem to cramp Curious George’s style–just like kids, he’s curious anywhere. For a while, a children’s branch anchored a shopping center. And Tuesday mornings in summer, I peddled my pink Schwinn to Rose Park to meet the bookmobile, emptied my twin bike baskets, and filled them up again. The ride home was uphill, but my excitement made the ride easier.

Now I live in a small town with a county branch library. The online catalog lets me sit home and order books from other branches or the statewide library partnership. It’s great technology, both in scattered rural states like Montana and busy systems with dozens of branches.

But I miss the physical spaces. I miss the those accidental finds, the books you come across mis-shelved, or when you kneel down to look at something and your eye falls on something else, or the book that’s just been returned and screams to go home with you.

In law school, I spent much of my waking time in the library, studying. (And some of my sleeping time, too–I occasionally fell asleep on the floor in “the stacks,” the windowless basement rooms crammed with bound volumes of law reviews and obscure references.) The main reading room featured classic oak library tables, some tucked in book-lined alcoves with arched windows of leaded glass. In one alcove, a maple vine poked its way in through a pinhole in the glass and twined down the stone walls.

The main library at Notre Dame is a tall building with a mural outside showing Jesus with his arms raised to heaven. The building faces the end of the football stadium where the students sit, so of course, it’s called “Touchdown Jesus.” Inside, I came across a pink cloth-bound book called Law Careers for Girls. I could hardly believe it was still on the shelves. Or that it recommended careers in tax law, because women are good with numbers and details. I’m sure my tax prof would have howled if I’d showed him the book.

Sometimes you can’t find those accidental discoveries again, no matter how many librarians you enlist in the search. I’d still like another look at a book in the Seattle Public library on pairing American quilts and Asian furniture in design.

When I worked in downtown Seattle in the 1980s, the library occupied a squat black glass building that did nothing to inspire reading or writing, at least outside. The new library, built in 2004, is so wildly creative that it’s been both a prize-winner and a bit of a controversy. The exterior makes you wonder ‘what building is that?’ while I always imagine the interior to be made of giant crayons, bent and molded and reshaped. Like libraries and their contents–offering much more than books these days–do to our thinking, our imagination, our plans for the afternoon.

Kind of like Curious George in the castle.

What’s your favorite library memory?

Leslie Budewitz is the author of Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure (Quill Driver Books, October 2011). She is a practicing lawyer and a mystery writer living in northwest Montana. Read an excerpt and more articles for writers, or send her a question, at http://www.LawandFiction.com

M.J. Rose is an author I’ve admired for a very long time in no fewer than three separate ways. First, through her eerie, intriguing stories of suspense. Next, because while I was struggling to break in, M.J. opened up a back door and came striding right through the front. To put it less metaphorically, she’s a pioneer of self-publishing, turning it during a time of stigma and limited options into something more glamorous than a 7 figure deal made at auction. And finally, M.J. turned her marketing genius into a package from which other authors can benefit, called AuthorBuzz. During this, the 6th anniversary year of AuthorBuzz, M.J. does the blog an honor by sharing some of her wisdom and perspective about how authors can succeed–and how she can help them.

1) In this changing world of books, with many authors independently published, e only, or published by new, small presses, does AuthorBuzz differ as a service depending on how someone’s book comes out?

Yes, every book is unique, so we work with authors to figure out what the book needs, what the author can afford, and the best way to work together.

For instance – a self-published book available mostly in e doesn’t need a push to booksellers. They won’t buy it because they can’t sell it in the store.

Conversely, a traditionally published book from an author who has been on a bestseller list or is close to being on one wants the push to be about getting velocity – selling as many books as possible in a concentrated period of time.

2) At what point in his or her career should an author consider signing up for AuthorBuzz?

As soon as you have your pub date. We sell out fast.

Also, if you are traditionally published and you are bringing us in, it can enthuse the publisher and the sales force to know the author is investing in his or her book.

Since no book ever dies anymore because of the internet, and a book is new to every reader who’s never heard of it, it’s also never too late to contact us.

This summer I  self-published 3 of my backlist titles as ebooks. They were from 2005 and 2006 and I sold more copies in 8 weeks than my 2011 book sold in the same period.

3) Here’s something I hear from a lot of authors: “My book is coming out and my publisher isn’t doing much in the way of marketing.” How can AuthorBuzz compensate for that?

We have over a dozen ways to help authors buzz – including getting the word out to booksellers, librarians, readers, bookclubs, film agents, literary agents, ebook readers and special markets – like religious or spiritual.

There are many small publishers who don’t have full marketing departments who use us as their marketing departments.

We can do the same thing for authors. That’s how we started and that’s what our specialty is.

4) Here’s something I’ve heard a little less frequently. “My book is coming out and my publisher is really giving it a big push.” Will this author still benefit from using AuthorBuzz?

Yes, and here’s why. The more you do, the more you sell. I come from advertising and worked on McDonalds – we never stop advertising all year long. That’s building a brand. Never let the customer/reader forget you’re there. Never stop looking for a new customer/reader. But publishers seldom give a book – even a big book – much more than a month, maybe sometimes 6 weeks of push.

And as big as a push is – it’s rare that’s it’s really big enough, unless the author is a brand name like Nora Roberts or Stephen King.

But what a lot of authors don’t realize is those big names have always supplemented what their publishers have done in terms of marketing – they just haven’t always talked about it. Nora has though. She’s been quoted as saying every author -no matter how big or small – should take a % of their advance and spend it on their own book.

5) How did your own publication history–from self-publishing pioneer to bestselling, traditionally published author–influence your creation of AuthorBuzz?

When publishers wouldn’t buy my first novel because they loved it but didn’t know how to market it – I got a clue that there was a problem in publishing when it came to marketing.

So in 1998 I self-pubbed the book – really to give my agent ammunition to show the publishers – this is how you market her books.  One thing led to another and Lip Service became the first self–published book to get picked up by a traditional NY publishing house.

And I thought me doing my own marketing was over.

But as I said – I was from advertising – I’d been the creative director at a 150 million dollar ad agency and I was surprised – to put it nicely  – by the way publishers marked books and how much more could be done. I was also horrified at how little authors were told about the process.

With Doug Clegg, I wrote Buzz your Book and started teaching a class for authors so they could become educated and empowered and help their own books.

Along the way I realized that most authors wanted to write more than market and that there were marketing services I could provide so they didn’t have to do it themselves.

I started AuthorBuzz in 2005. So October marks our 6^th anniversary. To date we’ve worked on more than 1200 books and buzzed millions and millions of readers.

6) What one thing do you feel an author on a very limited budget can do to help launch his book?

Give out  as many free copies as you can to loud mouths who will read the book and talk about it and tweet and Facebook and blog and email about it. Ebook versions are fine. Get readers – early on, readers count more than sales because they lead to sales.

7) A lot of writers hear that they must do this or that (tweet, request likes, etc.) or else their book will founder in a sea of volumes. What is your take on having to do x or y?

Forgive the link – but I’ve tackled that at length and this article has proved really helpful, so I’ve been told.

8 ) If I work with you, do I also need an independent publicist?

The difference between marketing and pr is that pr is a gamble that can pay off big whereas marketing is guaranteed. We buy the space – your marketing runs. A publicist can never be sure they will get what they pitch, whereas  marketing is buying space and running ads/announcements/advertorials. If we buy, they show up.

They are different and both valuable so I tell people that if you have the right book and the right publicist – yes, hire that publicist. But for every dollar you spend with a publicist, spend two dollars with a marketing company so that at the end of the day if the publicist doesn’t get a lot you still will have gotten exposure via your marketing.

If you can only buy one – then marketing first – since if you buy it will run.

9) What if I want my book to be a bestseller (and who wouldn’t)? Can you tell me what to do to ensure that?

Nope. If I could I’d be living in a palatial apartment in Paris half the year and a penthouse in NYC the other half with nice trips in-between.

Seriously – if there was a formula all books would succeed.

Even if you write the best book you can  and have the finest publisher in the world there are no guarantees. It took Janet Evanovich 18 books to write a bestseller. It took Lee Child 1.

And there are many writers who have very solid and fulfilling careers who are never bestsellers. I think what’s important – all that’s important – is to write because you love to write. Because if you didn’t write you’d be miserable. Focus on the process and the satisfaction you get from that process. The rest is too elusive and too often just quicksilver.

M.J. Rose is the international bestselling author of 11 novels.

She is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book.

She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com.

She runs two popular blogs Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.

Getting published has been an adventure for Rose who self-published Lip Service late in 1998 after several traditional publishers turned it down. Editors loved it, but didn’t know how to position or market it since it didn’t fit into any one genre.

Frustrated, but curious and convinced that there was a readership for her work, she set up a web site where readers could download her book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel on the Internet.

After selling over 2500 copies (in both electronic and trade paper format) Lip Service became the first e-book and the first self-published novel chosen by the LiteraryGuild/Doubleday Book Club as well as being the first e-book to go on to be published by a mainstream New York publishing house.

Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.

She has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L’Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.

She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.

I’m very pleased to welcome Jean Henry Mead back to the blog. Jean’s Made It Moment appears here. Today she shares some of the ins and outs of a topic that is increasingly relevant to authors as book tours become less common. You know the kind: you’re flown from city to city, wined and dined before the readers line up, ten deep to meet you. Oh? That doesn’t always happen? Well, as many of you know, I am a big fan of F2F book events, and plan to take the whole show on the road not too too long from now. But the power of a virtual tour shouldn’t be missed, and here Jean tell us why.

Virtual Touring

Virtual tours are great fun if you have time to prepare for them, but they can be a burden if you happen to be a procrastinator. I’ve taken part in three, the last one ending in August,with a dozen authors participating in a 12-week tour. My last two tours overlapped in May, which kept me so busy that I didn’t have time to do much writing.

The best part of virtual touring is meeting new readers and responding to those who have been reading your books all along. It’s an opportunity to learn what readers like about your work as well as what they would like to see in the future. Several of my tour visitors said they enjoy the humor of my mystery/suspense series, another said that her husband grabbed the book before she had a chance to read it. Still another thanked me for writing about women of the boomer generation. Their comments made all the work preparing for the tour worthwhile.

Long before you schedule your tour, you should regularly visit popular sites with large visitor numbers. While there, leave comments to introduce yourself to the host and her visitors—for at least two months. Then, when you ask the blog owner to host your tour, she’ll be much more receptive. A successful blog tour is planned months in advance, never at the last moment, and reminding blog hosts a few days before the tour begins of the dates you’ve previously agree upon is a good idea.

Articles written for each blog host should be varied or you run the risk of boring your visitors and losing them. You also need to be on hand each day to respond periodically to comments. That can present a problem for writers with a full time job.

When planning a group tour, make sure all the writers are compatible and that everyone’s going to take the tour seriously. That means getting articles in on time and creating the most attractive presentations possible for your fellow guest bloggers. That doesn’t always happen and can create anxiety among tour group members.

Another problem is writers dropping out in the middle of the tour for various reasons. Summer tours present problems of their own. Two of us had vacations scheduled during my last tour but we managed to maintain contact on laptops from RV parks. It’s not easy unless you’re committed to the team effort. So make sure you know who you’re going into partnership with because unknown writers can let the other members down.

Above all, go into your virtual tour with determination to do the best you’re capable of accomplishing as well as with consideration for your hosts. Have fun on your virtual tour and be sure to thank your hosts as well as your guests when you leave.

I’m looking forward to my Christmas tour, The Mystery We Write Blog Tour, will take place from November 25 through December 9, with 14 authors blogging at different sites each day. We’re already busy writing articles and answering interview questions well ahead of the holiday season. The tour has been well organized by Anne K. Albert, and my tour schedule is up at: http://jeansblogtour.blogspot.com. We’ll be giving away 14 mystery novels to blog visitors who leave comments at the various sites.

Jean Henry Mead writes mystery/suspense and western historical novels. She’s also an award-winning photojournalist published domestically as well as abroad. Among her writing industry jobs were editor of In Wyoming magazine as well as two small literary presses. She served as historian for Press Women, president of Wyoming Writers, national publicity director and secretary-treasurer for Western Writers of America, and is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Women Writing the West, Western Writers of America, Wyoming Writers, and Author’s Guild. She also has two blog sites: Mysterious Writers and Writers of the West and blogs regularly at Murderous Musings and Make Mine Mystery.

The other day I went to clean my kitchen table and I noticed a sticker on my bottle of Murphy’s.

“Derived from 98% Natural Ingredients” it said.

I’m not sure what this sticker was supposed to make me feel–or rather, I am pretty sure. I was supposed to feel like I was putting good, organic stuff down on the table (which my kids *are* willing to lick if a particularly appetizing tidbit falls off their fork). I was supposed to feel like I was doing my part for a greener planet.

I was supposed to feel like Murphy’s Oil Soap was something I wanted to buy.

What’s the problem with that? Well, first of all, none of it is true. “Natural” is a totally unregulated, if not meaningless, term. Cyanide is natural. So is uranium. That doesn’t mean I want them in my kitchen.

Second of all, between 98% and 100% lies a lot of space. If 2% of the ingredients *aren’t* natural, isn’t that an awful lot of unnatural muck I might be cleaning with? 2% of, say, red dye is a lot. Or cyanide.

But we don’t have to critique the oil soap advertizing industry. What matters for my purposes is the connection I saw to books.

I think that the oil soap people are trying to get us to buy Murphy’s by saying stuff that seems good, whether it’s really true or substantive or not, and I think that we writers are sometimes put in a similar position.

We all have to market these days. That is a given. (Except when it’s not–and kudos to self publishing pioneer, MJ Rose, for saying so).

But assuming that those of us without MJ’s confidence (or following) do plan to market in some way, shape, or form, how do we keep from promising something more than 98% naturally derived ingredients?

Well, there are a few things I figure we don’t want to do.

• Don’t send around a mass newsletter that masquerades as personal. You know the ones–they lead with a Hi [first name]! But if you’re not on a first name basis with the person who’s sending, you know it’s fake. Actually you know it’s fake for other reasons–the content is clearly intended for a mass mailing. I’m not saying don’t send a newsletter–some people write terrific ones. I’m saying if you do have a newsletter, be genuine about it. Open with something like “Hi Readers & Prospective Readers” and go on to say, “There’s a time for personal emails and a time for announcements. This will be an announcement…”
• Don’t put people on your email list without asking them first. ‘Nuff said. My addy has been harvested by dozens of people. In general, I’m glad to receive the updates and posts. But I still think it’s more polite to ask. (Maybe it wasn’t ’nuff said
• Once you have an email list, be careful what you use it for. If people get too many announcements and updates–no matter how dazzling–they’re going to become inured to seeing your name. So be careful. Maybe that awesome review in your hometown paper made you sing (I know it would me). But if a starred review from PW comes in next, that might be the one you want to send word of. On the other hand, it might not. So my final ‘don’t’ before turning to something more uplifting is–
• Don’t fall prey to the marketing machine. You know the one. It prioritizes things like starred PW reviews. And of course these are terrific things indeed–imagining one can make me see stars. But if what really tickles your fancy is seeing your photo in your hometown paper–the place where no one in high school was exactly voting you most likely to succeed–then share news of that.
• Oh, and here’s one more don’t. Don’t feel badly if you do or have done some of these things. First, they may work for you, based upon the readership you’ve built up or the particular ways in which you implement them. And second–who hasn’t hit the send button in an ecstatic burst when that first reader anointed you with 5 stars (who cares that it was Aunt Sally)? By the time my book is out, it will have been about 14 years since I started writing seriously. Watch me bug you with every word of praise *my* Aunt Sally offers

In my next post I’m going to focus on some ‘do’s’ of marketing. But I want to close with something less grim than the mistakes we writers sometimes fall prey to in our attempt to navigate through these woods. And it’s actually pretty simple.

Be true to yourself when you go to market your book. Speak in your genuine voice–that’s what readers want to hear, why they’ll be reading your book. If a strategy makes you uncomfortable, avoid it. If it’s not you, it will likely not work. And there are plenty of things to do that are you and will communicate to people that you have wonderful, wonderful news.

In the end, that’s what marketing is really all about.

Sharing some wonderful news.

One of the best parts of being on the road has been getting a dashboard-view of bookselling today.

On the whole, the news seems good, far better than some reports would have us believe. Every one of the 50+ stores we have toured (um, shopped in–holiday gift giving: done) has been filled with customers; the booksellers appear optimistic about the unique place they hold in the community. One bookstore in St. Louis called Left Bank Books opened a second branch of their flagship store, and the new store was the only business in the neighborhood to survive the recession. I even heard tell that the closing of the beloved I Love a Mystery in Kansas City is to be paired with the opening of a sister store in Los Angeles. (People in the know, please weigh in).

Right now we are in Nashville, TN, a route we planned so we could stop at Mary & Greg Bruss’ gem of a mystery bookstore, Mysteries and More.

The store is filled with both new and used books–the ‘more’ in the store’s name applies to suspense, thrillers, even some horror and paranormals–and Greg and Mary go out of their way to support local authors. I could’ve stood at the shelf of local books alone for hours–wound up buying a signed copy of THE BEST OF EVIL by Eric Wilson–before turning to my holiday list.

Greg told me that Mysteries & More is one of only 40 or 50 bookstores left devoted to mysteries, and there are so many special touches that show why this sort of place is so necessary–essential–to mystery lovers. It’s rare to have a place that entirely revolves around your passion.

From a collection of matchboxes with tiny little noir book covers on them to an assortment of alphabet blocks that spell out M-Y-S-T-E-R-I-E-S A-N-D M-O-R-E, suggesting how the love of mystery extends from the store’s Nancy Drew’s right up to the cozies one customer reads at a rate of two per day. Two a day! This woman is profiled in a newspaper article hanging on the wall.

Greg and Mary have no fewer than 4 author events scheduled for the coming month–I believe Chester Campbell, whom I know from the vibrant listserv DorothyL, will be giving one. Mary tells an inspiring story about how author Carolyn Hart motivated Mary & Greg’s decision to open a mystery bookstore as this-part-of-their-life’s dream.

One of the other best parts of this cross country odyssey has been getting to meet writing folk I’ve known for years face-to-face. From Iowa City to Denver to Portland, OR, I’ve gotten to spend time with some of the most kindred spirits I’ve ever known. And here in Nashville I met an emerging writer I know from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. This contest has set many writers on their way, and I hope Dana will be one. But even aside from the writing shop talk, Dana and I got to squeeze in, our visit also points to another of the unique pleasures of this trip.

The fast friends my daughter made with Dana’s six year old. The inside tour of ‘cue my husband and I got to have at her expert hands. Time spent, rather late of an evening, in a hotel room, just connecting about the things that had brought us all together.

I hope Mysteries & More is around for decades to come–I can’t wait to get back here again myself, to browse for books and see new friends.

Happy Labor Day, Suspense Your Disbelief readers!

What with my husband’s computer being flaky (read: meeting a slow, ungainly end) and the hours we lose going this way instead of that, east rather than west, my time on the web has been way too limited.

But I did want to say hello from the road, and sum up a few adventures we’ve been having.

But first, no blog post written during this pre-pre-book tour we’re doing would be complete without a quick update from the American bookstore scene circa 2011. I’m not sure whom to quote first–or how to capture the ebullient nature of the booksellers we’re meeting. On the way out, I stopped in at Calico Books in Broomfield, CO to meet Becky F2F. Becky is a longtime Facebook friend, and original supporter of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day.

On this trip back, I got to see Becky’s mom’s bookstore in Fort Collins, CO. Becky’s mom wasn’t there, but another bookseller named Pam was, and she said the store had had its best season yet. “The economy is helping us,” she said. “What’s cheaper entertainment than a book?” Since Book Lovers accepts books in trade, you can rid your house of some clutter-to-you that will become entertainment-fodder for someone else and garner brand new reads–all in one fell swoop.

But back to our travels.

Things are different on the road. *We’re* different on the road. The behaviors we must contend with in our kids are different–lesser than things we face when they’re running free, crossing streets, and other elements of ever encroaching freedom are at play–but perhaps more intense given that we’re all contained in a capsule moving at 70 mph together for six or more hours a day.

Even things like the sky are different on the road. It’s really true that it’s big out here. You have to turn your head 90 degrees in each direction to take the whole thing in.

You meet friends you’d never otherwise have on the road. We crossed from Colorado into Kansas late yesterday–into a town both cleverly and obviously named Kanorado–and did something we had yet to have done by this, our fourth trip across the whole vast country. We almost ran out of gas.

The dash said we had 25 miles left (which I didn’t entirely trust anyway; I mean, how does the car *know*) and we had gotten off at an exit that clearly stated ‘gas’ as in ‘gas here, not to worry,’ but when we arrived at what looked to be a station, there were no pumps, no sign, and no people. Whatever gas had once been there had gone the way of climate change and apocalyptic crash.

At least so it felt to me, toward the end of a long day, in a state we’d never been in before, with unending miles of dusty road stretching in either direction, not a soul on it.

Then a pickup truck pulled out from across another, even smaller, road, and I flagged the driver down. This might be something I’d be wary of doing back in NJ, but as I say, things are different on the road.

The man pulled into the gritty, gas-lacking lot our car sat in. He had a kind face, folds worn in deeply by wind and sun. I told him the problem, feeling dumb and discomfited and like I never fit in anywhere.

“How much you got?” the man asked. “There’s a station 17 miles down the road.”

I told him I should have 25 miles’ worth.

“I’ll follow you,” the man said. “Make sure you’re okay.”

I watched the miles tick down on the dash–we had 20 left, then 15, then 10–and on that blank stretch of road. The gauge claimed we had just the slightest bit more gas than we had miles to go.

We made it to a gas station and the man in the pickup pulled in behind us, to make sure we were okay.

And even though the gas station was strange–not one of the global corporations that may soon go the way of the dinosaur–and we didn’t know where we were sleeping that night and my car was so thirsty it cost us fifty bucks to fill up–there was a sense of being exactly where we were meant to be.

On the road.

This summer my kids have made a lot of friends–at stops along the way with old friends in Lincoln, NE; at the hotel pools of places we stayed at; and of course, here in Portland, where my brother’s neighborhood is an old-time scene of kids biking on the dead end street, running from house to house to see who can play, and trading scooters.

But that isn’t all they’re trading.

When they’re not outside, what are these kids doing? What’s the first thing my daughter did when she met the Lincoln, NE child, with whom she immediately clicked? What did they have to watch out not to get wet at the pool?

Their books.

That’s right, these kids are reading. For fun and play and sport.

Right now, as I type, my son and daughter and their nine year old friend have a hundred Rainbow Magic books spread out across the floor and are discussing whether a Special Edition is worth two or three…regular editions?

I don’t know the lingo, but the point is, they do.

When they’ve finished trading, the oldest child is going to read to the others. I asked them to keep an eye on their sixteen month old cousin, and boy were they bummed to find out the attention span of a toddler doesn’t always allow for chapter books.

Why am I hearing that kids no longer like to spend time reading? That they’re always hooked up to some device or other and this will render the next generation insensate to the pleasures of a book?

The ever growing number of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day members don’t seem to agree. Just this summer, the Day has spread to the Gold Coast of Australia.

The children’s sections of bookstores across the country all seemed to be filled–often to the point of waiting to get in line, or polite nudges aside–when we got there.

Maybe the apocalyptic vision I’ve heard from time to time is true. Maybe it is.

But the children seem to disagree.