write

The Blog Book Tour

An article in today's New York Times discussed the concept of visiting blogs to build buzz for your books.

What is it? Instead of scheduling readings in book stores locally and nationally, authors arrange to send exceprts or take questions on various blogs related to the concept of their books. Some authors give "live chats" or video interviews.

Blog readers may comment and ask questions.

Building buzz with bloggers is free (though some bloggers charge publishers) yet it can be time consuming. If a blogger's audience is invited to ask questions, they actually do - and they want their questions answered or else the author may be reprimanded in the blog's comment section.

Some also question how many blog readers actually buy the book.

Yet building buzz with blogs makes sense, especially if you take the time to target the blogs most suited to the theme of your book.

Have you had success with building buzz on blogs? Share your success using the comment feature.

Promoting a Mystery

... so scanning Amazon I came across this "review" from folks who met the author of
at Malice Domestic (a conference for mystery writers). I'm sending you the link so you can read all for yourself, but below is a short excerpt that underscores why it is so important for authors to really promote their work in the most assertive way possible:

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful: Like a foreign flavor - strange on the palate at first but surprisingly satisfying., June 16, 2006 By Rae Stabosz "stabosz" (Newark, DE) - See all my reviews     "This review is from: The Chef Who Died Sautéing (Paperback) I met the authors of The Chef Who Died Sauteing at the 2006 Malice Domestic convention in D.C. They were outgoing, delightful, and drew attention to their offering in a most creative way -- they dressed in chef's whites both days I attended the conference, and they introduced themselves easily. As a writer myself, I like to reward any author who exhibits a get-up-and-go attitude towards getting her book known. In today's business, a single published book can fall into the pool of novels like a drop of water, to be swallowed whole. I bought the book because I really appreciated how the authors had gone that extra mile to promote it. All that said, I had a hard time getting into it. Ariel Quigley, the detective, is a college level English teacher who has a strong psychic streak and a penchant for attracting manifestations of ghostly spirits. This threw me off at first, as did her embrace of Tarot card readings and "dowsing", because Ariel's (and the book's) point of view was that these things, admittedly looked at askance in much of society, are very real. I have a great resistance towards characters who are "endearingly flakey" or "new agey".