THINKING OUTSIDE THE PROMOTIONAL BOX

by Lois Winston

As authors, along with writing the next book, we have to promote our current books, but promotion often feels like we’re shouting into a tsunami. Does anyone really hear us? How many people who see our social media postings will run out and buy our books? How many people show up at book signings and talks we give, let alone purchase a copy of our latest baby? How many people run out to buy a copy of our latest release as soon as it comes out? Sadly, very few. Whether an author is traditionally published, indie published, or both, competition for consumer dollars is stiff. And if your name isn’t King, Patterson, Rowling, or Roberts, it’s even stiffer. So we’re always on the lookout for new ways to get readers to learn about us and our books—and hopefully entice them to pull out their wallets and take a chance on us.

One of the newest promotional tools many authors are taking advantage of is the boxed set. Publishers have been producing boxed sets of a single author’s work for many years, especially if the books are part of a series. However, they’ve never done so with multiple authors. Recently some enterprising authors have begun to think outside the traditional promotional box. They’ve banded together to produce themed boxed sets rather than single author boxed sets. The price is set low enough to make the set an incredible bargain, which hopefully will entice readers to take a chance on authors they may not already know. If they like what they read, they might then buy more books by those authors.

Because this has proven to be such an effective marketing tool, I recently joined with nine other authors for a boxed set. Along with writing mysteries, I also write romance and romantic suspense. Because the other authors invited to participate are all romance and romantic suspense authors, I contributed Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, one of my previously traditionally published romance suspense novels that had gone out of print. I had received the rights back to the book and several months ago published it myself as an ebook.

Our boxed set is titled Romance Super Bundle and is a collection of 10 full-length contemporary romance, historical romance, and romantic suspense novels. Along on the ride with me are authors Dale Mayer, Donna Marie Rogers, Edie Ramer, Amy Gamet, Linda McLaughlin, Kate Kelly, Pamela Fryer, Barbara Phinney, and Wendy Ely. Many of these authors are award-winners and bestsellers.

We priced the Romance Super Bundle at $5.99. That’s less than .60 cents per novel. However for a limited time the collection is on sale for only .99 cents. That’s mere pennies per book! Hopefully, it will entice readers to take a chance on us. Time will tell.

Buy Links:

Amazon 

Nook

Kobo

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” Other books in the series includes Death By Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse and the ebook only mini-mysteries Crewel Intentions and Mosaic Mayhem. Lois is also published in women’s fiction, romance, romantic suspense, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name.Visit Lois at www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Follow everyone on Twitter @anasleuth.

WHY I'M GRATEFUL I'M NOT A SURGEON

by Lois Winston

As those of you who read my post last month know, in addition to writing the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries for Midnight Ink, I've recently embarked on an indie publishing career, making available as ebooks some of my older romances and romantic suspense books under the pen name Emma Carlyle. My backlist will also be available shortly.

I'm lucky that I have a design background and a son who knows just about all there is to know when it comes to designing on the computer. Scott is an animator and does post-production work for TV and the movies. My skills were learned way before PhotoShop, Quark, Publisher and all those other programs were a glimmer in some geek's eye. They were honed back in the prehistoric age when we actually had to spec type the old-fashion way -- using {{shudder}} math formulas!

So what's this got to do with why I'm grateful I'm not a surgeon? I'm getting to that.

For the indie books and my backlist I need cover art. I've been coming up with the concepts and finding the perfect artwork and photos to incorporate. Scott has provided the technical skill to execute the covers. I've been very pleased with the way the covers have turned out.

However, some of the covers need to have Lois Winston as the author and others, Emma Carlyle. A couple of weeks ago Scott created the perfect cover for Lost in Manhattan, a romantic suspense where the heroine is suffering from amnesia after being hit by a taxi. I spent days searching through royalty free photo databases because I had a very specific image in mind. I needed a photo of a red-headed young woman with a French braid. I finally found the photo. Scott took a shot of the Manhattan skyline and merged the two images. The cover is exactly what I'd envisioned.

I spent a lot of time looking at that cover. I had to resize it for the various ebook platforms where I was uploading the book. I had to add it to my website. I pinned it on Pinterest. Copies started selling on Amazon and other places.

Then one night after the book had been available for several days and sold about a dozen copies, I received an email from Scott just as I was about to power down my computer for the night and go to bed. He had noticed that he put the wrong author name on the cover!

I couldn't believe it! I must have looked at that cover a hundred times and never noticed that Lois Winston is listed as the author and not Emma Carlyle! I'm trained as an artist. I'm supposed to have a critical eye when it comes to visual elements. I'm not supposed to miss something so blatantly wrong as this.

So I quickly uploaded a revised cover and waited several days for the various sites to refresh the image. Of course, during that time, the book kept selling with the wrong cover. I'm now waiting for the nasty reviews to arrive. Then again, maybe like me, no one will notice.

And that brings me to why I'm glad I'm not a surgeon. I screwed up because I was rushing and not paying as close attention as I should have. But my screw-up, in the greater scheme of things, is a pretty benign screw-up. No one got hurt. It may have been a devastating error for me, but in hindsight I can slap my head and laugh about it.

But it got me thinking about how a mistake made by someone else can have all sorts of horrible consequences for other, innocent people. At least I didn't leave a medical instrument inside a patient, and for that reason, I'm very grateful I'm not a surgeon.

And speaking of surgeons, this is the perfect segue into a topic near and dear to my heart -- breast cancer research. To celebrate the availability of the five Emma Carlyle books, instead of throwing a champagne and caviar party, I'm making a donation to breast cancer research. And guess what? You can determine how large a check I write. Throughout the month of August, I will donate $500 for every 1,000 Emma Carlyle books sold. You can find blurbs, excerpts and buy links on the Emma Carlyle website.

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. Visit her at http://www.loiswinston.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Visit Lois's romance writing alter-ego Emma Carlyle at http://www.emmacarlyle.com.

Does Midnight Ink = Cozy?

I need feedback people - the more the better!

While at the writers conference in Portland, I was often asked what Midnight Ink publishes.  When taking pitches, it goes something like this, "I don't know if this is the right book for you, but I have a 120,000 word thriller..."

At this point, you could insert historical mystery, suspense, hard-boiled, etc for thriller...  So just what is it do we publish?  Midnight Ink has had a great history with cozy and soft-boiled mysteries.  But we've also done well with a few thrillers. I've acquired quite a few that fall in the middle of the road -what we call medium boiled.

Here is my question to you, dear readers - what is your perception of Midnight Ink?  Do you see us as a cozy publisher?  A plain old mystery publisher?  What comes to mind when you think Midnight Ink?  What would like us to publish that we aren't currently?

To foster conversation, I will send a couple random commenters a new book from our 2012 list.  Comments need to be of substance.  Thanks!!

Romance in Mysteries

I have to give Deb Baker/Hannah Reed for giving me the idea for this blog.  Click here to read her blog post on the Cozy Chicks Blog.

It seems to me that the lines between the mystery genre and romanace are becoming less and less distinguishable.  A cozy written now versus one written ten years ago is more likely to have on the page romance.  Not graphic sex scenes by any means, but there has been a trend of more action, as well as more bad language and slightly more violence.  In my opinion, cozies used to be very close to traditional mysteries and now they are much closer to soft-boiled.  Is this a bad change?  Not at all.  It's simply the evolution of the genre.  (Romantic suspense is an entirely different sub-genre.)

Cozies and soft-boiled mysteries are very character driven.  Or you could call them relational driven - in that its the relationships that are most important (yes there needs to be a good, plausable plot, but come on folks, let's be honest - is there really a plot in the Stephanie Plum books?)  So how much relationship do we need to see?  Does it make a book less believable if we don't see some action on the page?

So where does the line get drawn now?  Authors are probably in the best position to answer that question, after all, authors are receiving reader feedback regularly.  So authors - what are your thoughts on romance in the cozy or soft-boiled sub-genres?  Are readers asking for more romance or telling you that you have gone too far?

Readers, of course I want to hear your opinions as well!!  What do you want to see? And what about swearing and violence?  Is a character believable if she says "darn" after she has accidentally backs into the tall, dark and handsome police chief's car?  :)