Promoting Your Novel

I spent yesterday promoting May Day. Before finding a publisher for the book, I had done a lot of research on "being an author," and the one point that kept coming up was that you're going to spend as much or more time promoting as you did writing the thing. "Ha!" I said. "How could that possibly be?"

Sheesh. It's the truth. There's what, 2.2 million books in print? If I want people to hear about mine, I need to do a little leg work. Here is a list of yesterday's legwork:

• Began online research to find gardening and resort magazines that I could send review copies of May Day to. It's called "niche marketing," I believe, and since the Murder by Month series is set in a resort town, and the protagonist, Mira, loves to garden, those are niches I am exploring. Any suggestions for magazines?
• Went to Magpie, this fantastic store in Alexandria that sells one-of-a-kind purses, jewelry, and stuff you didn't know you needed until you saw it. They're selling May Day, also, and were out. I restocked them, which goes back to an earlier blog post of mine--you gotta keep really accurate records of all the money you take in and send out (travel expenses, review copies, mailing expenses, promo materials, that new laptop I need to buy, etc.). It can all be written off on the taxes.
• Drove the 45 minutes to Battle Lake to put up posters advertising the 7/22 May Day signing and assorted revelry at the Art of the Lakes Gallery. Brian, my hardworking publicist, made the posters, and they're bright and big and informative, and come with this headline: "Living in Battle Lake Can Be Murder." Eye-catching, no? Ask me how to sneak into a gas station/restaurant/knick knack paddywhack shop, molest their bulletin board with your 11 x 14 full-color poster, and sneak out without having to actually talk to anyone who might say, "Um, we WANT people to come to Battle Lake." Ask me.
• Stopped by the Apothecary while in town to drop off 24 more copies of May Day for them to sell. Dished with Jay, the pharmacist, about Medicare. I put in my plug for universal healthcare, but I don't think he was buying it. Can I mention he had not a hair out of place, sort of biggish glasses, a nice button-down cotton shirt, and pressed jeans? I also saw him an hour later, on his hog, wearing snake-thin mirrored sunglasses and a wife-beater which accented his barbed-wire tattoo. I'm serious. The transformation was almost super-heroish. Do you see why I set the mystery series in Battle Lake?
• Contacted Michael Lourey, famed author of Just Say Yes, to see if he wants to tour with me. We could call it something catchy, like Lourey To Lourey. Something about this line in his bio tells me we could draw a diverse audience: "When Michael and Linda, his wife of ten years, walked into the Cerritos 1st Assembly of God Church he was still a color wearing, drug addicted, alcoholic, angry and bitter biker. When they walked out they were Christians with a call on their lives."

That was it. That was yesterday. When people ask me, "How do you find time to write a book?", they don't know the half of it. I've given up TV-watching, a social life, and wearing make-up. What else can I cut out of my life to make time to write, which means also time to promote? I've got that short story to finish yet, and when I was at Holly's house last week, I had a really vivid dream that I think I can make into a strong literary novel (Holly, it wasn't that one I told you about with Mulder, Scully, and the buffalo), and I'm also working on August Moon (in my head, at least), the fourth in the Murder by Month series. And in a few months, the promoting of June Bug will begin.

The time issue is one of the reasons I'm considering taking a three-year leave of absence from my teaching job at Alex Tech to pursue an MFA. It would give me the degree I'd need to teach at a four-year college, but it would also give me more time and skillz to write. And really, all I want to do is write. I'll keep you updated.