Tips for a successful book event

Now remember, this is my first book so I am a complete novice when it comes to this promotion stuff. Yeah, okay, I'm a novice when it comes to most anything related to the books except reading and writing.


Does anyone have any tips on what to do or not do for a successful book event?


Like, do I have to dress professionally? ew! What can I say, I am jeans girl.


Or do I set up a table and sit behind it? That seems kind of impersonable and I always like the events where the author reads an excerpt from the book - or maybe from an upcoming book.


Send your ideas, please.

Signed a book last night and it wasn't even a book event

Good morning!

Last night, I went to dinner with a couple of my neighbors. We went to Margaritas for Mexican. My neighbor's husband never had Mexican food until I moved into the neighborhood. Now he likes it!

Anyway, while we were there, I dropped off the book event flyers and the posters my publisher had made for me for the manager who arranged the upcoming book event.

Instead of Andrea (the manager) coming over to my table, Pedro (AKA PJ, another manager) came over to the table and sat with us. He asked if I had an extra copy of the book for him. HA! Of course!!

Then he asked me to sign it. See, yesterday's post was very timely. I managed to put a quick quip in it and told PJ that he had two weeks to read the book.

He asked if there would be a quiz. Well, duh, yeah! How else will I know if he actually read it? But, I told him he had to read it so that in two weeks, he would be telling everyone how great the action and suspense was, not to mention how hot the, uh, romance was. :-)

In two weeks, we shall see if he knows his stuff.

Got my books!!

I received my books from my publisher today. Wow! They look terrific. They even put these little shark glyphs in the scene and POV breaks. NICE!!

OH! And they sent me posters of my book cover as well as a framed cover with a dollar bill. :-) Now is that creative thinking or what?!

I already had to get a box to send to my parents and family...oops, still have more of those to do.

So here's a question of the day. What do you write on the inside of the book when you are signing it besides the obvious, your name?

I went through my stash of autographed books and some of have cute quips, some just say Warmets Wishes or Enjoy the book and then the signature.

Anyone have any thoughts? What do you prefer?

Finished Manuscript #3

Good morning!

Well, last night I managed to achieve my first New Year's Resolution and completed my third novel. I still have the last few chapters that have to be edited by my dad and nora but other than that, the story is complete. Yippee!!

Thanks goodness because book 4 started forming in my head this past weekend. Two whole scenes that I could not get out of my head. I need to actually come up with the actual plot but I'm close.

Got up this morning and typed up the first two pages.

New Blog Look

For those of you who may have not noticed...look!

My blog now looks similar to my website. Gone is the purple and blue. Now it has that suspenseful look.

Thanks Jeannie! www.willdesignforchocolate.com

Writer's Block and Article

Well, I'm at that inevitable point in my current WIP where I'm so close to finishing that I cannot seem to write. Don't ya just hate that?!

Anyway, I'm looking for some ideas on the next article to write in the hopes that if I write an article maybe I will be able to clear my writer's block.

I will take any suggestions, so send them over.

Nashua Telegraph - Author's Forum

On Friday, I received an email from the Nashua Telegraph and a form to fill out, kind of a paper-based author interview. Very neat!


Anyway, look for my book and me to be featured in the Nashua Telegraph's Author Forum section.


It will also announce the upcoming booksignings.

My mom got the book before me

HA! My mother ordered IT HAPPENS IN THREES off the Internet and received her copy before I received mine.

She called me Friday night from my dad's cell phone while he drove so she could tell me the news. She was so excited that she told my father to read the dedication to her while we spoke.

Uh hem! Dad was driving the car!! :-)

Anyway, they finally read the dedication (later)...which was to them. All these months and they never had a clue so it was a great feeling to know I choked up my own parents.

Yesterday, I spoke with my dad and he was telling me that when the guys arrived in the morning to work on replacing their kitchen tile my mother was right there showing off her daughter's book.

Don't you just love family!! I love mine.

Newspaper Interview

Yesterday, I did a phone interview with Sarah LeBrun of the Salem Observer. The results will be out in next week's edition so look for it.

Part of the article will list the upcoming booksignings as well as where to buy the book. :-)

Second Booksigning Scheduled

If you can't make the first booksigning at Big Easy Bagel on February 7 then you have to make the next one.

Where: Margaritas Mexican Restaurant
1 Keewaydin Drive
Salem, NH

When: Thursday, February 12, 2009
5 PM

Thursday night is Ladies' Night at Margaritas so what could be more appropriate than to get a signed copy of the latest romantic-suspense for your girl/lady/woman/friend just two days before Valentine's Day.

Hope to see you there!

First Booksigning

My first book signing event has been scheduled just before Valentine's Day!!

What could be more perfect than a new Romantic book for a Romantic Holiday! Plus, when you buy a book, I'll include some chocolate.

Where: Big Easy Bagel
2626 Brown Avenue
Manchester, NH

When: Saturday, February 7, 2009
Noon to 2 PM

Hope to see you there!

How to write more often

So we all have day jobs or families, even daily tasks that have to be done. When are we supposed to get any writing done??

Here's a tip - okay a couple of tips:

1. Instead of taking a book to read with you when you run those errands that require you to wait for a period of time, like a visit to the vet or a doctor, take a pad of paper and a pen. Write! I even carry the last few pages of the section I'm working on with me just so I can refresh my memory as to where I left off.

2. Block some specific time aside just for your writing. Write! I have for many years set aside an hour every evening to read so why not do the same for writing.

3. Say you are used to your schedule and then it shifts, you no longer are taking that night class on belly dancing on Tuesday. Fill that time slot with. . .take a guess. . .writing!

4. The biggest tip of all is to stick paper and pen in your car, your handbag, your backpack, underneath your sofa. Why? Because when you feel the urge, you will have something there that you can use to write with. Heck! It may not be a chapter, or a paragraph, but it may be the story idea for your next novel.

For the record, I even have paper and pen with me when I'm on the treadmill. I can't exactly read the writing, but I'm getting something down to jog, no pun intended, my memory later.

The beginning of my WIP came to me as I was driving to a NHRWA meeting. Yeah, can't exactly write while driving. Okay, I could but it probably wouldn't be pretty, cars piled up on 93N. I can see the headline now, Local Author Writes Her Own Death Scene. Anyway, as soon as I got to the meeting spot, I pulled out notebook and pen and wrote the first few sentences down. After that. . .novel three is in the works!

The Perils of Research

How many of you have to or need to do research for the book you are writing?

On my current WIP, I had to do some research just to get started because I know very little about how the Intelligence organizations work.

Well, in doing so, I found some great and interesting information. The peril for me came when I would look up one thing that led to another and another, and even another. All of it became too interesting that I forgot the "scope" of the book.

I didn't forget the book because I have been writing like crazy, but I forgot what the hero/heroine's goal was, where I wanted to end up.

I got to about page 175 and became confused. (Okay, that may not be because of my story.) Anyway, I had to revisit the story and get an answer to one basic question. "Why was this one guy dead?"

It actually took me 2 days to state why.

Why did it take me that long to answer the question?

Because all the interesting facts I found became a puzzle in their own right so I wanted to put those together rather than my book's puzzle.

Thankfully, once I had the answer to that single question, I could answer all the other questions and move the story forward. Of course, I did have to go back and tweak a few chapters and even added another one in the middle yesterday.

Moral of this story. . .BEWARE of the perils of research in book writing.

IT HAPPENS IN THREES IS ON B&N

Look!

IT HAPPENS IN THREES is listed on Barnes & Noble. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9781603180863

Keeping checking to order it.

Children's Book and Contracts

Late yesterday afternoon I returned home and found this big envelope on my door. After getting it inside and opening it up, I saw these papers from a publishing company and was confused. (happens every once and a while)

As far as I knew the only publisher who has any of my work is L&L Dreamspell, my publisher for my romantic-suspense books. I had completely forgotten that I submitted my children's story before Thanksgiving.

I reached back into the envelope and found a letter. An offer letter to publish my book. Woohoo! Yes, I was extremely excited. . . until I read the contract.

Why?

Such a good question. I'll tell you.

Because the bottom line is that they wanted me to front the money to publish the book and they would in return spend 6 times that in actually getting the artwork (B&W), get it printed, then market it to online bookstores.

As soon as I read that I have to give them money. . .my balloon popped.

If I wanted to pay someone to publish my book (self-publish), I could do it for a lot less than they quoted me.

Moral of this story is. . .READ THE CONTRACT. Don't sign and send anything off unless you know what you are getting into. Also, research the publisher to check on their reputation. One good place to get some of that information is http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/

Books with pages missing

What happened to quality assurance?

In the past year, I have purchased two books that have had complete chunks of pages missing. Not because someone went into the bookstore and ripped out pages but because the printer screwed up.

Last night, I sat down to do my usual reading (I try to read at least 30 minutes a day or more), and when I started reading, it seemed the book jumped right into the story. Now I'm all for the story starting off right away, no backstory to bore me to tears, but wow...this was good.

Then it got bad. I read about 50 pages and all of the sudden I was reading the same exact thing that I read on page 1. I flipped back to verify and sure enough it was the smae page. BUT, it was not only that page, it was those 50 pages completely repeated.

OK, here's where I admit I'm a blonde. It wasn't until that happened that I actually looked at the page numbers and found out that the book that started off with a bang - started on page 45. Yes, what I assumed was page 1 was actually page 45.

I actually am missing pages 1-44 of my book.

This is the second time this has happened to me in a year, so, I ask you, "Where is the quality assurance?"

Did this happen with all the books or just the ones in the same print run? Does this happen with e-books?

I'm very curious as to why this happens and what can I do to get the rest of the book that is missing.

Sweet Spot in Writing

Yesterday afternoon, I completed writing the interview with myself/press release. Not sure how entertaining it will be, but my editors have reviewed and cleaned it up so at least it's grammatically correct. :-)

Actually, the editors really only tweaked the beginning. Which brings me to my topic.

Have you ever noticed you have a sweet spot in writing and then there are other areas/times where you can't seem to find the rhythm. (i know what ran through my head when i said this :-)

Anyway, where is your sweet spot or lack there of?

For me, I suck at the beginning of a story. When I say suck, I mean the writing isn't as solid and fluid. I usually end up rewriting/majorly revising the beginning. Once I get started and the rhythm takes hold, look out!

It's the same thing for me when I write certain characters. It seems one character, when I write him or her at first, doesn't pop out at me while the other character does. You know, like whenever you write that one character, BAM! everything comes out perfectly and his or her personality is obvious.

My sweet spot seems to be after chapter 1 and sometimes chapter two. For whatever reason I'm no longer hesitant and the story flows from my had to my fingertips and out onto my computer.

When I write an article, like my self-interview, it seems the beginning paragraphs are always the roughest.

What do you do about those rough areas?

Do you keep beating yourself over the head trying to make it better and never get there? Do you call on a friend/editor to read and advise? Or do you shove it aside and start over or move on?

Working on an interview with an author - ME!

Last night, as part of my effort to self-promote I started to work on an "interview with the author" that I want to send to the local papers.

I got a few questions down then started to wonder what kinds of things would people really want to know about me and my very first romantic-suspense novel.

So, here I am, requesting that if anyone has suggestions to feel free and post a suggestion or send an email from my website.

The one question I know, is the question I have already received from many friends. . . "Did you pose for the cover?"

Do you honestly expect me to answer that? HA!

What to do with my new book cover?

Well, I can tell you what I did last night. I printed out several copies of the cover and took it with me to my salon appointment. Of course all the ladies know my first book is coming out so they were ecstatic.

Such a tremendous feeling to know that something you've worked years on achieving is just around the corner!

Beyond that, I now have to create a "Press Kit". No clue what that is other than one of the things will be a Press Release and somehow my new book cover plays a part in this.

Plus, someone suggested that I get bookmarks made with the book cover art on it and the ISBN and my website listed, not to mention my next novel.

Woohoo! Let's get this show on the road.

If anyone has other marketing suggestions for use of the book cover art please let me know.

BOOK COVER!!

Look everyone. . .to the left of this post. . .and you will see. . .my book cover for my very first romantic suspense!!!!!

Okay, can you tell I am just a little excited?! Duh! I am doing the happy dance.

IT HAPPENS IN THREES will be available in about 2. . count them. . .2 weeks!!!