Daily Archives: November 18, 2008

Writer on the Verge

Write? Promote? Write? Promote?

I’m writing Book Two, but what should I do about Book One? It’s a quandary every writer faces, but I think I know the answer to this one …

Sell, baby, sell!

Yup, that’s me. Kate the Promoter.

Okay, yes, I’m a little obsessed with promotion right now, but it happens to everyone, right? I’m determined to sell every book printed in order to trigger a second and third printing. Is that so wrong? I just wish I knew how many books my publisher is printing. Then I could really obsess.

But I don’t know how many they’re printing and they won’t tell me, so I’m forced to play with imaginary numbers on the calculator. I carry my calculator around with me, just in case I get the urge to figure out something.

That’s not weird, is it? No, it’s fun. Obsession can be fun. Really. And then there’s bookmarks. I really want bookmarks. I’ve got postcards, but bookmarks can go anywhere. And I’ll need pens. And magnets.

I obsess over my calendar daily. When my book comes out, I’ll need to fill my calendar with lots of speaking engagements. I’ll need to schedule readings, and maybe go on a book tour and meet booksellers and lots of readers. I need to do a blog tour, and contests, and I’ve got to get lots of reviews, do radio interviews, go to every conference in the country.

My protagonist is female, so I’m hoping to speak to a lot of women’s groups. There are women at Rotary meetings, right? And lawyers’ groups, legal secretary organizations, nurses’ associations, librarians, teachers.

Oh, and my protagonist stops for coffee in chapter seven. I wonder if barristas have speakers at their meetings. There’s a connection I could exploit. I wonder if they have a mailing list.

Maybe I need to take a nap.

Kate Carlisle’s debut mystery, Homicide in Hardcover, comes out February 3, 2009. Buy, baby, buy!!