How sweet it is.

I started the book, originally titled, UNDESERVED, in early 2005 when I was still working as an investigative reporter at The San Diego Union-Tribune. My first book, POISONED LOVE, about the Kristin Rossum case, was finished, but would not come out until May. And after being hampered by the ethical restrictions of covering that case for the paper, which kept me from simultaneously pursuing a book deal, I worked on this project in my spare time.

Skylar and Jennifer Deleon, dubbed the Bonnie and Clyde of the OC, were accused of scheming to murder Tom and Jackie Hawks by tying them to the anchor of their yacht, the “Well Deserved,” and throwing them overboard alive near Newport Beach. Three others were arrested in the murder conspiracy, the goal of which was to steal the Hawkses’ boat and pillage their bank accounts. Jennifer was not on the boat when the couple was killed, but authorities had collected mounds of forensic evidence implicating her in the scheme, including cell phone records showing that she and Skylar were in constant contact the day the Hawkses were killed.

This Orange County story also had some local angles that made it interesting to San Diego media: Tom Hawks graduated as “Best Looking” from San Dieguito High School, went on to be a firefighter for the Carlsbad Fire Department and a restaurateur there; his brother, Jim, worked for years as a police officer in Carlsbad, ultimately retiring as police chief; and Tom’s son, Ryan, lived on Crown Point.

In addition to the good vs. evil aspects of the story and the brutally heinous nature of the crime, the story also had other intriguing elements that soon drew the attention of the national media. Skylar was a former child actor on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; he was later accused of killing a third victim in Mexico while out of jail for the day on work furlough; he tried to solicit hits on his father and cousin from behind bars; and, wait for it, this pathological liar not only told people he had been a Force Recon sniper, but that he was a hermaphrodite as well. Turns out he killed the Hawkses in part to get money for a sex change operation.

Not to be insensitive to the victims or their families, but speaking strictly from a writer’s standpoint, this was the “perfect storm” of what we call “sexy” components of a bestseller. So I immediately approached the Hawks family to let them know I was interested in writing a book about the case, and began doing interviews with key players in the case.

But I wasn’t fast enough. While I was putting my proposal together, so was another author, who got a deal with a publisher that puts out true crime books before the trials. Personally, I like to wait until after a trial is completed because I get more access to information and can write a more comprehensive tale, but I wanted to see if I could tie up a deal in advance this time because the same thing had happened to me with the Rossum case. I was disappointed, but even more determined to write a better and more authoritative book. But that would mean waiting for ALL the trials to conclude. And that would take years.

So, as I’ve explained here before, the nature of what I do is to juggle, and juggle I did. Over the next few years, I quit my job at the paper, published four more books, and taught night classes at UCSD Extension, all the while driving up to Orange County to attend Jennifer’s, then Skylar’s and then John F. Kennedy’s trials. That’s a 90- to 120-minute drive each way, depending on traffic, and I no longer had an expense account to pay for gas, parking, or hotels. Thankfully, I have a couple of nice friends who let me camp out in their guest rooms, but it was definitely a logistical challenge.

My publisher, Kensington/Pinnacle, requires a conviction in a case before it will give me a contract, so once Jennifer and Skylar were convicted, I knew I could write my proposal, but I wanted to wait for JFK’s trial to finish to begin writing the book. I worked all that out with my publisher, and got a two-book contract to write up this case as book #1. (The Chelsea King-Amber Dubois-John Gardner case would later become book #2.)

I had been doing some interviews along the way, but it became a growing risk to spend so many years on a project like this without a contract in place. Let’s just say I had to have faith. I ran into plenty of roadblocks and rejections, and sometimes I almost gave up. But I didn’t get where I am by backing down, plus I knew in my gut that this was a great story, so I kept going. Call me crazy, but I had to write this book, or go down trying.

Once I had the contract, I felt some relief, but I still had plenty of work to do. I did repeated interviews with Newport Beach police detectives, the prosecutor and defense attorneys, the victims’ family members, and collected more investigative materials and court documents than I can even begin to quantify. Boxes and boxes of paperwork, files and files on my computer, photos galore, and enough material, frankly, to write two books. The challenge became what to leave out, and cutting all those words was painful, but it had to be done.

By the time I had finished and done a rewrite, the feeling of accomplishment was tremendous, and I’m very proud of my book. All the emails I’ve been getting from readers – and even the victims’ families — telling me that they couldn’t put the book down and how much they appreciated how I’d treated their loved ones with such care, only reinforced my gut instinct that, in the end, all my efforts would be worth every minute.

Thanks for reading this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to juggling.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Caitlin Rother, a Pulitzer-nominated journalist, is the author of Body Parts, Twisted Triangle, Naked Addiction and Poisoned Love, and is the co-author of Where Hope Begins. Her next book, Dead Reckoning, will be out in February 2011.

Rother worked for 19 years as an investigative reporter for daily newspapers, covering issues ranging from addiction, suicide, mental illness and murder to politics and corruption at City Hall and in Congress. She now writes books full-time.

Most recently a staff writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, Rother also has been published in Cosmopolitan, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and The Daily Beast. She has made dozens of media appearances as a crime expert on shows including, “Women Who Kill” on E!, the “Snapped” series on the Oxygen Network, the Investigation Discovery channel, and “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News.

Rother, who earned her bachelor’s degree from University of California Berkeley and her master’s from Northwestern University, teaches narrative non-fiction, creative writing, advanced feature writing and interviewing at UCSD Extension.

GOOD COUPLE…Happy and retired, Tom and Jackie Hawks lived a charmed life in sunny Southern California. They were delighted when former child star Skylar Deleon and his pregnant wife Jennifer offered cash to purchase their 55-ft yacht The Well Deserved.

BAD COUPLE…But a trial voyage turned into a nightmare. Out at sea, the Hawkses begged for their lives as they were forced to sign everything over to Skylar. In return, they were tied to the ship’s anchor and thrown overboard – alive…

DEAD COUPLE…Skylar and Jennifer’s twisted story became even more shocking when Skylar’s unusual sexual motivations were revealed in court. After killing a man while out of jail on work furlough, he hired hits from prison on four witnesses, including his father…For this former child actor, the answer to “where are they now?” is Death Row. - FROM THE BOOK BACK

• Rose Valenta is giving away a paperback copy of her humor book, Sitting on Cold Porcelain.
• Allan Leverone is giving away an e-copy of his thriller, Final Vector, and 6 e-copies of Postcards from the Apocalypse.
• Frank Edwards is giving away a paperback copy of his medical thriller, Final Mercy and a paperback copy of his poetry and short story book, It’ll Ease the Pain.
• Pamela Samuels Young will be giving away a paperback copy of her legal thriller, Murder on the Down Low, and a copy of her audio CD, How to Write a Novel Despite Your Day Job.
• Sheila Hendrix will be giving away both a paperback copy and e-book copy of her YA paranormal, The Betrayal.
• Cynthia Kocialski will be giving away a paperback copy of her startup business book, Startup from the Ground Up.
• C.W. Gortner will be giving away a paperback copy of his historical mystery, The Tudor Secret.
• Vincent Zandri will be giving away 2 autographed copies of his thriller, Moonlight Falls & 2 autographed copies of his thriller, The Remains!
• Jeanne C. Davis will be giving away a paperback copy of her psychological mystery, Sheetrock Angel!
• Frank Scully will be giving away an e-copy of his mystery novel, Resurrection Garden!
• Pump Up Your Book will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift certificate!!!!

To find out the details, visit the Pump Up Your Book Promotion Facebook Party page here!

A good working relationship between an author and his publicist needs to be established right up front – - since so much emotional energy is tied up in an author’s work, which needs to be well communicated to the media representative. The laborious perseverance of a professional book  publicist blossoms when it is combined with an artful balance of patience and continued with daily input from the book’s creator.

I have developed a handful of useful tips the author needs to always bear in mind when decide to engage the services of a professional publicist. The publicist should know the media well and can map out a plan in writing, with a free phone consultation before the author even decides to move forward. If followed, these tips will surely increase the likelihood of a successful marketing
campaign that will both boost book sales and also expand the awareness and perception of the author and his or her works.

• Input and planning: The author and the publicist need to have a clear plan of attack mapped out in advance before embarking on their PR journey together. Authors need to be mindful to keep their publicist informed of any ideas they too have to publicize their book since it’s their creation and no one is closer to it then they are. Authors need to give the plan time to fulfill itself and work; and never, ever should an author be “pushy” with their publicist who understands and knows the media much better than his client does. Pushiness and impatience can derail a good plan. Authors need to make sure their book publicist keeps them informed regularly of what is being done as their carefully crafted plan on paper plays itself out. An author can certainly suggest media the publicist can contact on their behalf too, especially if, for instance, a CNN or Fox News story might be relevant to the author’s book’s theme or message. A well played out and thoughtful, strategic campaign is one that will up the chances for success with media outreach and book sales too.

• The creative publicist: A creative, worthwhile professional publicist is one who develops both traditional and non-traditional pathways to publicize a book. Sometimes authors may not agree to all that is suggested by the publicist, but they should always listen and, then, turn an idea down if its one they feel they do not want as part of their PR strategy. Ideas lead to other ideas…it is a refining process and the publicist always needs to come up with fresh, provocative ways to get their client’s book beyond the sharp competition. A good book publicist will – - seizing upon a media opportunity they see – - often come up with “on-the-spot” ideas beyond the written plan. This is demonstrated if there is a breaking national news event and maybe, for example, MSNBC needs a psychologist/author to comment as an expert on the impact of survivor’s guilt in perhaps a fatal plane crash, a killer flood or terrorist attack.

• The expert publicist: Don’t e-mail or call your publicist every other hour and tell him or her how to do their job with your book. Remember you have hired a professional and they know best how to proceed once the groundwork and tools for the campaign are in place. An author hires a publicist for their knowledge, experience and media savvy. A publicist who feels a client is a “control freak” will probably end up with poor results and in many cases will cancel their contract with the author. Nagging and complaining, negative clients spell a campaign that will fall far short of its goals.

• Flexible author schedule: The media is a fast moving machine – - especially today with all the electronic advantages we all have.  Authors who hire publicists need to keep their personal schedules very flexible and ready often within a few hours notice – - to take advantage of, say, an impromptu phone interview with a radio station, or an interview with maybe Ladies Home Journal or a live guest spot on the Today show via a guest spot at the local NBC affiliate to maybe discuss the rise of AD-HD disorders in school kids, etc. Make sure to keep your cell phone with you at all times during and even after business hours if your publicist needs to reach you to confirm you are available while the media person on the other end is holding. Often good media opportunities are lost due to an author who does not make sure he or she can invest the time needed to work with the contract commitment they have made with their professional publicist.

• Reasonable returns: One of the most common questions I am posed by potential clients is, “Can you get me on Oprah?” Sometimes I bristle when asked this because some authors have no sense of reality about their book or the media marketplace that serves books and writers. Yes, I have certainly had clients on “Oprah”; in fact, I was one of the publicists handling her 2008 ABC-TV series “Oprah’s Big Give.” Ms. Winfrey’s “Oprah” show has only a handful of months left before it goes off the air. The show is focusing right now on highlights of their years on the air and some authors will be booked. Emphasis now is launching Ms. Winfrey’s OWN network on cable television with Discovery Networks. OWN will premiere shortly and bookings are underway right now. I believe one of the most difficult parts of a publicist’s job can be to manage the demands, expectations of an author client. Having realistic expectations in an industry in which it’s virtually impossible to predict and know for sure what will happen is vital and crucial. Book marketing is to say the least, a most challenging business. The competition is fierce, and success in terms of huge book sales numbers is often elusive. A balanced, reasonable, honest understanding of the challenges and opportunities of a book promotion campaign will inevitably improve the odds of an author being satisfied with the work of a publicist.

• Long Term impact: Recently I heard of an author hiring a publicist for one month, spending $2000 for a one-page media alert sheet that was sent out, guaranteeing six national radio interviews. With this, the author expected to be an overnight media sensation. This is a ridiculous and absurd concept. A good and worthwhile book media campaign can take anywhere from 90 to 120 days to cover all the bases such as getting the media friendly release written and distributed, pitching all the media (print, electronic, digital/social media) and lining up interviews, author media training with the publicist, obtaining meaningful book reviews and then gathering up all the results with media coverage copies, reports to the author client, etc. A successful campaign will also have lasting results both as a way to introduce a new author to the media as well as creating a strong and visible Internet presence. An author hiring a publicist needs to ask himself what are the goals and what do I want out of this when the campaign is completed?…is it just strong and robust book sales, or is it a book deal with a major new publisher or maybe be the sale of a book for movie rights. A book could even be a way to get an author established in television news quarters as a given “expert” in his or her area of expertise or to help the author launch a speaker’s career. In any event, a successful book publicity campaign can open many doors and opportunities for an author and have long term impact.

Charlie Barrett
The Barrett Company Communications

ABOUT…Charles Barrett formed The Barrett Company in 1991 as a full service public relations and marketing communications agency. The Los Angeles headquartered firm offers integrated media marketing and marketing research expertise, with an emphasis on public relations, for the entertainment and leisure time/travel industries — serving celebrities, motion pictures, television, radio, new media, authors, hotels and tourism. Since our creation, we have served such companies as Warner Brothers to American Movie Classics cable channel, celebrities such as Johnny Carson to the Internet studio Z.com (David Spade, Alanis Morrisette), and Hilton Hotels to Paramount Pictures.

It’s Earth month and earth day is coming soon. It’s the month to remind us of ways to help preserve our resources. As readers, we can help keep books out of landfills and even save money and space.

1. Borrow books from friends, family, and the local library.

2. Buy used books if you must have that book for your shelves.

3. Download e-books and audio books. There are tons of free resources out there. Check out your local library for downloadable books!

4. Stop receiving phone books when you can now search online and even on your phones for numbers and addresses.

5. Donate your books to a local charity, church, or school organization.

6. Sign up for PaperSwapBooks and the many other online book swapping communities to trade books with others.

7. Swap magazines and when you’re done, leave them in doctor’s offices (just remember to remove your mailing label).

8. Turn damaged old thick books into art projects with the kids or even make them into decorative storage boxes.

Got an idea of how to save trees, save from piling up in landfills, or save money? Share your idea here!

It’s hard for me to believe, but I have been happily published for twenty years now. My first book came out in 1990 and now I’m thrilled my twenty-first book, An Earl to Enchant, the third book in the Rogues’ Dynasty Series has just hit bookstores.  I don’t know who said it first, but whoever did was right when he said, “My how time flies when you are having fun!”

I remember the early days of my writing career when I attended conferences held by Romantic Times and Romance Writers of America.  I was fortunate enough back then to sit under the tutelage of some of the Masters of romance books; Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Lavyrle Spencer, Jayne Ann Krentz, Julie Garwood, Linda Howard, and Debbie MacComber just to name a few.

Did you know that in the early days we could take recorders into workshops and tape the sessions?  They don’t allow us to do that now.  I would take notes and record the speakers and then go home and type out useful one-liners from my notes. Over the years, I’ve collected some great advice for beginning and seasoned writers that I made into a check list.  I always read them before I start a new book.

Over the years, I didn’t keep up with which writer said what, but I thought you might like to read what I call my great one-liner tips from some of the best and most successful romance writers in the business.

1. Every writer has their own way to write a book
2. Think about your story for a long time
3. Collect all your research
4. Know your characters
5. Establish a character on first page
6. Don’t under estimate your first page or your first chapter
7. First page sets the pace
8. Study your first page – Did you tell who, what, when, where?
9. Best first lines are drama
10. Good first lines plunge hero or heroine into dire straits
11. The better you use your opening chapter, the better your book will be
12. Plunge your reader into conflict immediately
13. Reader involvement is the most important thing you can do
14. Get your reader early and you’ll keep them to the end of the book
15. Give the hero and heroine the promise of romance early in the book
16. But readers get bored with too much happiness
17. Write in a little misery, then resolve it
18. If you don’t pace yourself, you’re headed for trouble
19. But don’t be slow
20. No two people talk alike – remember your characters’ personalities
21. Never assume your readers know your characters just because you do
22. Don’t let your characters sit around and do nothing
23. Watch for uneven characters
24. Secondary characters should never take away from the hero and heroine
25. Go directly to action – Don’t stop for background
26. Give background in small segments
27. A sense of urgency is a must
28. Don’t make emotional scenes long or chatty
29. Don’t let your story lack life or excitement
30. There has to be a strong emotional concept
31. Motivation must be made clear
32. Don’t throw logic out of the window for the sake of drama
33. Make sure you have enough threads to hold the book together
34. Cut the trite and silly
35. Don’t be trendy
36. Keep up with today’s market
37. Don’t forget to read – all kinds of books

So after reading these fabulous tips from romance’s finest, do you think you’re ready to start a book?

The first chapter of my latest book An Earl to Enchant, the third book in the Rogues’ Dynasty Series is available on my website. I hope you’ll stop by and read it.

I love to hear from readers.  Please e-mail me at ameliagrey@comcast.net or visit my website at ameliagrey.com.

AN EARL TO ENCHANT by AMELIA GREY—IN STORES APRIL 2010

He’s determined not to be a hero…

Lord Morgandale is as notorious as he is dashing, and he’s determined no woman will tie him down. But from the moment Arianna Sweet appears on his doorstep, he cannot resist the lure of her fascinating personality, exotic wardrobe, and tempting green eyes…

She has a deadly secret…

Arianna Sweet never imagined the significance of her father’s research until after his untimely death. Now she is in possession of his groundbreaking discovery, one that someone would kill for. She can’t tell Lord Morgandale her secret, but she knows she needs his help, desperately…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Winner of the Booksellers Best Award and the Romantic Times Award for Love and Laughter, Amelia Grey’s books have been sold in Europe, Russia and China. Married for twenty-five years to her high school sweetheart, she has lived in Alabama, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and now calls Panama City Beach, Florida, home. For more information, please visit www.ameliagrey.com.

BOOK GIVEAWAY…Thanks to SourceBooks, The Book Faery Reviews is giving away 2 copies of An Earl to Enchant to one lucky commenter of this post. Commenter’s must have a US/Canada address and no PO Boxes. For additional entries you can do the following:

1) Got another writing tip you’ve heard of or use for yourself? Tell us for your main entry. OR leave a comment for the author.

2) Tweet (make sure you add in “@farrah1230 #tbfr” so I can find the tweet easily)

3) Post about this giveaway on your blog or other social networking site and leave me the link

4) Be an e-mail subscriber

5) Be an RSS Reader subscriber

This giveaway will run until April 30th, 2010.

The thing I love about listening to an audio book is that I can really get into it when the narrator uses the right accent and vocal expression. The only thing I wish would be more frequent with audio books is the use of a male AND female narrator. It’s kind of odd listening to a female voice speak for the male and vice versa. And sometimes I feel as if a story takes me longer to get through when I’m listening to the story versus when I read it myself. Perhaps because I’m a faster reader??

Last week I picked up some audio CD’s from the library and I’m now scrubbing through my downloaded audio books to decide which to transfer to my MP3 player instead of toting CDs around with me.

I did however pick up these titles that I can’t wait to get through:

• The Lady in Question by Victoria Alexander (Fiction-Historical Romance) - Been listening to this one this past week.
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (Fiction-Suspense)
• Rebecca’s Tale by Sally Beauman (Fiction-Suspense)

I honestly can’t decide which one to get to next after I’m finished with The Lady in Question…the other two look so good!

My library is a member of Netlibrary which I personally think is awesome. You can “check out” e-books and audio books for like 3 weeks to download to a PC or MP3 player. It is filled with TONS of GOOD TITLES…not just the classics or books nobody’s ever heard of. Although…I’ve just literally discovered that they no longer have audio books, just the e-books. Boo…

Places you can download audio books for FREE include:

• Librivox
• Learn Out Loud
• Books Should Be Free
• Free Classic Audio Books
• OpenCulture Free Audio books
• Podiobooks

Places to “Rent/Check Out” an audio book for a fee include:

• Audiobookworm
• Booksfree.com (kind of like a Netflix for audio books)

Places to PURCHASE audio books include:

• Barnes & Nobles
• Audible.com
• CastLibrary.com
• Just Audio Books
• Audio Bookstore

Have you listened to any good audio books lately? Please share with us your latest!

AUTHOR GUEST POST…How to Handle Feedback of Early Manuscripts

I spent a good number of hours researching, writing, editing, writing some more, starting over, and trying to stay organized. When I finally had some solid material to share with others, my emotions ran high that I would get praise. Well that’s not exactly what happened. Getting feedback can be tough when it comes in the form of red ink and verbal “honesty.” Surviving my first couple rounds of edits was brutal, and I often thought about stopping the book project entirely.

Eventually I gained perspective about the process. My ultimate goal was to help people with my expertise and to do that meant I needed to refine my writing to hit the right themes. The feedback process became easier as clarity came to my writing. Looking back at my experience handling criticism during the early writing process I learned some things:

• People you choose to help edit and review your work want to help you.
• Don’t take feedback personally; listen, assess, and determine how the information can be useful to your writing.
• Always get feedback from different people with different opinions. Choose people who will be your target audience, but mix it up with alternative perspectives as well.
• Remember if you are getting the same feedback from different people you need to change something about your writing; don’t stay fixed to your position unless there is a good reason.
• Passion about your work and editing a book so that it’s readable and sellable are different things.
• Always over thank and show appreciation for the feedback you receive.

Writing a book is an emotional process. It’s an art form. As such, getting blunt feedback can be frustrating. Creating the story you want to tell is important and will go through much iteration until it is right. As long as you learn to separate your feelings from the objective process of editing, feedback, and the writing process, you will be very happy with the finished product.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…During his career in Human Resources, Tony has worked through many complex people and business challenges to yield lasting results for customers. His interest in high-tech and how technology impacts people has given him insight into what it takes for people to succeed in a virtual economy.

Tony grew up in an eclectic family just a few blocks from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. The son of Belgian immigrants, his father is a former college professor of art, language and history.His mother is an entrepreneur having worked in haute couture fashion design. Tony’s exposure to several world perspectives fuel his cultural awareness and understanding.

Tony believes in collaboration of perspectives and ideas to yield successful results. He applies his expertise in human resources, organization development, and coaching to provide solutions that strengthen ways of working and achieve beneficial outcomes.

Visit the Website @ http://www.tanglingwithtyrants.com.

And…I’m on a deadline.  The few relationship experts I have in my rolodex are either out of town, won’t answer their phone or are tired of being harassed by weekly supermarket tabloid editors.

Whatever the reason, I’m sweating, hyperventilating and don’t have a moment to spare.  Then, a light bulb goes off.  This isn’t old journalism, I scream!  Get with the times!

I know which search words I want to use and I fly over to Google and put them in.  “Relationship expert” seems to be the operative phrase here and I frantically type it in their search box.  As I’m busy, I stop at the first 3 pages of search and jot down what names I find (btw, the average Internet user finds what they are looking for in the first three pages of search).

And…I send out emails.

Less than 24 hours later, a “relationship expert” responds to my email.  She is more than happy to give me a quote and I give her a call.  Bingo bango, I have her quote and I send them off to the presses just in the nick of time.

A week later, the tabloid is sitting proudly on grocery store and bookstore shelves and I thank God for the wonderful powers of the Internet.

I can personally relate to this story because I am the relationship expert that the editor of OK! Magazine phoned whose quote appeared in the October 12, 2006 edition of one of the most popular tabloids on the supermarket shelves.

As an author who was learning how to promote her books online, I knew the powers of adding key search words to my press releases and blog posts, or anything else that was posted online.  I knew I had to focus on the set of key search words that people (in this case a very important editor) would be using to find me.

And this is what I do for my clients at Pump Up Your Book Promotion.  Before you even think about promoting online, you must come up with a set of key search words that will bring people to your website or blog where they can find out more about you and your book.  Your name out there isn’t enough.  Your book’s title out there isn’t enough.  Whether you write about relationships or historical fiction or poetry or the latest antics of your dog, if you want notoriety, if you want your star to shine, you must add to your online exposure by incorporating those key search words so that not only will your readers find you, but those hungry editors and journalists who write for big time newspapers and magazines, will too.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll get that email or phone call that will have you thanking God for the wonderful powers of the Internet just like I did.

Do you incorporate key search words in your blog posts?  Have you ever been contacted by an editor because they found you online?  We’d love to hear from you!  Please leave your comments below so that others will learn by your experiences.  Thank you and we’ll see you next month!

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion with eight years experience in online marketing. What began as an experiment after self-publishing her promotional e-book A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook and 101 Internet Radio Shows to Promote Your Books turned into her thriving new career as an online book marketer. She is also the author of the children’s book, No More Gooseberry Pie, the relationship anthology, Romancing the Soul, and the pararanormal comedy novel, The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost which is under the consideration of a playwright in New York. Dorothy has written hundreds of online marketing articles and has been quoted in the celebrity tabloid, OK! She has also appeared on dozens of radio shows including Lifetime Radio, Single Talk, and Achieve Radiowith Fran Silverman. Dorothy runs several blogs including her marketing blog, Book Marketing Buzz, The Writer’s Lifeand Beyond the Books which are syndicated into USA Today, Chicago Times, Washington Post and other national magazines. Dorothy resides on the beautiful island of Chincoteague, Virginia. Her offline interests include traveling, biking and sitting at the end of her dock and watching the sun go down.

Connect with Dorothy…
You can email her here.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thewriterslife
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook

Today more and more authors are realizing that the internet is a wonderful place to promote their names and books.  With all the online social network groups/tools, book blogs, and websites, it is silly not to take advantage of the world wide web (hello…this reaches the world!)  So today, I have a special guest who has also become a great friend over the past year.  Dorothy Thompson from Pump Up Your Book Promotion is here to share her take on virtual book tours.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotionwith eight years experience in online marketing.  What began as an experiment after self-publishing her promotional e-book A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook and 101 Internet Radio Shows to Promote Your Books turned into her thriving new career as an online book marketer.  She is also the author of the children’s book, No More Gooseberry Pie, the relationship anthology, Romancing the Soul, and the pararanormal comedy novel, The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost which is under the consideration of a playwright in New York.  Dorothy has written hundreds of online marketing articles and has been quoted in the celebrity tabloid, OK! She has also appeared on dozens of radio shows including Lifetime Radio, Single Talk, and Achieve Radiowith Fran Silverman.  Dorothy runs several blogs including her marketing blog, Book Marketing Buzz, The Writer’s Lifeand Beyond the Books which are syndicated into USA Today, Chicago Times, Washington Post and other national magazines.  Dorothy resides on the beautiful island of Chincoteague, Virginia.  Her offline interests include traveling, biking and sitting at the end of her dock and watching the sun go down.  You can email her here. Connect with Dorothy at Facebook at www.facebook.com/thewriterslife and Twitter at www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook

NOW DOROTHY THOMPSON’S GUEST POST…

My Story into the Virtual Book Tour World and Finding the Magic Key to Selling Books

Years ago, before book tours – virtually, that is – and before Twitter and Facebook even – when an author wanted to promote her/his book, they had very few choices in which to do this namely – e-groups, writer’s boards and forums, and wherever else they could find to get their book mentioned. They bought ads in writer magazines (some resulted in little or no sales), they started websites and later, blogs, and they hunted down websites that they could advertise their book, mainly free listings to save them some money.

When my first print book, Romancing the Soul, came out, my publisher was very supportive; however I know she felt like Octomom with all the authors she had to represent. I pitied her actually because I know it must have frustrated her as she could never do everything she wanted for all her authors and take care of a publishing business, too.

That’s when publicists come into the picture.

You either hire someone to do some publicity for you or you study online marketing and do it yourself.

I have always been a hands on kind of person. Perhaps it’s the frugal side of me, who knows, but maybe I just knew there had to be a magic key to open the door to those huge sales I wanted to be making. I had read every book promotion article there was out there and I just knew there had to be more to it. And I knew the secret had to be somewhere in that vast space they called the Internet.

Not too long after my print book was released, I studied the Internet and, eventually, a pattern was starting to evolve. If I list my book here and here and possibly here, I might see my book climb into the top rankings of the search engines which I believed was part of the equation. But might was a mighty big word.

Like all authors, I knew I had a good book which is the first step in assuring success in the sales department, but it wasn’t enough to have confidence in your book, you must take action to stand out from the pack and the secret I believed was in online book promotion. But the key, the magic key, where was it?

A few years ago, I found the answer and it happened quite accidentally. My online writing group and I self-published several e-books and I knew I wanted to use these e-books as an experiment. If my theory worked, I would have found the magic key. Whether it would open all the doors, that was debatable, but I figured I’d give it a shot and see what happens.

I had a basic formula written down. I would do A and B and see what happens, but I wanted to take it an extra step. What if I didn’t stop with A and B? What I discovered was that it wasn’t enough to do A and B, you had to do the whole alphabet if you wanted the formula to work.

This formula I speak of is a highly guarded secret, but…I do have to tell you in 24 hours all three of our self-published ebooks, and on separate occasions, ended up #1 in the search engines for their key search words. Twenty-four hours.

So what could I learn from this? By using these key search words as my selling tools, I could sell my books just by having the thousands upon thousands of Internet users find my book in the search engines. Today, there’s Twitter and Facebook and blogs, but the old system is only reinforced by this new technology.

Getting back to my story, when word spread about how I managed to get these ebooks into the first position at Google (and which I did later on with a self-published ebook I sold and still sell on my website), I had a woman phone me asking for my help. She wanted her book #1 in the search engines and told me she would pay me if I could do it for her, too.

And that was how Pump Up Your Book Promotion was born. We opened doors with one tour coordinator besides myself and now my staff has grown to five of the most wonderful people on the face of the earth – Cheryl Malandrinos, Jaime McDougall, Tracee Gleichner and Rebecca Camarena. You can find out all about them at http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com/aboutus.html.

We started out with one author on tour and now our tours consist of anywhere between 15 – 20 authors a month.

Authors are finally learning it’s not enough to go on live booksignings. They’re learning it’s not enough to put up a website or blog and call it a day. They’re realizing it’s not enough to think for one minute their book is going to sell out of all the thousands of books on the market today. And this is where virtual book tours give them that chance.

Before I go, I would like to take a minute to thank Farrah and all the book bloggers who have hosted our authors. Without you, all of this wouldn’t be possible. I bow to all of you.

If you have a question about virtual book tours or anything online book promotion related, please leave it in Farrah’s comment box below. I’d be more than happy to explain anything you’d like to know.

Thank you and see you in the blogosphere!

Thank you Dorothy for taking the time out of your busy day promoting authors.
I know you just got back from a trip last night but you were so willing
to make sure to get back with me to share your tips.

Why are novelists possessed to spend weeks, months, and years making up fiction? I ponder this compulsion of mine and realize that the deep need of humanity for stories requires some people to create them. A gripping narrative that resonates with our emotions is utterly compelling to us. We crave fictional settings that teach us, that excite us, and that let us imagine completely new perspectives.

I accept that fulfilling this need for fiction is my calling, and I’m happiest when I pursue it. The act of writing is therapeutic for me. Once I get in that fiction writing groove, I experience a release from my normal daily concerns. After a writing session I feel renewed and unburdened, which proves to me that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.

My writing process is fairly flexible. I don’t have to be in a certain room free of distractions. No distraction is helpful, but I am able to filter out a medium level of mayhem in order to write. I don’t need to write in any particular location or at any particular time. For the last couple years I’ve been using a portable word processor called a Neo that lets me write anywhere. I write in the house. I write on the porch. Sometimes I go to a library and write. I write in the morning, afternoon, but most often at night.

When I write, I generally compose straight from my head. Occasionally I’ll have some notes worked out ahead of time and maybe a small outline, but these tools are employed only for particularly complex chapters or when I’m concluding a novel and have many loose ends to track and tie up.

Sometimes during composition I enjoy a good flow and good things just seem to happen. But at other times I have to work at it. Besides figuring out what is actually going to happen, I must consider whether I’m being clear to readers. Explaining something while avoiding over explaining it is a fine line. Readers need to know what I mean, but they do not need me to beat them over the head with it.

After the composition stage, begins the editing. Editing and rewrites take more time than the initial draft. Each chapter will go through at least three edits in which I hack out wordiness and fine tune the action and dialogue. I also scrutinize the characters, making sure their motivations are clear and they are behaving as they should. I also track and check details and make sure that I’m not contradicting myself or forgetting something that happened earlier in the story.

During editing I also spend time simply reading what I wrote. This lets me experience the story as a reader might. Of course I always know what will happen, so I am testing it to see if I can enjoy my writing even while knowing what will happen.

As I proceed with polishing my novels, I end up rewriting whole sections and chapters. I estimate that about 30 to 40 percent of a first draft has to be substantially reworked.

Many challenges surface while I progress through composition, editing, rewriting, and proofreading. Wordiness is always the enemy. I am continually discovering that three sentences can be refined into one sentence. It’s important to make every word, sentence, and paragraph serve a purpose whether it’s revealing character, explaining motivations, advancing the plot, setting the scene, etc. Reducing wordiness helps to alleviate the dreaded story drag. I try to always have something going on, but this does not mean that I don’t vary the pace. Action and adventure drive my novels, but it’s good to remember that sometimes readers want to slow down and take a break with the characters. These lower gear scenes provide good opportunities for developing back story and revealing character motivations.

The reason I do these ridiculous amounts of writing, editing, and pondering is most easily explained by saying that it’s harder not to do it. When I’m not writing novels, I am plagued by an inescapable angst. This is relieved by writing. Even writing blog posts or sales copy makes me happy, but nothing satisfies me like writing epic fantasy. This is my creative outlet and my rewards are numerous. I get to create interesting characters and situations and play within a fantasy environment with magic, adventure, and rampaging ambition. After I entertain myself, I ultimately hope to entertain others. This is when publication becomes necessary.

Writers have two paths to publication: self publishing or being produced by a publishing company. Self publishing is open to anyone who wants to try. Signing with a publisher who is in business to make money is incredibly difficult to achieve and probably depends on luck. I chose self publishing. Now I am building a business around my creative pursuits. I have almost daily sales of my epic fantasy series The Rys Chronicles and many readers have been kind enough to express their pleasure with my work. Often they ask when I am going to write more books. Now I’m doubly motivated to write.

Fiction writing is a tough and lonely pursuit. I believe that novelists are people who love stories so much that they need the more intimate experience of writing them. To encourage other writers, I say that you should enjoy every word, every scene, and every chapter that you create. The creating and polishing of your work should be a labor of love both to please yourself and please readers.