DEATH DEMYSTIFIED for the Day of the Dead Authors' Talk and Read

Come join us at the Victory Branch Library on Saturday November 1st from 1pm to 3pm for readings from Demystifying Death, a perfect way to spend a Day of the Dead, by honoring the dead!

Jane Freund of Freundship Press and the Pixie Chicks Writers' Group (of which I am one) have produced Demystifying Death, an anthology of stories about the last great secret sin of our society: death. It happens to all of us. It happens to our friends, families, and pets. We all need to talk about and share our experiences around dying. And yet, still today in America, the subject is often taboo. 

Okay, enough of a rant, and Demystifying Death, with its myriad selection of poems, essays and short stories will provide a welcome opening of death's doors. And what better way to celebrate the Day of the Dead than by sharing stories?

I will be attending and reading from my (true) short story, Traveling Together, about a beloved aunt and cat, and would love to see you too!

Book Bundles, Promo Cookbooks and Free Books: Author Marketing that Works

Now through October 14th, Book Bundles, 20 reads for under 5 bucks! Get Prodigies of Mystery II here at iBooks, 99 cents for three full length novels!

How are midlist and new authors going to stand out in today's overburdened publishing biz? Here's a few recent methods I've found successful.

First up: Book Bundles. My publisher is running a special on five bundles, one of which, Prodigies of Mysteries II, includes my cozy mystery Starke Naked Dead. As a reader, I've noticed that I often buy these bundles because there's a lot of reading for cheap and it's a great way to find new authors. As an author, I discovered that Starke Naked Dead is coming up in the rankings considerably while offered in Prodigies of Mystery II. A  great way to get noticed and to brand your author name and series.

Here's another great way to get your name out there, thank you, Lois Winston, for this great idea. Bake, Love, Write is a compilation of dessert recipes with authors' advice on love and writing, 105 authors in all. Lois Winston is donating the proceeds to a worthy cause. The eBook is for sale for 99 cents, that's less than a penny a recipe! My recipe is easy, cheap and delicious soda cracker pie. Again, I often find myself buying just this type of book because I love to cook, love inexpensive dessert cookbooks and love finding other authors to read. Plus, with 105 authors, there's oodles of cross-marketing going on!

There's a lot of controversy about whether to ever have anything free, even promo cookbooks. The detractors say that being free only means that you are giving away content to people who may never read it, much less review it. However, I think there is a place for free, especially if it's a certain sort of free book. I've downloaded free short stories about a series and then gone on to buy books from the series. With my promotional cookbooks, I have found that after they're free that I do get reviews, perhaps because a cookbook is something that people do read after downloading. Plus, if you have a lot of downloads of your free book, Amazon will heavily promote it once it's no longer free. So, here's one of my cookbooks that introduces my Starke Dead cozy mystery series, Starke Deadly Delicious, and it's FREE today, October 8th!

So dear readers, what do you think? Do you do the same with these promotions? Or not? Do you think they work? Or not? Let us know in the comments!