Marketing

I have been thinking about marketing for the last couple of days. Not just for my novel but also for the mystery anthology the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime is working on.

The chapter published a book of short stories themed around the Indianapolis 500 back in the fall of 2007. The next anthology, which is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2010, will be themed around the Brickyard 400. The first book has done reasonably well for our chapter but sales could have been better.

And that's where better marketing comes in.

The chapter must be more aggressive this time, targeting all the major NASCAR markets for both print, broadcast and online possibilities, national outlets (both in publishing and in motorsports), and really do more online marketing. That includes using the chapter's website for text and online interviews and excrepts, protrays of the authors and links to the chapter's Facebook page.

Since we are already online, there is a lot we can do to market and promote ourselves inexpensively using the media we already have. We don't have to generate a slew of press releases on paper but once, if then. Once we have all the e-mail addresses of the contacts we want, we can send them updates through cyberspace.

I think this marketing effort needs to be in full swing by the summer, with some aspects operational in time for the Indy 500 in May. In that way, we can stir up some advance interest in 2009 and and build on it leading up to the publication in 2010.

I have already sent my story, although I will send a more updated version by the end of the year. I read it from time to time -- I read it just today -- and there isn't much more for me to do except wait for any recommendations from the editor, which I don't expect until some time in the spring.

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.