THOUGHTS ON PROMOTING

You know what? Before I go crazy and climb the walls, I'm going to have a nice quiet chat with my fellow writers. Some days it doesn't pay, as they say, to sit down to the computer. Because on those days life just slams into you. Then I read where someone has real problems and I think how dumb it is of me to stew about little stuff.

Tell you though, when all the electronics in the house rise up, like there are ghosts in the machines, and they begin to do whatever they want, it makes one wonder if we might be better off…no, bite my tongue. I read recently that Mark Twain was the first to write a book using a typewriter, and Tom Clancy wrote Hunt for Red October on a computer in 1985, another first. However, some say that Dune was submitted on 8" floppy discs, no doubt created on a word processor, which we in those days called a computer, in 1976 (could've been 1975) my brain did a long blink there.

My first computer was just that. A word processor. It had a screen about six inches square and used floppy discs without a hard drive. That was around 1988 or 1989. I'd already written three novels on a Sears electric typewriter. But I think I've written about this before, so nuff said.

What is really driving me round the bend now is promoting all my books. Why I decided to put all the back list up plus submit to three publishers all around the same time, I'll never know. Thankfully, seven of them are in the same genre, western historical romance. Two are paranormal and horror.

So I'm doing my best to get myself and my work on every networking site out there. This may be a big mistake. Maybe I should practice what I preach and concentrate on three or four that I really like, plus good blogs and website. But new stuff keeps coming up and I think, 'Oh, I have to have me and my books there or no one will know me.' So everything else comes to a dead halt while I get profile, excerpt, bio, etc for the newest site.

Okay, here are a few for you ebook authors, just to tantalize you. I'm not putting links, but just the names. If you're too lazy to jot them down and type them in your bar, then you probably aren't too interested in the work involved in promoting your latest book(s).

Bublish, Muttonline, Angie's Diary, Pinterest, allebooks.com

Now, get out there and Google indie book sites cause you need to have your Kindle and/or indie published books listed on those too. Don't forget Author Central on Amazon if you haven't filled it in already. Then find some blogs that are talking about what you write and make a comment there. Some fellow suggested that you should comment on five blogs a day for a week and include a link to your book in your comment. I didn't know that was acceptable, but he's talking about that rising your sales.

Gotta go and Google some more sites up. Take care, and look at what I'm doing on the sites I've recommended. Some aren't complete yet, but I'm working on them. Of course, I have things on western sites that I didn't include here, like take a look at westernebooks.com and see how they rotate books there. Only hope readers are finding these sites.

Remember, you're looking for readers, not other writers, who for the most part already know you and your work if you've been around a while.

Have a great remainder of the day.