Thursday, November 20, 2014

Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: Conda Douglas on Marketing Made Easy, Giveaways


Hello and welcome to this Thursday's writing tips in the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing series. Humorous author Conda Douglas is our tipster with her own writing tips on Marketing. AND Conda has brought along an e-book copy of her award-winning mystery, Starke Naked Dead. Congratulations on winning third place in the mystery category in the Idaho Author Awards! 
Please leave a comment to be eligible to win the drawing for this entertaining mystery. Winner announced after 9 pm on Sunday evening. 
PLUS today, Conda has a FREE gift for you, a cookbook filled with Conda's tried and true recipes. Just in time for the holidays!
Click here to order
Conda, you maintain an author can actually enjoy marketing. Say what? Please tell us how.


MARKETING MADE EASY...UH...EASIER 
by Conda Douglas

Once upon the time before eBooks, marketing and promotion were straightforward, they followed a laid out process that everyone accepted as protocol. Now, authors, whether traditionally published, self-published or hybrid, are expected to promote their own works and author brand. Add to this that no one knows what works in social media, except that it does appear to add sales. Add to this that all social media is continuously changing and many authors throw up, uh, their hands and maybe their breakfast too.

Breathe, relax, and unclench those fists. Here are a few tips that will have you enjoying, yes, enjoying, marketing.

There are myriad ways to promote on the Internet, enough to find your own way. If you choose social media that you enjoy, you're more likely to visit, post, comment, whatever, more often and get more followers, views, whatever. I adore Pinterest so visit it and pin often (it's like having hundreds of great teapots, all free and none that need washed!). Because of my activity, I have many followers.

Provide content pertinent to your interests (see teapots above). I have writing boards on Pinterest, but most of my boards are about my interests, jewelry and jewelry making, recipes, fitness and of course teapots, some tangential to my novels. One of my main characters is a jeweler, for example. People will discover you as an author instead of being annoyed by endless pitching.
Note: An easy way for more promotion is to link your social media accounts, Pinterest to Twitter to Facebook, etc. Then when you post to one it posts to the other sites as well.

Think outside the promo box. Because I love writing reviews on TripAdvisor I have over 100 reviews with 41,000+ people plus having read them. The cover of my novel The Mall Fairies: Exile is my bio pic. If only a tiny portion of readers see and my name and cover...


Use cross marketing. Get into groups of authors and bloghop, tweet each other's tweets, promote each other's books for content, etc. Authors adore helping other authors!  
# # # #

The gossiping women of the Widows Brigade in the new ski resort of Starke, Idaho love a good scandal—this time it’s a murder mystery, and a stark naked corpse!


BUY LINK  for Starke Naked Dead 
by Conda Douglas

About Conda:
Award winning Conda grew up in the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. Her childhood was filled with authors and artists and other creative types. She grew up with goats in the kitchen, buffalo bones in the living room and rocks in the bathtub. Now her life is filled with her cat and dog and permanent boyfriend and writing.

She's traveled the world from Singapore to Russia (in winter!) and her own tiny office, writing all the while. She delights in writing her cozy Starke Dead mystery series with amateur detective jeweler Dora Starke. The more Dora discovers cursed jewelry, her aunt digging graves, and a rampant poisoner, the more fun Conda has--although sometimes Dora complains about her plight! 

When she's not writing Dora into her quirky and quixotic mysteries, Conda writes the popular tween fantasy Mall Fairies series. The fairy inspiration for her Mall Fairies came from the sparrows that live in the Boise Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho. Conda works hard to rescue the fairies from humans, cats, pixies and themselves.






Find out more about Conda at  Conda's Creative Center 





I am thrilled to announce that Conda Douglas and I are bundled together with Heather Fraser Brainerd, David Fraser, and Sara Jayne Townsend in a four mystery e-book set releasing from our publisher, MuseItUp Publishing. 

You can pre-order now and get the special Black Friday price-- $1.99 for ALL FOUR BOOKS. Price goes up on December 2. For more information and the buy link, go to MuseItUp Publishing. Also available at amazon.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for those tips, Conda. I have a Pinterest account but I don't use it anywhere near often enough. Now I will! Thanks for the great advice.

Susan Bernhardt said...

Conda, I'll have to look up your Pinterest Boards. I also love Pinterest and of course tea and teapots fit into my series' patisserie theme. I could spend hours at the site. It's so relaxing and so much fun!

Best wishes for Starke Naked Dead. Janet best wishes to you also on the mystery bundle. :)

Susan

Conda Douglas said...

Helena, yes, Pinterest is addictive, and I forgot to mention that when you are on Pinterest, it's helpful to have things pinned on your boards. So many times I have gone to a writer--no boards! Nothing to follow!

Plus, I use Pinterest now to keep track (on one board) of review sites, another board of short story markets, plus teapots of course!

Conda Douglas said...

Susan, thanks, and I obviously need to find you too on Pinterest, you can never have too many "virtual" teapots!

Marsha said...

Hey, JQ and Conda. Love the idea of linking posts, Conda. Doesn't that mean all posts have to fit the limited characters for Twitter? I find that a real pain! LOL I'm new to Pinterest. I joined against my will. Struggle to keep Twitter and FB from devouring my writing time. I was helping out with someone's book launch and had to sign up on Pinterest to do that. Your book looks fun. I'll FB and Tweet.

Conda Douglas said...

Thanks Marsha, and actually in order to link them all together you just need to change your settings. Go into twitter's settings and there will be a setting to post the tweets you post on twitter on Facebook. Then when you pin a pin on Pinterest, there should be a box that says "post to twitter" if not go into your Pinterest settings. That way you post everywhere (except Google, which I've linked to Facebook too). Because, yeah, this takes too much writing time!

J.Q. Rose said...

Helena --Not using Pinterest is probably why you have a new book out this month! Pinterest is such a time killer, but so fun and interesting. Thanks for coming by.

J.Q. Rose said...

Conda,thank you for sharing your thoughts on marketing. I forgot to leave a comment so I'd be notified of all these messages. So much fun when folks stop in and talk to us, eh?

J.Q. Rose said...

Thank you Susan. I have a board on pinterest for tea party ideas since my granddaughter loves tea parties. I also love tea pots and tea. So many styles of pots and designs. I'll find you on pinterest.

J.Q. Rose said...

Hi Marsha, I love Pinterest, but hate twitter. I joined when it first came out and got some weird folks tweeting me, so I left. No more for me even if it is a good one for authors to get out there and build an audience. Taking Conda's advice to do what you like and I enjoy Facebook and Pinterest. Thanks for tweeting for us!

J.Q. Rose said...

BTW, speaking of Pinterest, I have a board of all my guests on the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing and their books as they appear on my J.Q. Rose blog. Take a peek if you wish--
http://www.pinterest.com/janetglaser/romance-and-mystery-authors-on-writing/

I put up a link to a book for purchase on amazon, then I wondered if that is okay to do on Pinterest. Anyone know? I don't want to get kicked off!

Conda Douglas said...

JQ, of course it's fine to pin your books for sale on Pinterest! I have a couple of boards that I pin to, one my published writings and a couple of book boards too.

In fact, look at the upper right corner of your sell book page on Amazon and you will see they have provided a Pin It Button already!

J.Q. Rose said...

Alright! I'll add the info to the pins. Thanks, Conda.

Anonymous said...

Marketing is a lot of fun when you think about it. We live and breathe it in our home - hubby chose it as his career. Sure beats crunching numbers all day long. I enjoy Pinterest a lot too, and you're so right, that site is about being yourself and not promoting your work so much. I follow so many boards and share my things too. It's amazing how fun and addicting that site can be!

J.Q. Rose said...

MJ, Truly addicting. Refreshing to hear someone actually likes marketing! Thank you for stopping in.

Anonymous said...

Hi, J Q. Thanks for hosting Conda on your blog. Best wishes to her and her book. Great marketing tips. I'm not on Pinterest, but I know lots of people that are. I've heard it's quite addicting.

J.Q. Rose said...

Hi Susanne, Love having Conda here. Have a wonderful weekend!

Conda Douglas said...

MJ, thanks for that perspective and perhaps part of the secret is to do social media you enjoy? Or at least like?

Conda Douglas said...

Susanne, thanks for your wishes and yes, you have to be careful about Pinterest, talk about losing time!

J.Q. Rose said...

Congratulations to Susanne Drazic, winner of the drawing for Conda's book.

Kathy McIntosh said...

As usual, you are full of ... great advice! Thanks for the ideas about Pinterest. I've finally realized that I can tie my interest in other things to my writing and use them on Pinterest.

J.Q. Rose said...

LOL Kathy. Thanks for stopping in. I love Pinterest but such a time waster.

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