Book Promotion: A Full Time Job For a Writer

Working Stiffs welcomes guest blogger Elizabeth Zelvin today!




by Elizabeth Zelvin

I haven’t been a working stiff since I left my last day job, directing an alcohol treatment program on the Bowery, in the fall of 1999. Or have I? One of the mystery writers’ e-lists I belong to recently had a thread about what everyone was currently writing. I was not the only one who said, “Who has time to write? I’m hip deep in promotion.”

When I dusted off the existing first few pages of Death Will Get You Sober back in 2001, I was already sitting at the computer. I had just launched my online therapy website at www.LZcybershrink.com and embarked on a major professional journey: building a practice, treating clients all over the world, and making all the mistakes as a website novice that would help me not make them when I launched my author website at www.elizabethzelvin.com several years later. Being an online therapist can be a fulltime job, as can being a writer, though in economic terms both are vocations about which everybody advises, “Don’t give up your day job.”

When I completed the manuscript in 2002, two more jobs awaited me: writing the next one and trying to find an agent, then a publisher. The many tasks included learning how to write a query letter and a synopsis, then expanding and contracting them according to the moment’s needs, polishing them till they sparkled, then fine tuning and fine tuning and fine tuning them. That process still goes on. Did I mention revising the first draft? I made the neophyte’s mistake of sending it out right away and learned about critique and revision the hard way.

Networking with mystery writers and mystery lovers in general was another delightful but time-consuming task. I couldn’t have reached this point without the New York chapters of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and their respective e-lists; Sisters in Crime Guppies and its subgroup AgentQuest; e-lists DorothyL and Murder Must Advertise; and later, the online social networks CrimeSpace and MySpace, which I’ll get to in a moment.

So it’s Chanukah and then Christmas, 2007, and I’m finally on the homestretch toward publication of my book in April 2008. And how come I’m working harder—more hours per day, seven days a week—than I have since I got my master’s in social work (60 credits in two years plus three days a week working full time for free, first with severely mentally ill clients and then with alcoholics) more than twenty years ago?

Here’s some—by no means all—of what I’ve been up to:

December:

Sent individual holiday messages to my then 900 Friends on MySpace and 800 on CrimeSpace, greeting each by name and NOT mentioning the book.

Sent holiday cards to the 100 closest friends I send them to every year—with a letter asking for their help in spreading the word about the book, explaining about sales and computer modeling and why I can’t give any copies away, and listing everything they could do, from asking for it at the library to getting their book club to invite me to speak.

Added an address label and a handwritten note to a postcard for each of the 1300 people whose postal addresses I have—some will come back undeliverable, as I’ve been collecting them for 30 or 40 years as I waited to have something to tell them about my dream of publishing a novel.

January:

Set up the book tour. I’ve hired an outside publicist, but can’t afford to turn it all over to her, so I work closely with her and my publicist at St. Martin’s by email, pore over lists of mystery and indie bookstores, make endless virtual trips to their websites and to Mapquest to check the distance between towns and make sure I can get from one gig to the next in time. Do you know that the state of Florida is as big as England? And Dayton, Ohio is not as close to Indianapolis as my publicist assumed it is. The book tour job also requires me to turn travel agent and book flights, hotels, and cars all over the country.

Subscribed to Consumer Reports and did comparison shopping for a GPS. Bought the GPS.

February:

Set up the virtual tour, of which this visit to Working Stiffs is a part. This involved writing numerous guest blogs as far in advance as I could, always striving to hit the requested word count and deadline, to keep it lively, and not to repeat myself; and participating in numerous interviews. Actually, I enjoyed both these tasks. Writing blog pieces (as a guest or doing my weekly stint on my own group blog, Poe’s Deadly Daughters) makes me feel like a journalist, and the interviews give me unprecedented license to go on and on about myself—what bliss!

Sent individual Valentine’s Day messages to my 1100 MySpace Friends and 800 CrimeSpace friends, again not mentioning the book. This kind of networking is its own reward: back-atcha messages are still trickling in from Valentine’s Day and even Xmas, every one putting a big smile on my face and convincing me that all these folks in cyberspace really are my friends who wish me well and might even, some of them, buy the book one day.

Learned how to use the GPS. Started to get used to it. Sent it back to the manufacturer for repair because it stopped talking to me.

March—well, you get the idea. There are now new bookmarks quoting the early reviews instead of the author blurbs and new postcards to alert people about the book tour in May and June instead of inviting everyone to the launch party on April 15 at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York. (Yes, you are all invited.) There’s endless recording of every stock signing and podcast: on two or three calendars, on my website (can’t believe I’ve learned enough HTML not to have to prod my webmaster to make the almost daily updates), on my MySpace and CrimeSpace pages, on the spreadsheets I keep so I won’t lose track. I have to keep reading all my groups because you never know when someone will offer a crucial tip or contact on DorothyL or Murder Must Advertise or CrimeSpace or EMWA or Guppies or SinC or MWA-NY or SinC-NY or MWA-Breakout—or the addictions and online therapy lists I still belong to. There’s the small matter of needing a new agent at this crucial phase of my career.

So there you have it. Network network network. Schmooze schmooze schmooze. Full time job. And you know what? I love it!

Elizabeth Zelvin is a New York City psychotherapist whose debut mystery, DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER, will hit bookstores April 15. Library Journal called it “a remarkable and strongly recommended first novel.” Her short story, “Death Will Clean Your Closet" has been nominated for an Agatha for Best Short Story. Liz is also one of the bloggers on “Poe’s Deadly Daughters” You can visit Liz’s website at http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/. Elizabeth will also be at the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA on April 28th.

Independence, Liberty, Freedom and Giving Thanks

by Paula Matter

As an independent, free woman, I recently took the liberty of driving to Parsippany, NJ for the Deadly Ink conference.

What a wonderful little conference. And I say little with the utmost respect. Little as in intimate, cosy. Deadly Ink could easily become an annual event for me. I brought my husband's trusty digital camera and some of the photos actually were good enough to show you.

I knew very few people at this con. I knew of some, but hadn't met most. I made it a priority to introduce myself, and chat with a lot of other attendees. So, here's a shoutout (shout-out? shout out?) to Kate Lincoln, Robin Hathaway, Elena Santangelo, Sandy Cody, Kate Gallison, and Elizabeth Zelvin. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention Rosemary Harris, Jeff Cohen, and Ken Isaacson. And Jeff Markowitz. Oh, hell, just go see who all was there! http://www.deadlyink.com/authors.html

And a huge shoutout (whatever) and thanks to organizers Debby Buchanan and Christine Abbott.

Across the street from the con hotel

(aka playing with the camera)

Debby Buchanan, Christine Abbott, Amanda

Hardworking organizers

Ken Isaacson, Cheryl Solimini, Jeff Cohen

Elena Santangelo, Robin Hathaway -- Winner of the

David G. Sasher, Sr. Award for Best Mystery Novel

One-half of the Bennetts, wonderful booksellers.

(See, Betty? I promised I wouldn't post your photo!)

Five Star author Jeff Markowitz


Renee Gardner had Cheryl, Steven Rigolosi

and both Jeffs laughing.

There was a lot of laughter. A lot of fun, learning, and good times. Deadly Ink was truly an outstanding conference.

Hook, Line, and Sinker

by Jennie Bentley

As you read this, I’m on my way to Birmingham, Alabama, for Murder in the Magic City, a choice little conference sponsored by their local chapter of Sisters in Crime. I met the arranger during Killer Nashville last year, and was asked if I’d like to participate, and of course I said yes. I’ve been hearing about Murder in the Magic City for years, so the invitation was a real thrill.

It’s a short conference, just the one day, so I’m only doing one panel, followed by a signing session. I’ll be sharing my panel with Maggie Toussaint, Elizabeth Zelvin, and moderator Mary Jane Maffini, with whom I also share a publisher and an editor.

Our panel is quite simply called What. There’s also a panel called Who, one called When & Where, and one called Why. When & Where would be the historical mysteries panel, I think, and the one with the exotic locations, while the Who panel is likely for romantic suspense and that sort of thing. Not sure about Why.

The What panel, and I quote, is about …well, what your books are about. All of you have something distinctive, a hook if you will, or a topic that you delve into in your writing. Organization, home renovations, horse rescue, addiction... How did you all decide to write about what you write about? What's your research process? Is a hook necessary in today's writing market?

Since it’s been on my mind, I figured I’d talk about hooks a little. They are, after all, a huge part of mystery writing today. The traditional mystery, the cozy, the type of book that used to be synonymous with Dame Agatha Christie and Dame Ngaio Marsh—synonymous with mysteries in general—has evolved into something more like a cutesy hobby mystery of the kind that I, and so many others, write.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with me and my books, my gimmick is home renovation. That’s the framework into which the story is set. The story, at its heart—and don’t tell my editor I said this—is a love story. (She thinks it’s a mystery. It’s not.) There’s a mystery there, sure. It frames the romance. Layers, if you will. But if every book is about people, and I believe they are, or at least that they should be, then my book is a romance. At its core, that’s what it’s about. The mystery is background for the love story. The home renovation is background for the mystery.

But I digress.

I started writing about renovating because I was asked to. Berkley Prime Crime wanted a series about a do-it-yourself home renovator, and I had the necessary background for the job. As an aside, let me just say that doing it that way helps with the research. Sure, you can decide to write about something you don’t know the first thing about, and learn as you go, but it’s easier if you already have the appropriate background. It cuts down on the time you have to spend researching, and gives you more time to actually write. And when you have deadlines to meet, that’s an important consideration.

As for how Berkley knew about me and my background, it was because I wrote another book. It featured a Realtor, and there was some home renovation going on in that book, as well. That wasn’t the gimmick of the book—it didn’t really have a gimmick—but there was enough home renovation woven through the story to make someone sit up and take notice.

Now, I should mention that that book never sold, and although I can’t say for sure why, I can tell you that as far as my Berkley editor goes, she read it and liked it, but told me it doesn’t fit their focus on ‘crafts and activities.’ Whether that means that it’s necessary to have a hook in order to succeed in today’s market, I’m not entirely sure.

If you want to write cozies for Berkley Prime Crime, then yes. To write a Prime Crime series, you gotta—as the girls in ‘Gypsy’ said—have a gimmick. If you don’t have a gimmick, then forget it. Or send your book to another publisher, or another imprint. There are lots of them out there, and they don’t all publish books with hooks.

So for what it’s worth, that’s what I’ll be saying this weekend. Now it’s your turn. Do you think it’s necessary to have a hook to succeed in today’s market? Is there a hook in your work in progress? Or if you’re not a writer, in the book you’re reading? If so, do you like that fact? Did you plan it, if you wrote it? And if there isn’t, do you wish there was? Do you think there should be?

Since I’m in the car, and can’t check back, play nicely amongst yourselves.

Oh, and just in case some of you missed it, and because I really like it a lot, here's a peek at the cover for DIY#2, Spackled and Spooked, coming on August 4th, 2009! Pretty, innit?