Promotional Whirlwind by Kitty Bucholtz
September 10, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as book signing, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Little Miss Lovesick, Unexpected SuperheroI just arrived home yesterday from over a month on the road. I’m exhausted, but it’s been a good few weeks. I started at the Romance Novel Convention in Las Vegas. Lots of great opportunities there, but not as much foot traffic as I expected.
Then I flew to Michigan for several events. I did a book signing at a charity event, ROCK for CHUM, raising funds for my sister’s charity. (She does therapeutic riding and hippotherapy, really amazing stuff!) Then I ran a charity half marathon, RUN for CHUM, and had to be available to sign books after. Um, note to self, don’t plan to run 13.1 miles and try to have your head together for selling and signing books afterward.
A few days later, it got really exciting – I was interviewed live on a radio morning show! That was so fun! The radio DJ made it easy to sound like I’d done this a hundred times before. As soon as I get the recording, I’ll post it on my web site.
I spent the rest of the day getting in touch with my old high school (they took a picture of me with my book to put on their web site), stopping by my college library and the two local libraries in my hometown area (one had already bought all my books!), and doing some research for upcoming books.
The next day, I signed books in the morning at Top Comics, and in the afternoon at Horizon Books. Both stores hold a spot in my heart – the former is co-owned by a long-time friend, the latter is the first bookstore I remember ever going to as a kid. I felt on top of the world all day!
Plus, after several years of on and off searching, I found my sixth grade teacher to whom I dedicated Little Miss Lovesick. The newspaper took pictures of us meeting again for the first time in over 30 years and interviewed us. Then I presented the book to her at the beginning of the signing. Friends and flowers and lots of laughter made the day more special than I have words to express.
When I list it all here, it sounds like a lot of work – and it was! I didn’t have much free time. But when you can get your heart connected with your promotion, it gives you an energy boost. And it makes you feel like a million bucks!
Maybe you have some new ideas about what you can do to get your heart involved in your promotion. Good luck!
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, came out in 2011. Her new novel, Unexpected Superhero, book one in The Adventures of Lewis & Clarke humorous urban fantasy series, is now available in print and ebook format. Love at the Fluff and Fold, book one in The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series, will be released later this year. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.
Romance Novel Convention – and Free Book
August 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Unexpected SuperheroDo You Have an Email Newsletter? by Kitty Bucholtz
July 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Author promotion, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Tim Grahl, Unexpected Superhero
With my new book, Unexpected Superhero, out last month, I am reading the perfect marketing book. It’s called Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl. I’ve been following Tim via his company, Out:think, for a year or more. The company works with writers to sell more books and become more successful.
The book came out two weeks ago and I’m halfway through it. So far, the most compelling piece of information is the incredibly strong argument for writers to have an email newsletter. And not just to have one (I sent out my first newsletter two weeks ago! Woo-hoo!), but to have a robust list, focusing more on email followers than Facebook or Twitter followers.
One of Tim’s examples is of an author whose analytics show that for every book she sold via Facebook and Twitter posts, she sold fifty due to her email newsletters. Fifty! Tim also reminds us that no matter what is happening with the various social media outlets, we will always have the contact information we collect via our newsletters. If Facebook changes this or that policy, if Twitter makes a change, we can lose contact with all of our fans. Snap! Just like that.
The other thing Tim emphasizes several times is that our newsletters need to be “relentlessly helpful.” Think about that. Relentlessly helpful. What does that mean to you? More importantly, what does that mean to your readers? What kind of information would be in my newsletter that would cause subscribers to not only read every issue, but hit the Buy Now button when I have a new book out? What kind of newsletter would do that with your readers?
If you’re looking for a good book on marketing your new book, I think you should try Your First 1000 Copies. I’m getting a lot out of it, and I think you will, too.
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, came out in 2011. Her new novel, Unexpected Superhero, book one in The Adventures of Lewis & Clarke humorous urban fantasy series, is now available in print and ebook format. Love at the Fluff and Fold, book one in The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series, will be released later this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.
Love and Marriage and All That Madness by Kitty Bucholtz
May 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Little Miss Lovesick, Louisa Bacio, Moonlit Encounters, Romancing the Pages, Unexpected Superhero
It’s funny how many accidents create ah-ha moments. What would we do without penicillin and Post-It notes?
I’ve been trying to figure out for two years how to write interesting, entertaining blog posts that are similar enough to my book-writing style to encourage blog readers to become book readers. Then last month I had an ah-ha moment.
I’d written a funny article for the OCC RWA newsletter encouraging people to sign up to enter or judge the Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers. Then I wrote a funny guest post on Louisa Bacio’s blog about How Hotel Sex Turned Me Into a Romantic Comedy Writer. I mentioned to several people that I love writing this kind of silly fun article, but I didn’t have an outlet for it anymore.
D’oh! Yes, I did! Um, blog, sitting there, waiting for me to be brilliant!
So this week I started a new column on Mondays called Marriage Madness. Since I write stories with fun romances in them, and since Sunday was my (gasp!) 23rd wedding anniversary, it seemed like I’d finally found an interesting and entertaining topic that might lead my blog readers to my books.
Whether my tactic will work remains to be seen. But I’m having such fun writing about all the good, bad, and hilarious things that I’ve seen in marriage! Coming up will be the “tornadoes in trailer parks” story, the “will she walk into that light pole” story, the “65 days of no cooking” story, the “how to never argue” story, and many more.
If you’ve met my husband, John, you’ll understand in about a minute and a half why I write romances – and why all my heroes are tall, dark, and sexy – I mean, handsome! 😉 And if you haven’t met him yet, you’ll feel you know him pretty quickly when you read about his shenanigans.
If you like reading fun, romantic stories, stop by Marriage Madness every Monday. And if you’re a writer trying to figure out how to write blog posts your potential book readers would be interested in…well, I suggest you look for something to trip over. 😉
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released May/June 2013, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.
2 0 Read moreWonderCon: My First Comic Book Convention
April 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, WonderCon
I’ve been wanting to go to a comic book convention for a long time, probably since I first starting writing my own superhero novel. Last month, I finally got to go! My husband John took me to WonderCon in Anaheim. It was so much fun!
Of course, the first thing you notice (after trying to stay in a good mood for the hour it took to park in Anaheim) is all the people in costume. There were so many different kinds of characters with costumes that went from homemade to super-wow! My geek factor isn’t deep enough for me to be able to recognize who everyone was, but there were a lot of Doctor Who characters, lots of manga-like girls, lots of superheroes (of course!), and a quite a few steampunk costumes. And lots of other things that I couldn’t figure out.
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| Tom King, author of A ONCE CROWDED SKY, and me |
John told me I should walk around the booths at the Expo and talk to authors who had tables there, find out if it was worth the time and expense. I had about half a dozen business cards in my wallet; I figured that would cover meeting the other writers. Boy, was I wrong. There were a lot of writers there! Some who wrote mostly novels, some who wrote mostly comic books, and some who wrote both. I ran out of business cards long before I ran out of writers to talk to.
I’ve been to enough RWA conferences, both regional and national, to know the rhythm and to fit myself into the flow. There are lots of reasons why that is a good thing, but you no longer walk around with saucer eyes. At WonderCon, I was definitely Saucer-Eyed Girl! It was a totally new experience. Everything I saw made me think differently about stories, writers, and readers.
If you’ve been in your usual groove for a while, it’s time to go see the world differently. Go to a different kind of conference or expo for a day. See who’s out there buying comic books, buying boats, doing brain surgery. If nothing else, watch YouTube videos on something you know nothing about. (I just watched one about how the length of your chromosomes may determine how much life expectancy you have left.)
New experiences literally change how your brain makes connections. I’ve been reading a lot of books on brain science in the last year. Want to change your brain? Improve its function? Even read something way outside your known world. All these things improve your ability to see the world differently. That’s not only fun, it’s good for your writing.
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released soon, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.
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