Thought our Topretirements visitors might be interested in a blog post published today on Murderati - an very popular murder mystery blog. The angle is that my wife, Roberta Isleib, just published her 8th mystery last week. So she is not only on the tour promoting it, but she dragged me and Topretirements in on the fun. Here is an excerpt (full story at Murderati)
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John: Tip #1 — Find a way to be interactive with your audience. My team at BLR came up with the idea of an interactive quiz for Human Resource professionals, the HR Challenge, which tested their knowledge about different HR questions. We all knew it would be a good idea, but were blown away when the website got so much traffic it overwhelmed the server. We ended up having to shut it down for 6 months and rebuild the site so it could handle the traffic. Think about questions or contests that get people involved in your story.
Roberta: My biggest marketing coup had to be the article about the Golf Lover’s Mystery series that ended up in Sports Illustrated in 2004. The writer came out from Philly to do a four hour interview. The next thing we knew a NY photographic team was in our Connecticut town shooting photos of me looking very fierce in a salt marsh, a cemetery, and the sand traps at our golf course. From the outside, this might have looked like a lucky break. It was! But it came about because I doggedly sent emails and my own books to every contact I came across in the gold world. Tip #2 — exploit your niche(s) and be generous with review copies.
John: Publishers are mostly interested in promoting the folks they have given the big advances to, so if you want to succeed, you better get good at promoting your own ventures (shameless self promotion: here’s my new website ) Tip #3 — Pay attention to every contact, every person you meet. They might be able to help you — if you can find the common ground of mutual self-interest.