Category: Publicity & Promotions

MySpace for Your Characters?

I’m getting into a bad habit of titling blog posts with question marks, but if I can suck it up, so can you. Ain’t I a peach?

My friend (other than in the MySpace sense) and Young Adult author, Shelley Adina, has MySpace pages for each of the characters in her All About Us book series. Check out Lissa’s MySpace page (Gillian’s, Carly’s, Shani’s and Mac’s pages can all be accessed from Lissa’s Friends Space.) I do believe you or your teenager of choice can friend Shelley’s characters, too.

You know what the coolest thing is? Shelley didn’t have to create these pages, not does she have to update them. Her publisher did and does it for her. Sounds like they’re behind her, huh? And check out those gorgeous covers. You go, Shelley!

What do you think about the MySpace promotion? Personally, I think it’s very clever. I don’t think I would create MySpace pages for my own characters, but then I don’t write Young Adult novels. If I did write Young Adult novels, then I think it’s a wonderful idea. MySpace drives me crazy enough with the two sites I maintain for myself and Penny without adding pages for my characters into the mix.

By the way, I tried putting an accent grave (to the left) over the e in tres, but the instructions someone gave me aren’t working.

Plus, the instructions are for accent aigu (to the right), anyway. From now on, when I write tres, just take it for granted that you should pronounce it “tray.” With a little roll of the R, if you please, and a touch of Pepe Le Peux flair. Thank you.

Nobody Writes it Better

Have I mentioned that several/many/more than half of the members of the 2007 group of Golden Heart finalists (the ‘007s) are opening a group blog? It revolves around a bit of a Bond theme, so we’ve dubbed it Nobody Writes it Better (I won’t blab who offered that title when we were brainstorming, but let me just say it was someone very smart, initials of M.E.)

Okay, it can be argued that Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jennifer Crusie et. al. might write it better, but we have the URL, so there.

Right now we’re waiting for quotes from designers, so no word on the launch date, but we have a placeholder page on-line, if you want to bookmark the site. And if the graphic on the placeholder site looks remarkably similar to a business card you picked up at National, that’s because it is the business card, which accounts for the “Check Site” after “Launch Date.” That said, we’re targeting the blog to readers as well as reader/writers.

We’re all very excited. Watch this space for more information, doled out as sanity permits.

To Mug or Not to Mug

I spent all of Sunday designing business cards for conference. I had to design three cards, because I write under two names. How does she arrive at that math, you ask? I needed:

  1. One card showing my pen name only, which I can tuck into copies of the book Penny is signing at the Literacy Autographing. I put the covers of Penny’s first two releases on this card. Okay, so the second release doesn’t come out until the end of the year, but the title, cover, yada, are there to hopefully garner reader interest (note the adverb).
  2. Another card showing my real name only. This card is to exchange with other writers, which, to be honest, I don’t do a heckuva lot, because it’s the Internet Age after all and I can Google with the best of them. But if someone asks for your card, you don’t want to be caught card-less, so I put the cover for Borrowing Alex on this card to guilt my writing friends new and old into buying a copy if they haven’t already.
  3. The last card shows both my pen name and my real name. This is the card I’ll use for my editor and agent appointments, if the e/a’s want them (I always ask, because, frankly, a lot of editors and agents toss out the cards as soon as they get back to their rooms—what, you thought they had ginormous Rolodexes and backs of steel?). However, as per #2, if the editor or agent WANTS to see your card, you’d better have one.

This is where the mugging comes in. Last year on the ’07 Golden Heart Finalists loop, there was discussion as to whether or not it’s adviseable to put your headshot on your business card. I thought, what a great idea—an easy way to help the ed/agent remember to put a name to a face (that is, if they keep the cards, which they in all likelihood won’t, but let’s continue to pretend they will/do/might). However, then I started asking around on other loops, and the general consensus seemed to be that it’s tacky. Like you’re advertising yourself as a real estate agent or something. Well. I left my mugshot off my card, but when I got to National and saw biz cards with mugshots, I didn’t find them tacky at all. I liked them. And I found them useful for putting faces to names when I developed my conference pictures.

So, this year I’m being tacky or clever (pick your poison). My photo didn’t go on the cards I’ll hand out to readers and other writers, but it dang sure went on the card for editors and agents. If that makes me tacky, I can live with it. God knows I’ve been called worse (like weird).

Please Ask Me First

How do you feel about the practice of authors signing you up for their newsletters—whether electronic or print—without your permission? I’m not asking this because I plan to sign up a bunch of people to my newsletter without asking. I have a handy-dandy little box in the upper right corner of this blog where anyone can subscribe if they wish. There’s also a clickable graphic on my Home page and info on my Contact page (I’m nothing if not persistent). The bases are pretty much covered. No, I’m asking because finding myself signed up for an author’s newsletter without me actually subscribing to the newsletter myself is one of my readerly pet peeves. And it’s a big one.

I’m not talking when you enter a contest with the understanding that the author will sign you up for her newsletter—you know, because the contest rules explain that that’s exactly what will happen. In that case, I’m fair game. I’m not talking “Join My Newsletter List and You Will Be Entered in a Draw to Win a Free Copy of My Book” contests, either. In these cases, I know what I’m getting into, and I’ve done the “Join My Newsletter” contest thing myself. What really annoys me, though, is when I’ve emailed an author about something totally unrelated to her newsletter, and then I find myself subscribed to that newsletter. Then, despite requests to get removed from the newsletter list, I continue receiving them.

Or, the biggest annoyance…

Several years ago while I was unpublished I finaled in a contest in which a well known multi-published author judged my entry. Being a polite little Canadian and following the contest coordinator’s suggestion, I wrote thank you notes to all my judges, including Judge Promo Hound. To my surprise, I suddenly found myself on Judge Promo Hound’s snail-mail list. Two to four times a year, I receive glossy newsletters from JPH that elicit a cursory glance, then go in recycling. These days the newsletters don’t even elicit the cursory glance. I should point out that I have only ever bought one of JPH’s novels, and the purchase had nothing to do with my receipt or lack thereof of her newsletters. In fact, I bought the novel before JPH added my name to her mailing list without my permission. It’s not that I’m not buying her novels because she added me to her snail mail list. Not to continue buying her novels was purely a “her books are not my cup of tea” decision. So for her to continue sending me newsletters I didn’t ask for is a big waste of time in the first place, is it not?

Yes, I suppose I could have written Judge Promo Hound and asked her to remove me from her newsletter list. But why should I have to waste the paper and the stamp? Then a friend suggested an utterly brilliant idea that one would think I could have come up with myself (sadly, I didn’t). A few weeks ago I received yet another glossy, multi-page newsletter from Judge Promo Hound, so I followed my friend’s advice and simply wrote “Not at this Address” or “Return to Sender” (I can no longer recall which) on the envelope and dropped it back into the mailbox. My friend is convinced that this action will result in my name being removed from JPH’s mailing list. We shall see…