Mail Empowerment

With ABADDON's release looming, I'm building my plan for world bookstore domination. Recognizing the need for a mass independent appeal for the book, as one can no longer count on Borders and Amazon to save us, I have been compiling a database of all the appropriate brick-and-mortar independent booksellers in the country.

This is what keeps me busy while I'm watching DOCTOR WHO. I'm up to Michigan in the American Booksellers Association and I've already got 314 bookstores.

If life were fair, I'd send them each a pitch kit: my bio sheet, a rack card and bookmark, ordering information on ABADDON and my backlist, Nocturnal Urges matchbooks and a cover letter.... all nicely packaged in a shiny black folder with flames marking the front.

On the other hand, I'd like to actually turn a profit.

So I figured I'd get it down to a cover letter and an ABADDON pitch sheet, maybe with a bookmark. Then I calculated the cost of sending 600 9x12 envelopes under the new postage rates.

Downsize again. What's a postcard cost?

I am clueless on direct mail. I know emailing them all is possible but very spammy. Direct mail ain't much better, but somebody's got to tell all those bookstores I exist. So I started doing some reading on direct mail - what works?

Get this:

How do you get people to act on your mailings? In his book, On the Art of Copywriting, direct marketing guru Herschell Gordon Lewis says you should tie your benefits to one or more the “Five Great Motivators” --

- FEAR
- GREED
- GUILT
- EXCLUSIVITY, and
- NEED FOR APPROVAL

Wow. All I want is for somebody to buy my book. Um, in my business fear is a good thing, yes? *blink blink* I want them afraid. Score one for me, yanno?

This is why big-time authors hire marketing consultants and other people in suits who do this thinking for them. My fan base is small but mighty, and while I know they'll go to their bookstores and harangue them into carrying the book, in order to achieve a wider appeal, I really have to push them myself. And yet I am clueless.

Greed? "Um, I need airfare to next year's cons, buy my book." I don't know if that counts.
Guilt? A picture of my son wearing the T-shirt that says, "Buy my mom's books or I'll starve." He's cute. It could work.
Exclusivity? "Sure, I'm haranguing 600 independent stores, but YOU'LL be the only one in Pahrump, Nevada to carry my book!"
Need for approval?

...

Um, are we talking about MY need for approval? Because that's pretty deep, psychologically speaking, for a buy-my-book pitch. Also, I'm not sure we can fit all this shit on a postcard. They're gonna charge me extra.

Maybe I should go on the world's biggest road trip. Physically visit every bookstore in the country that isn't owned by Borders or Barnes & Noble. That could be fun, you know. San Francisco alone would take a week.

On the other hand, gas is still $4.19 a gallon.

Now we're back to fear.

rejections

Yes, I still get them. LOTS of them. Sniffle.

Tempest has suggested making today Post a Rejection Letter Day. I'm not getting into the kerfuffle that started this whole thing, but I think it's an interesting concept.

Unfortunately, I have no interesting rejection letters. I have some with suggestions and many with invitations to submit again - these are always encouraging.

It's funny. I have a short story that's been rejected several times. Rejected by one magazine for not having enough horror, by another for having too much horror, and by a third for being too "science fiction." I have a novel that was published, decried by some critics as not having enough sex, and lost an award for having too much.

I give up. I write what I write, and hope to find somebody with a press who likes it.

Rejections are a part of writing. I have to keep a spreadsheet to remember where I've subbed and been rejected, so I don't send the same piece to the same magazine twice. I also have a bulletin board in my office with postings of everything that's out right now and where it stands.

The key is to treat rejection as an opportunity. If there are suggestions offered, take a look at them and see if they might have a point. Unless a major rewrite is needed, let no more than a week go by before sending it back out. Yes, it stings - you had visions of that terrific story landing with a grade-A magazine and then it would get noticed by the big reviewers and you'd win awards and get a book contract and put a down payment on a house...

Well, I'd tell you to breathe deep and conk yourself with a bottle of Jack Daniels, you're clearly insane. But that little flight of fancy still happens every time I put a story in the mail (or email). It's that breath of hope that keeps us sending out the stuff, and it's one of the few compensations in a job that usually leads to heartache, poverty and carpal tunnel syndrome.

So you just go ahead and dream. When a rejection comes, take it for what it's worth. Then you turn it right back around. You never know, right?

biting the bullet

Three subs today. Two more could get the verdict any day. Of course, those are the biggies. *gnaw nails*

Now if only Swamp Thing was going as well. It's funny how real life can destroy your focus. Okay, the last few days have been crazy busy, with the holiday and kid-time and did I mention taking my son and niece to Six Flags for eleven hours? For some reason, I didn't have the brain power for the swamp after we got home at 11:30 p.m.

I suppose I can chalk today up for productivity. Tomorrow, unfortunately, I must empty all my kitchen cabinets in preparation for the exterminator. But it would be nice to think I could scrape an hour or three for fiction.

The Squee Heard Round the World

So the squee you might have heard echoing a couple of days ago came from a surprise I didn't expect this year or maybe ever.

Cerridwen is putting ABADDON into print. Perhaps as soon as next month. I fell out of my chair.

The third-quarter print list went out on Tuesday and ABADDON is on it. Now, that means they could put it in print anytime between now and the end of September. Suddenly I am far busier than I expected to be this summer. Promo campaign begins NOW.

That's why I'm currently running the Bookstore Contest again - each local bookstore you post on my YahooGroup gets you an entry in a contest for cool prizes. Go forth and post! I lost my entire database of independent bookstores to a succession of stupidity last year, and I need to rebuild it.

I'm also considering having a real-life book release party, a gathering in some public place as an official kickoff event that I can publicize and possibly gain some attention. I have the disadvantages of trying to sell a horror novel that is a) published by a non-horror publisher and b) the third book in a series.

The good news: I get to keep my Man On Fire cover. Squee!



I am happier than I can say, but not just because I get to make money (hopefully) and get a print release out this year. I am happy because I believe ABADDON to be the best book I have yet published, and its less-than-stellar sales as an ebook - despite killer reviews and winning the Darrell Award - have been the biggest disappointment of my career to date.

I am also happy because I have heard from so many of you that you really want this book in print, that you love the stories but ebooks just don't yank your chain, that you're waiting for the paperback to read it... Much of writing I do for love or money, but this one, more than any other, I do for you guys. That, and it's superfun.

The website will be updated shortly, and I'm continuing to develop my evil plan for world bookstore domination. Advice and assistance would be vastly appreciated.

Thank you all for your support. I don't know if anyone was emailing Cerridwen with requests, or if you just sent good mojo. But I do know it doesn't happen without you.

P.S. If you want to catch up on the series before ABADDON comes out, you need Nocturne, which contains the first two books in the series. Want a signed copy? I'm selling them directly by mail and at cons.

Bookstore Contest!

We did this once before, my friends, but unfortunately an address book crash cost me my entire database.

So once again, it's time for the Bookstore Contest!

It's easy to enter. Just post the name and street address of a bookstore in your area. It would be helpful if you could include the name of the owner or manager, and some hint of what kind of books they carry.

Ineligible: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Waldenbooks; Christian bookstores, used bookstores (unless they also carry new books) or university bookstores; comic book stores. These may be fine establishments, but they do not serve my evil plan for world domination.

For each bookstore you deliver, you get one entry in the contest. I have some nifty prizes just dying to go out.

Oh, and an announcement.

But you have to wait for that.

Shocklines sale!

Part of the regrettable demise of the Shocklines horror bookstore is a benefit to us - great sales. :)

As it's moving day for the merchandise, Shocklines is offering 50 percent off and free shipping for scads of small-press horror. Go to Shocklines.com and use code FINALFIFTY to take advantage of the offer.

announcement

First of all, thanks to everyone who came to last night's chat. We had a great time, and I gave away a few prizes. The flow in and out was pretty steady, too, and it ran all the way to 12:30 a.m. CST! I think that might be our record. :)

Of course, I had to have an excuse to throw an online party. I announced my new project: DREADMIRE.

I am happy to announce that Spellbinder Books and I will be working together on my first game novelization. Dreadmire is a great game, full of fantastic monsters clearly inspired by the bayous of Louisiana (Monstrous Mosquitoes, anyone?). I met game creator Randy Richards at Dragoncon last year, and he came up with the idea of a novelization. I developed a story that suits them, and I'll be writing it for them this summer.

I'm very pleased about this project. It's a different world than my usual work, but it's definitely got that happy, up-with-people tone I prefer. (Note: sarcasm. There is plenty of death and misery, natch.) I'm looking forward to working with Randy and the folks at Spellbinder, and romping around the swamps of Dreadmire.

I believe there are tentative plans to release the book next year, but that will be up to Spellbinder.

There's other stuff brewing, but I can't announce it yet. Suffice to say after an extremely tough year, things are starting to look up. As always, I thank you readers for your support. Without you, I'm just talking to myself.