In May, Five Star
will publish For the Love of Parvati,
the third book in the Anita Ray series, featuring Indian American
photographer Anita Ray, who lives in South India at her aunt’s tourist hotel.
Anita first appeared in a short story published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, “A Murder Made in India,” in the
October 2003 issue. Since then, eleven more Anita Ray stories have appeared in AHMM and Level Best Books anthologies,
with another in the pipeline.
Now that the book is
written, my job is to launch it on what I hope is a very successful path. Launching
a book, as most writers now, is almost as much work as writing it, but I have a
few established practices that help me get the word out and generate sales.
1. I compile a list
of professional reviewers and review sites, invite them to review the ARC. (These
do not duplicate those contacted by Five Star.) Some say yes, and some say no. I
send the ARCs out about two to three months in advance, depending on the
reviewer. I also ask colleagues, friends, and local reviewers to review. I also
do giveaways on Goodreads and LibraryThing. Depending on the reviewer, I may
include a letter from the publisher indicating the type of story, etc. This
year I have 45 ARCs for the third Anita Ray, almost twice what I had for the
second book.
2. I order updated
bookmarks with the cover of the new book. I give these to everyone, and even
put them into reply envelopes for bills, etc. I also make sure I have enough
business cards. I put cards and bookmarks on every chair at a book event (if
there is seating), and hand them out at events like book fairs. For reasons
that elude me, I find it easy to hand these out to strangers at events when I
normally wouldn’t even say hello to a stranger.
3. I begin setting
up events--talks, panels, etc., anything that gets my name out there and gives
me a chance to interact with other people. I admit that I don’t do as many of
these as I used to, but I’ve found a variety of events is more useful to me
than a high number of traditional events like library panels.
4. I use social
media, so I'll be posting regularly on my own blog plus do a few guest blogs. I
post on FB and I am learning to use Pinterest, especially since I have
wonderful covers. I don’t use these sites to sell my book. Instead I talk about
writing, what I love about India, and other interests. No one wants to get
constant requests to “like” my page, show up at my “virtual” launch, and the
rest of it. If I haven’t something interesting to say about writing and other
topics, then it’s better for me not to write.
5. This one is
harder, but I recommend it if you can pull it off. I recently sold another
short story featuring Anita Ray to Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. This will probably be published in the coming
year, which will reinforce interest, I hope, in the novel For the Love of Parvati, coming out in May 2014, as well as the two
previous books, Under the Eye of Kali
(2010) and The Wrath of Shiva (2012).
6. I use Wattpad to
introduce readers to my series characters by posting short short stories for
free. I also have posted the opening scene from a longer work, with a link to
the site where the reader can buy the whole book. Unless you’re a very well
known writer, it takes time to build up a readership on this site, but it does
build.
Like almost any
other writer, I would rather be writing than promoting. I doubt I will ever get
over the feeling of foolishness of talking about myself and my books. But once
in a while, to my great delight, I strike up a conversation with someone who
loves all sorts of mysteries, India, Indian food, and meeting strangers. That’s
when I don’t care if the person buys my book or not because I'm enjoying the conversation so much, and that’s when he or
she usually does buy it.
The first two books in the series are available as eBooks and in paper through Amazon. You can read an Anita Ray story at www.susanoleksiw.com
