Author Archives: mary

The Business of Promotion: When the Hero Comes Home 2

When-the-Hero-Comes-Home-2-coverDoing business requires a businessperson to give some attention to promotion.  If you’re a store, yes, you’ll get a few customers by hanging an open sign on your door – but not as many as you’ll get if you make sure to have an attractive display window, some enticing sales, an active social media presence and involvement in your local community.  If you’re a writer, yes, you may sell a few books by virtue of their presence on a bookstore shelf or convention table, but not as many as you’ll sell if you choose striking cover art, participate in convention panels, have an active social media presence, interact with your audience….

You’ve created something and brought it into the world.  You’re passionate and enthusiastic.  There are other people out there who are also passioniate and enthusiastic, about your subject.  All you need to do is let them know that your story exists.

Last month was Marketing and Promotion month here at The Fictorians.  The Fictorians and their guests contributed some excellent tips to let you know the best ways to spread the word and boost the signal:  you have a book for sale!

I have a book for sale.

Hook your readers’ attention.  Let them know, in a few short sentences, what your story (and, if applicable, the anthology it’s in) is about:

Everyone knows the archetype of the hero’s journey.  But do you know what happens after that journey ends?

When the Hero Comes Home 2 is a collection of short stories that begin where most stories end.  The hero who returns is different from the average guy who left–how does he readjust to his old life?   What advice does she give to the next generation of heroes?  What happens when the hero comes home in defeat?

Blood Runs Thicker is available in the ebook version of When the Hero Comes Home 2.  It’s the story of a young man named Jim and his personal hero, his best friend Al.  Against all odds, Al has been elevated to a decorated veteran of a galactic war, and Jim fears he barely recognizes his old friend.  He’s yet to learn that winning her medals has cost Al everything that ever mattered to her, and that a similar sacrifice looms on his own horizon as their destinies entangle.

Sometimes it’s fun to throw in a few “behind the scenes” details about writing the story.  Human interest bits are appealing and help whet readers’ curiosity:

The core idea for Blood Runs Thicker was inspired by a single line in a Blue Oyster Cult song:  Jim says some destinies should not be delivered.  I started thinking:  what is destiny?  Why should some of them not come to pass, and what happens when they do anyway?  Who is judging what “should” and “should not” be delivered?  From this line, I developed my main character–Jim, a shaman who works with tarot cards–and his best friend Al.  Jim’s cards foretell Al’s destiny:  to become a hero, at a terrible cost.  What Jim doesn’t recognize is that those cards predict the same fate for him.

If your audience is hooked, make it easy for them!  Make sure they know how and where to purchase:

You can get the ebook version of When the Hero Comes Home 2 here, on sale for a limited time, in either Kindle or Epub formats:

http://dragonmoonpress.com/when-the-hero-comes-home-2/

Or you can buy from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Hero-Comes-Home-2-ebook/dp/B00F5CFVKW

So don’t just put that book on the shelf and hang the open sign on your door.  Make sure your product looks good, and most importantly, let people know it’s out there–and why they should care.

Horror Comes Creeping…

Dark_Bits_coverV3-208x300Happy Hallowe’en and Blessed Samhain!

Like many other people, I’ve read a few Stephen King novels, and watched a few scary movies, particularly around this time of year.  And yes, perhaps I have a greater appreciation for zombies than most of my co-workers.  And okay, I don’t flinch away from putting the darkness in dark fantasy, and I feel that no honest war story can fail to convey the horrors of warfare.

But I never considered myself a horror writer.

I knew, however, that even as a newly published author, I didn’t want to fall into a rut:  the same themes, the same settings, the same sorts of characters.  I decided that this year – the year after my first publication – I would challenge myself.  So in addition to the military science fiction that I love, I spread my wings and wrote some stories to submit to a few anthologies outside of that genre.

The first of those anthologies was Dark Bits by Apokrupha.  Dark Bits is an anthology of “52 + 1” flash fiction horror stories.  I thought that a word limit of less than 500 words was a good way to try a, er, “little” something new.

It turns out it took all weekend to craft those 500 words (from someone who can routinely crank out 2000 words/day), because flash fiction comes with its own inherit challenges:  you need to develop your character(s) and convey the story arc, beginning to end, in a very limited space.  My first draft was almost twice as long as it needed to be; my major editing challenge was to tighten the work into the word limit, making every word count.  The end result is a tiny taste of terror called The Long Haul.

The Long Haul is a story best described as “Emily Dickenson is a long-haul trucker.”  Hop into the cab of a cross-country delivery gone wrong, brush up on your poetry, and hold on tight.  The first few miles will be okay.  Just be aware, there’s a long…a very long…way to go.

You can order your own copy of Dark Bits here:  http://apokrupha.com/dark-bits/  Books are available in ebook, Kindle, paperback and hardcover formats.  There’s also a 2014 weekly planner which includes a flash fiction story for every week of the year!

Bolstered by the success of “The Long Haul,” when I found out an editor I know was accepting submissions to an anthology of horror stories, I tried my hand at a longer-length tale.  I’m pleased to announce that next year, you can find Mishipishu:  The Ghost Story of Penny Jaye Prufrock in Fossil Lake:  An Anthology of the Aberrant, coming next year from Daverana Enterprises.  More gruesome details will be given closer to publication date…

If once is chance, and twice is coincidence, I’m not far away from “third is a pattern.”

I suppose that makes me a horror writer.  Among other things.

Steamed Up Anthology Virtual Launch (Marketing in Action!)

 

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It was the better part of a year ago when I signed up to organize a Fictorians month around the topic of “Marketing and Promotion.”   At that time I was still unpublished, in the phase of my career where I sent out submissions and hoped for the best.  I’d chosen the Marketing and Promotion topic in the hopes of gaining knowledge for that far-off time when I’d have something of my own to promote.  Little did I know that by the time October 2013 arrived, I would have it…

So here’s an opportunity to see a Virtual Book Launch in action.  Tomorrow, Sunday October 27, myself and other contributors to Dreamspinner Press’ Steamed Up Anthology will be on the Dreamspinner Press Blog to celebrate a virtual book launch.  We’ll be providing background on our steampunk stories, excerpts, chat and more!  Visit us at http://dreamspinnerpress.com/blog/

My contribution to Steamed Up is “Ace of Hearts”:  All Aeroplane Mechanic First Class William Pettigrew ever wanted was to fly, but due to an old eye injury, he can only maintain the aircraft and fantasize about the pilots. When Captain James Hinson,  war hero and dirigible flying ace, joins the squadron, William catches his eye. But William lacks the confidence to see James’s overtures as anything but friendly interest in his innovations. Then James is shot down over enemy territory, and for William that changes everything. The time has come for him to choose: believe in himself and fly or lose forever the man whose heart he hopes to win.

Join me in celebration of an era of zeppelin aces, clockwork cavalry and mechanical marvels…in an age of high adventure!

Steamed Up is now available in paperback:

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4324

or Ebook:

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4267

Hope to see you there!

Dressed for Success: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Brand

I used to hate the word “branding.”  It conjured up images of cattle lowing as a hot poker was pressed against their flanks; or corporate logos splashed all over slick, prepackaged boxes.  I’m a creator.  An individual personality.  Not a brand, I thought.  Not some bogus advertisement.

But branding your work – having a brand – is so important to promotion.

This story begins shortly after I’d made my first short story sale – “Blood Runs Thicker” to “When the Hero Comes Home 2” anthology by Dragon Moon Press – and I was invited by fellow DMP author Marie Bilodeau (Destiny’s Blood, Destiny’s Fall, the forthcoming Destiny’s War, and a short story in the previous “When the Hero Comes Home,” among others) to attend the Ad Astra convention in Toronto where I would have an opportunity to meet the editor who’d purchased my story.

My previous convention experiences had been one of two types:  fan conventions, typically toy collecting or anime themed, where I arrived in a t-shirt proclaiming my love of the convention’s topic, or in costume; and academic conventions, where I brought out my best Subdued Suit (TM) and tried to look like a Serious Academic.  I wasn’t certain a fiction editor wanted to meet my Serious Academic – it wasn’t my master’s thesis she’d purchased, after all.  “What do I wear?” I asked Marie.  “A suit?”

“A suit’s not necessary unless that’s the sort of image you want to present for your writing,” she said.  “Think about what you want to be remembered as.  Be yourself.”

Then she told me about wearing cute shoes to her first convention appearance and discovering that her footwear had become an unshakeable aspect of her public persona – to the point where wearing running shoes provoked questions about her footwear, potential foot injuries, etc.  As someone who lives in Doc Martens, I was horrified.

“Just wear the usual,” she suggested.

“The usual” is ripped jeans or combat pants, a cartoon or heavy metal T-shirt, my signature army jacket, and boots.  “I’ll look like I’m on my way to an Iron Maiden concert,” I protested.

I could clean up my jeans.  I do own a few pairs that are hole (paint, stud, patch, funky-pattern) free.  For shirts, though, I made Marie a deal:  I’d provide dinner and she’d poke through my closet in search of something appropriate for me to wear.

Much to my relief, she bypassed my workwear closet entirely – that selection of puffy blouses and tailored pants that I despise and own only in the interests of keeping my day job – and dug around in my chest of drawers, producing a black shirt with a subtle Halo Helljumpers logo on it.

“That’s a gamer shirt,” I said.

“But it’s not bright or garish or obvious about it, and it’s got that military theme that runs through so much of your writing.”

Okay.  I could deal with this.  I had a couple more shirts that had actual military crests on them, and added those to the suitcase.  “Maybe,” I joked, “I could even take my ratty army jacket.”

“Absolutely,” Marie said.

I couldn’t believe I’d heard that correctly.   “What?”

“You write military science fiction.  Put on that jacket and you look like someone who writes military science fiction.”

And that’s when I realized that branding wasn’t about pretending to be something I wasn’t or stuffing myself into a monkey suit and feeling miserable all day.  It was about creating a recognizable, memorable statement that says this is what I do.

The public persona I was building wasn’t all fake.  Those were my real clothes in that suitcase–clothes I felt good in.  The brand, I realized, was an aspect of myself – an aspect that puts its best foot forward and hasn’t got holes in its jeans, but a genuine part of my personality nonetheless.  At TFCon I’ve been recognized for years as “the one in the army jacket.”  There was definitely something to this branding business.  It was a visual shorthand for what could be expected of me.

Ad Astra was a great success, and ever since then I’ve stopped thinking of branding as covering myself with a slick veneer and started thinking of it as a way to celebrate who I am and what I do.  I write military science fiction.  I have a background that includes two pilots’ licenses, a degree from the Royal Military College of Canada and seven years of contracts to back it up.

And the brand image doesn’t limit me.  My most recent story sale was a steampunk romance.

I’ve added a pin with an old-fashioned compass to the lapel of my army jacket.