Building Your Brand...One Book at a Time.

I parked cars at the North Carolina Seafood Festival in Morehead City yesterday.  My Rotary Club does it to raise money for local non-profit organization projects as well as college scholarships for deserving local students.

It was difficult to sneak away for the afternoon because I’m on deadline to finish the fourth in the series of Geneva Chase mysteries.  By the way, my publisher says they’re going to rebrand my books as Geneva Chase Crime Reporter Mysteries.

I like that.  Sorry, I'm free associating.

So, speaking of branding…

My latest mystery, Graveyard Bay, launched on September 10th.  Since then, I’ve done a local book signing on the patio of one of my favorite restaurants.  I did a book talk over dinner at our local country club. I drove to South Carolina to appear as a featured author at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Trade Show.  And this past weekend, I flew to Scottsdale, Arizona, to sign books at the renowned Poisoned Pen Book Store.

Coming up, I’ll be flying to Dallas for Bouchercon.  I’m lucky enough to be on a panel there called “Stop the Presses”. Then, a week later, I’ll drive up to a town in North Carolina called Chocowinity to speak to the Pamlico Writers Group at the China King restaurant.

Whew!

Is it all worth it?  Of course it is.

Not because the number of books that were sold in any particular book signing put me on any bestseller list.  But I’m building a brand. I’m getting my name and the names of my books into the public eye.

My publisher’s publicist works hard at getting my name out, but every writer has to do his or her part as well.  And I enjoy it.  I love meeting people, talking with them, and telling them about Geneva Chase.

Some book signings are home runs.  But not all of them are.  I was invited to a library in a town where only one individual showed up.  That’s the kind of thing that keeps you grounded.
And early on in my writing career, I did book signings at some of the local bookshops where customers came in and avoided eye contact.  That was a little disheartening.

But I’m now three years into this adventure and I can say that I’ve had the best time of my life.  Yeah, there was that time when only one reader showed up.  But then there was that time when I was invited to a public library conference in Philadelphia where my distributor threw a party at the Pyramid Club, 52 floors above downtown Philly.  There was all the food you could eat, an open bar, and a live band.

There had also been a bad snow storm the day before and a lot of authors who were supposed to attend the conference couldn’t get there.

So, I was one of three authors signing books.  We went through cases of them.

Then, just two weeks ago, I flew to Scottsdale for the book signing at Poisoned Pen Bookstore.  I was there with the owner, Barbara Peters, and three other writers: Dennis Palumbo, Warren Easley, and Mark Coggins.  It was standing a room only.

Sure, I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to make my flight, and the airline lost my luggage, and my hotel room wasn’t ready when I’d arrived.  In the grand scheme of things, that’s chump change.

The joy is talking with people about writing and your books and mysteries.  That’s not only fun, but building my brand.

So, back to parking cars at the festival.  I’ll let you in on a secret. I collect characters and their descriptions.  They’re all based on people I see and interact with.  And let me tell you, at almost any festival, you’re going to get some doozies.  Some of them will most certainly be in my next Geneva Chase Crime Reporter novel!!

Event Surprise

Once in a while I agree to a presentation or an event that is dramatically different than what I'm expecting. Last week I spoke to the Sertoma Club in Lakewood, CO. The group was small, but what a powerful mission!

Sertoma is a service organization that raises funds to assist children with hearing issues. I was impressed with the energy and dedication of the members. They had ingenious projects to raise money to provide hearing health for children. 

The Annual Fund supports Sertoma’s hearing health mission and heritage. Each year, Sertoma Clubs and individual members raise funds from coast to coast to continue the mission of improving the quality of life today for those at risk or impacted by hearing loss through education and support. The Jeffco club mentioned selling poinsettias, peaches, May flowers, and other seasonal offerings.

My talk was more of a discussion than a lecture. I talked while they ate lunch and as usual the conversation drifted to my life as a native Kansan.

I'm always surprised at how little I know about the state. I've lived there all my life, and all my books are about Kansas, but one of the members added to my knowledge considerably. 

I talked about each of my mysteries and Hidden Heritage is about the cattle industry. One of the more intriguing details she supplied was that branding cattle is not mandatory in Kansas. It's on a voluntary basis. For that reason the state has a high rate of cattle rustling. You certainly can register brands but it's not mandatory as it is in Colorado. 

Since my husband was a bull hauler and involved with the cattle industry both as a driver and as the owner of a livestock hauling truck line, I was surprised that I didn't know that. 

She also told me that Kansas was one of the few states that had different regulations regarding open records. Since I'm not certain about the stipulations, I'll leave that for another time. 

When I was a 4-H community leader, the members had to give a fact about Kansas during their model meeting. One of my favorites is that we are one of the eight states that never ratified the 21st amendment repealing prohibition. Kansas is technically a dry state. 

One of my daughters argued that it could not be true. But it is. The state has local option. Local option is that the smallest voting entity had mandate rules for their area. That's why one part of a county can be dry and another wet. Sorting this out can be a challenge.