On the marketing front

Karin Gillespie, who launched a new series of Southern-set novels last year with BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR, has relaunched her blog as a promotion and marketing-focused one for writers. It’s off to a great start, giving tips on marketing plans, “elevator pitches,” and why it’s really important for a newbie writer to get to New York as soon as possible to meet the people who will be responsible for selling his or her book in-house and to outside sources.

She also links to a hilarious but dead-on piece by Lynn Viehl (recently interviewed by Mad Max Perkins about her prolific output and her publishing career) written last fall about the ten things an author simply should not do. Some of my favorites:

1. Have your cover photo shot taken at that photo chain in all the malls.

Soft focus and off-the-shoulder caribou collars don’t make you look prettier. They make you look fuzzier and stupid. Get a real photographer.

2. Wear a pink business suit.

Pink is cute on ten year olds. You’re thirty-eight. Buy some grownup clothes.

6. Write a review for your own book on Amazon.com and give yourself 5 stars.

The exclamation points and calling it the best book of the year are a dead giveaway.

I thought it’s a lot hard to do that now that Amazon’s given up the whole anonymous posting thing for the most part, but even so. I would also like to add one thing: something the best possible thing you can do in a situation is to talk about something, anything other than your book. You’re a person, and so is the person you’re speaking to. It’s good to remember this.