First, I'm wishing all of you a great year. Hope all goes well for you.
Last year, I did a decent job of getting words on paper. I hope to keep that up. But I did a horrible job of marketing, and it showed. I threw my poor books out into the world with as little promo as possible, and they pretty much floundered. I hope to do better this year.
My critique partners especially liked my mystery A GHOST OF A CHANCE, told me it was some of my best writing. That should have motivated me to get on the ball, but 2023 was full of pesky, little annoyances for me, and my energy fizzled more than usual. So I put it up, talked it up on twitter and my blog, did an ad, and started writing the next book. Writing makes me happy (most days). I don't hate marketing like some writers do, but it is easy to avoid. So I did.
I really enjoyed writing A GHOST OF A CHANCE. I loved the characters. A LONG time ago, I faithfully watched the TV show The Ghost and Mrs. Muir with Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare. I can't remember many of the details, but I remember really enjoying the dead sea captain and the gentle romance with the young widow who moved into his cottage. I don't have a dead sea captain for my mystery. Instead, I used the ghost of a detective who's called back to solve a crime when his old partner on the force is gunned down in his driveway. And there's no romance between Harrison and Loretta. Loretta loved her Ira so much, she has no desire to find a man to take his place after his death. She's a happy widow and intends to stay that way.
I did even less to market the last book I self-published in '23. I knew FACING THE MUSIC was going to be a hard sell. It's a dark cozy, and readers like my traditional cozies better. Instead of digging in and trying harder, I slapped it up with no pre-orders, no giveaways, not much of anything. It deserved better but didn't get it.
In 2024, I've vowed to at least give my books a fighting chance. Hope you find what works for you this year.
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