Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: Conda Douglas on Marketing Made Easy, Giveaways

Hello and welcome to this Thursday's writing tips in the Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing series. Humorous author Conda Douglas is our tipster with her own writing tips on Marketing. AND Conda has brought along an e-book copy of her award-winning mystery, Starke Naked Dead. Congratulations on winning third place in the mystery category in the Idaho Author Awards! 
Please leave a comment to be eligible to win the drawing for this entertaining mystery. Winner announced after 9 pm on Sunday evening. 

PLUS today, Conda has a FREE gift for you, a cookbook filled with Conda's tried and true recipes. Just in time for the holidays!

Click here to order

Conda, you maintain an author can actually enjoy marketing. Say what? Please tell us how.

MARKETING MADE EASY...UH...EASIER 
by Conda Douglas

Once upon the time before eBooks, marketing and promotion were straightforward, they followed a laid out process that everyone accepted as protocol. Now, authors, whether traditionally published, self-published or hybrid, are expected to promote their own works and author brand. Add to this that no one knows what works in social media, except that it does appear to add sales. Add to this that all social media is continuously changing and many authors throw up, uh, their hands and maybe their breakfast too.

Breathe, relax, and unclench those fists. Here are a few tips that will have you enjoying, yes, enjoying, marketing.

There are myriad ways to promote on the Internet, enough to find your own way. If you choose social media that you enjoy, you're more likely to visit, post, comment, whatever, more often and get more followers, views, whatever. I adore Pinterest so visit it and pin often (it's like having hundreds of great teapots, all free and none that need washed!). Because of my activity, I have many followers.

Provide content pertinent to your interests (see teapots above). I have writing boards on Pinterest, but most of my boards are about my interests, jewelry and jewelry making, recipes, fitness and of course teapots, some tangential to my novels. One of my main characters is a jeweler, for example. People will discover you as an author instead of being annoyed by endless pitching.

Note: An easy way for more promotion is to link your social media accounts, Pinterest to Twitter to Facebook, etc. Then when you post to one it posts to the other sites as well.

Think outside the promo box. Because I love writing reviews on TripAdvisor I have over 100 reviews with 41,000+ people plus having read them. The cover of my novel The Mall Fairies: Exile is my bio pic. If only a tiny portion of readers see and my name and cover...

Use cross marketing. Get into groups of authors and bloghop, tweet each other's tweets, promote each other's books for content, etc. Authors adore helping other authors!  

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The gossiping women of the Widows Brigade in the new ski resort of Starke, Idaho love a good scandal—this time it’s a murder mystery, and a stark naked corpse!

BUY LINK  for Starke Naked Dead 

by Conda Douglas

About Conda:

Award winning Conda grew up in the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. Her childhood was filled with authors and artists and other creative types. She grew up with goats in the kitchen, buffalo bones in the living room and rocks in the bathtub. Now her life is filled with her cat and dog and permanent boyfriend and writing.

She's traveled the world from Singapore to Russia (in winter!) and her own tiny office, writing all the while. She delights in writing her cozy Starke Dead mystery series with amateur detective jeweler Dora Starke. The more Dora discovers cursed jewelry, her aunt digging graves, and a rampant poisoner, the more fun Conda has--although sometimes Dora complains about her plight! 

When she's not writing Dora into her quirky and quixotic mysteries, Conda writes the popular tween fantasy Mall Fairies series. The fairy inspiration for her Mall Fairies came from the sparrows that live in the Boise Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho. Conda works hard to rescue the fairies from humans, cats, pixies and themselves.

Find out more about Conda at  Conda's Creative Center 

I am thrilled to announce that Conda Douglas and I are bundled together with Heather Fraser Brainerd, David Fraser, and Sara Jayne Townsend in a four mystery e-book set releasing from our publisher, MuseItUp Publishing. 

You can pre-order now and get the special Black Friday price-- $1.99 for ALL FOUR BOOKS. Price goes up on December 2. For more information and the buy link, go to MuseItUp Publishing. Also available at amazon.