Author Chat at Book Clubs
Self-promotion, in particular promoting the book I wrote, is not something I do eagerly, even though I recognize that if I don’t promote my book, it’s not likely to be purchased or read. Consequently, I have a box of 50 books sitting in a closet and sales of my book on Amazon is dismal. I think about book promotion often, if not daily at least weekly. I read about marketing and promotion on websites and on Facebook posts by authors, but so far that reading has not provided the shove to make me proactive. Recently a few local authors who are also reluctant and/or clueless about promotion, decided to get together to share promotion ideas. That meeting is scheduled for tonight.
There was a problem, however. I didn’t have anything to share because I haven’t done much. As the time approached for the meeting, I decided I had to hustle up an idea to share, so when my book group met this past Wednesday, I swallowed hard and impulsively asked them to consider my book, “Between Two Women” as an upcoming read. 
The impulse didn’t come totally out of the blue. I’d actually been thinking about it for a year. I’d read about authors speaking with book clubs and it seemed like something that would be fun. I wanted to know how readers responded to my book and these women were my friends–they were smart, avid readers. Surely, they would provide a lively discussion of the work. But something held me back from asking–something probably rooted in long-ago training not use the “I” pronoun.
Fortunately, their response was heart warming “Yes!” which of course made me feel foolish for waiting so long to ask.
Tonight I’m going to talk to other authors and suggest they too ask to do author chats at book clubs, and I’m going to share my plan of action to ask additional book clubs to consider my book, which begins with ask readers of this post to invite me.
If you are a member of book club, please consider my book. Send me an email via the contact page. I can speak with you in person or via phone or Skype. I’d love to hear from you.
Last summer, fellow writer Kate Evans turned me on to GoodReads, a website where readers befriend one another and share book titles and reviews. It’s also a place where authors can maintain a page about their published works and invite friends to events.
Here is a review that I just posted on Good Reads for The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.
Wroblewski has certainly managed to mix an unusual array of elements in this thoroughly enjoyable book. Employing a setting in the lake country of Northern Wisconsin and a time period some forty years ago, he evokes a sense of displacement–not in the manner of sci-fi but simply offering a time and place that is at once familiar and foreign. The farm where the story is set has a mysterious aura, for the original settler built a wonderful home and barn and then for unknown reasons suddenly departed, selling the place from afar. Then Wroblewski adds a novel breed of dog and a voiceless boy to the mix–a boy who not only communicates non-verbally with the dogs but who also has a strangely believable connection to other spheres as well.
I won’t spoil the story by saying more than that. I’ll just conclude by saying Wroblewski is a fine and compelling story teller as attested to by the huge popularity of this book. I listened to the audiobook version and though it took a bit longer than usual to hook me, by the midway point I was fully invested in the characters’ lives and the intriguing narrative.
Check out GoodReads, and if you do, please invite me to be your friend.
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