Tag: marketing

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Is BookBub worth it? (And other surprises in my author journey)

Here are my reflections on what marketing tactics have and have not worked for me.
The publishing industry is changing so quickly that business plans become obsolete almost as soon as they’re written.
My conclusion? Community is everything. Authors have to help one another. And the “sure things” aren’t, necessarily.

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Publishers Weekly reviews THE MUSUBI MURDER by Frankie Bow

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“ . . . winning first mystery. . . Bow, who teaches at a public university, uses wry humor to alleviate the horror of her heroine’s situation and is familiar enough with island culture to know the popularity of Musubi rice balls with a heart of Spam.”

Read the full review at Publishers Weekly.

Order today and get a pre-order discount

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THE MUSUBI MURDER August 2015 Amazon / B&N /Powell’s /Audible / iTunes

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How Lobster Got Fancy – one of the most remarkable rebrandings in product history

“Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation,” wrote John J. Rowan in 1876. Lobster was an unfamiliar, vaguely disgusting bottom feeding ocean dweller that sort of did (and does) resemble an insect, its distant relative. The very word comes from the Old English loppe, which means spider. People did eat lobster, certainly, but not happily and not, usually, openly. Through the 1940s, for instance, American customers could buy lobster meat in cans (like spam or tuna), and it was a fairly low-priced can at that. In the 19th century, when consumers could buy Boston baked beans for 53 cents a pound, canned lobster sold for just 11 cents a pound. People fed lobster to their cats.

How Lobster Got Fancy – Pacific Standard.

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THE MUSUBI MURDER August 2015 Amazon / B&N /Powell’s /Audible / iTunes

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The Complete Opposite of Tuna on Toast | Job-hunting outside academe

How channeling George Costanza saved one woman’s career:

Acting like George Costanza — specifically, doing the opposite of everything I’d been counseled for the past decade — is what made me solvent once again. And if you, dear reader, are contemplating an exit from academe (as the boulder of this year’s hiring cycle rolls ever so briefly back to the bottom of the hill) a turn as George might be just what you need.

The following  may not sound particularly Costanza-like, but it does contain some excellent advice for job seekers, especially freelance writers:

If, however, you want to put your Ph.D. to use in all sorts of other interesting jobs — editing, translation, freelance research, consulting, grant writing, museum work, teaching at a private secondary school — waiting is for chumps. Instead, be chipper but assertive and seek out people who have the sort of jobs you want, and send them short but admiring emails. Get as friendly as possible with all of those people. Do them favors. Prove yourself to be a solid, go-to specimen of a human. Then, months later, when you need a favor from them — a reference; an introduction — they will usually be happy to give it.

The Complete Opposite of Tuna on Toast | Vitae.

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THE MUSUBI MURDER August 2015 Amazon / B&N /Powell’s /Audible / iTunes

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Congratulations to M. from B.C., winner of the signed ARC of The Musubi Murder!

I just mailed a signed review copy of The Musubi Murder off to the winner of the Goodreads Giveaway, M. in British Columbia!

 

Congratulations to M, who was the lucky winner chosen from 826 entries. I hear that spring has not yet fully sprung up there in the GWN, so here’s hoping that The Musubi Murder provides a bit of welcome tropical warmth.

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People prefer a healthy-looking leader to an intelligent-looking one.

“Health was an influential cue across all scenarios, while intelligence only had an effect in half of the presented scenarios. “

Well, at least intelligence wasn’t a negative predictor (The study was done in the Netherlands; I wonder how the same experiment might turn out in the US).

And yes, apparently there is a way to manipulate “intelligent-looking.”

“[H]igh and low apparent intelligence prototypes were created as described in Moore et al. (2011). Briefly, these prototypes were created by regressing ratings of attractiveness, masculinity, health, and perceived age against ratings of perceived intelligence. The faces with the largest positive and negative residuals (i.e., those who were rated as looking much more or less intelligent than predicted by their age, attractiveness, masculinity, and health) were “averaged” using Psychomorph software to create composite high and low perceived intelligence faces…”

Faces manipulated for apparent intelligence and health

Also, if you can figure out a way to make yourself look taller, that helps too.

Frontiers | A face for all seasons: Searching for context-specific leadership traits and discovering a general preference for perceived health | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

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All persons and events are really, really fictional I swear: Self-Published Novelist Defamed In-Laws in €53k Payout Case | The Independent Publishing Magazine

Self-Published Novelist Defamed In-Laws in €53k Payout Case | The Independent Publishing Magazine.

“Brígida was portrayed as a loose woman who was unfaithful to her husband, António. It was said that Floro had done his son out of his money, visited prostitutes, had extra-marital affairs and died of Aids. His wife, Inocência, was described as an ambitious, extravagant, tight-fisted, mean, avaricious and calculating woman who abandoned him on his death bed and had an affair with Floro’s brother.

Aurora was portrayed as a coarse-looking woman with bad breath. Rogério, an agent of the secret police under Salazar’s regime, was described as having had about a hundred political opponents imprisoned. His daughter, Beatriz, was portrayed as a debauched and licentious woman and a bad mother.

Imaculada was depicted as a woman of loose morals who would stop at nothing to get rich, including killing her father (Floro).”

Well, thank goodness that’s all taken care of. I’m sure that after learning about this, people will forget all about the book, and not try to find it or buy it or anything.

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