Being Epic

As you may know from the five bajillion posts and tweets and updates and god know what all else, I just had a book come out. I tried to have a somewhat coherent, or at least well-documented, promotion battle plan. Some stuff worked, some things worked better than others, and some stuff I dropped the ball on.

Things I did included:

• Making jewelry: Anyone following the blog has seen the jewelry based on the interior art that Mark W. Tripp and I put together. They turned out beautifully and were a lot of fun to make. I’ve used those pieces as giveaways at the book launch post, as well as various web giveaways, and people seem to like them. I’ve been able to post some pictures of people wearing those, and that’s been fun as well. I made sure the pieces I handed out at WorldCon had chains with them, so people could put them on immediately and many did. I also made special versions for blurbers and other people involved with the book design.
• Sending out an email: I sent out an email listing what people could do to promote Near + Far. I sent it to friends, fans, fellow writers, anyone I thought might be interested, and tried not to be too spammy about it, including a way they could remove themselves from my mailing list.
• Contacting book bloggers and reviewers: I contacted a number of people, making my list simply by poking around on popular spec fic sites to look at their blogrolls. I’d intended to set up a blog tour, but didn’t get my act together on that, so there was no organized effort along those lines, but I did do a number of interviews.
• Getting stories out there in both audio and print form: Figuring that samples of my work were one of the best ways to intrigue people, I sent out a lot of stories, including a number of audio reprints. I made sure that in the bio statements for each of these I mentioned the new book.
• Goodreads giveaway: I set up a Goodreads giveaway, following the excellent suggestions Emily Chand laid out in How to Run a Goodreads Giveaway with Maximal Results. The giveaway is currently on its last day, with 752 people requesting it, which seems like a good result, particularly since a third to half of them have added it to their to-read list.
• Blog giveaway: I gave away three pieces of jewelry on the blog, and had about a hundred entries all together. In retrospect, I might follow the poilicy mentioned in the Goodreads piece and just distribute one thing at a time, but next week I’ll be doing a sticker giveaway with stickers from the interior art.

So what’s in store for this week? Well, mostly preparing for a trip to the Baltimore Book Festival. I’ll be taking some stickers and jewelry along with me, but my focus is selling books. Beyond that, I’m continuing to send fiction out (got six pieces circulating over the weekend), preparing for another Goodreads giveaway, the aforementioned sticker giveaway, and trying a giveaway on Shelfari as well.

What all have I neglected? I’m still struggling with the mobile app intended to accompany the book, for one. I’d hoped to have more audio available, but still need to work on recording that (along with some other pieces I’ve promised to narrate). Overall, I’d give myself a solid B for my efforts, but I’ve made plenty of notes of things to do better next time.

I’ve written two stories so far this week, but I think this is the one that will be the next Patreon story. Here’s how it begins.

The ghost had chosen the apartment because it was as good a place as any. His body had died in the hospital, but that place was odd and unsettling, seething with the ghosts of things other than human: bacteria and viruses and parasites. Those filled the corridors along with all the childrens’ ghosts, which he found most troubling of all.

He had spent five years altogether in the apartment, the longest he had ever lived anywhere other than his childhood home, which had been torn down decades ago. So he chose it, and furthermore chose the final week of each year, rather than enduring throughout the full 365 days.

There was something about that last week of the year, the stretch between Christmas day and New Year’s eve, that drew him. His wife lived in the apartment for a year after his death, and he stayed a great deal of time in the week, watching her write out overdue Christmas cards, her eyes red rimmed, her jaw set to avoid thinking about the thing that had devastated her.

He was sad for her in the way that ghosts are sad, an abstract and gray sympathy. Ghosts choose this state deliberately. Otherwise they can be torn apart by the grief of their loved ones. It is a choice that shames them, although all of them make it, and so he hid from her, even knowing that she could not see him.

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