One of the promotional things authors do is participate in chats. These are always entertaining, always involve lots of smilies, and can be very ego-flattering because people are interested in things like our writing schedules, how we plot, and that kind of stuff. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether they actually sell books--or even significantly imcrease author visibility.

The whole area of promotion seems to be a bit of a black hole. There's no end to the things your fellow authors will tell you you've simply got to do--book videos create millions of views and sell books, blogging creates millions of views and sells books. Attending Romantic Times creates millions of views and sells books. Giving away free eBooks creates millions of views and sells paper books. Appearing on Oprah creates...okay, that one probably is true but appearing on Oprah turns out to be a bit of a challenge). I don't know which of these is true although I've tried all of them. So far, millions of views is a challenge and selling tons of books is an even bigger challenge. What's worked best for me is a good cover, a good title, and a good blurb. Also what works well is getting universally favorable reviews on Amazon and all excellents on Fictionwise. Getting a single okay or poor can ruin your whole day.

Along with the authors and editor of THE CARPATHIAN SHADOWS Vol. 2, I attended a very nice chat today. I also posted a review of Karen's latest Harlequin American--THE PREGNANCY SURPRISE. Here's my review: www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2008/pregnancy_surprise.html. (Great title, huh?)

I headlined wine tasting but forgot to blog about it. We went to a blind (as in covers on the bottles) tasting last night. It was pretty much fun and Karen did okay (identified about half, with some tricky ones throwing us off (we confused an Australian and German Reisling and had a couple of other switches). It was complicated by a couple of missing wines that were on the list just to confuse us. That worked.

In honor of the chat, I'll make THE CARPATHIAN SHADOWS Vol. 2 the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. Lord Ersley's ghost is restless and his castle just might be haunted, but tourists keep going in to check it out--foolish tourists. Learn more, read the free excerpt, or buy the entire collection for only $3.99 here: www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_08/carpathian_shadows2.html . (Available in HTML, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Mobipocket, Palm DOC, Microsoft Reader, ePub and Sony LRF formats). Here's the cover (cover design by Karen Leabo):

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