Nice Girls Do by Kait Carson

I’ve been on a high-speed merry-go-round lately. Those of you who know me, or follow me, are probably aware that my newest book, Death by Sunken Treasure, released on Tuesday. For most of this month, I’ve been everywhere. Seriously, I had to take vacation from the day job to deal with the demands. Twenty-four blogs, interviews, personal appearances, radio shows, and stpodcasts since March 1, nearly one a day. (Isn’t that a vitamin? I need one.) Yes, I have been busy. And it’s fun. And it’s exhausting. And it’s wonderful to get comments from readers and answer their questions. Do you sense a but coming here? You should.

My parents were older when I came along. (Surprise! It’s a girl!). Their beliefs and mores came from an entirely different time and place. Women didn’t work. If a woman did work, she needed to be a teacher or a nurse. Have a profession that she could fall back on after she had her children. (That one used to give me the creeps. I had an image of shelf after shelf filled with infants each with a nametag just waiting for the perfect moment.) And she had her name in the paper three times in her life. When she was presented to society, when she married, when she died. Nice girls did not promote themselves.

Oh yes they do! Marketing is a part of writing. For me, and most of us from what I’ve been told, it’s the hardest part. When I published my first book, I thought that if I wrote it, they would come. Don’t ask how I thought “they” would know, or even who “they” were. No matter, “they” would show up and love my book, and I would be able to live a quiet life in my office churning out book after book to my adoring fans. What was I thinking?

Death by Blue Water came out in November of 2014. It was gangbusters release, I had a great company do a wonderful, fun, Facebook opening, and I probably did five blogs and maybe two interviews. Then, my work done, I dug into writing Death by Sunken Treasure, the second book of the series. Death by Blue Water, the first of the series, quietly faded below the surface leaving hardly a ripple. (The Death by Blue Water e-book is available right now for Kindle, Nook , etc. for a limited time for $0.99. It could use a little love if anyone is interested.)

The release procedure for Death by Sunken Treasure is an entirely different animal. I have a wonderful company, Escape with Dollycas, who has arranged a fabulous blog tour for me. I hired a publicist, PJ Nunn of BreakThrough Promotions, a public relations company, to keep my name out there and to arrange bookings for me. She’s doing a great job.

It’s taken some getting used to this constant barrage of posts and tweets from me about what I’m doing next. I’m comfortable talking about me on Writers Who Kill. We’re family here. The topics that populate these multiple blogs range from my books, critters, writing style, and writing protocols to the history of cozy mysteries and other topics. The blogs are about everything except me. And I’m comfortable writing about all of that. Hopefully people are interested in reading about it. It took a while, but I realized that I wanted to know my favorite authors better. It’s not an imposition; it’s a reaching out of friendship, welcoming readers into the writer’s life. It’s okay to promote yourself and your books. Nice girls do.

Writers, how do you deal with the marketing aspect of this profession? Do you enjoy it? Readers, what do you find interesting about blog posts and author appearances? Or do you wish we would all just be quiet and write the next book?