How to Become a Mystery Writer

Where to Do Book Signings

Book signings can be exciting, exhilarating and rewarding. You get to meet potential readers, get feedback from old readers, and make new friends.  Plus, for a short while, you experience feeling like a celebrity! 

If you are setting up book signings for yourself, start on your home territory.  Don’t embark on an expensive and time-consuming road trip until you have learned the ropes. 

Your local independent mystery bookstores are once again a great place to start. If you’ve contacted them regarding advance copies as suggested above, you might already have a contact you can call. You will find they are more than amenable to accommodate you. 

But don’t score black marks by being a nuisance.  Maryelizabeth Hart, co-owner of Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego, says persistence is an admirable trait, but... “don’t second guess the bookseller.  I know my customers. I know what to respond to.  I am willing to think outside the box when warranted, but if I tell you we have no turnout at events for short story collections, trust me.”

Dedicated mystery bookstores are not your only option. Any independent bookstore that carries fiction is a good bet for setting up a signing.  A terrific source for finding them is the American Booksellers Association, a trade organization of independent bookstores around the country. They have over 4,000 bookstores in the United States broken down under cities and detailing what type of books they carry.

American Booksellers Association
http://www.bookweb.org

Also “think outside the box” when it comes to signings. What about your alma mater bookstore? A church event?  Your local library?  Meetings of civic clubs or cultural organizations you belong to?  I know writers who have signed books at quilt shows, ethnic festivals, state fairs, flea markets, medical conventions, pet shows, flower shows and gourmet food expositions.

Making Them a Success

Team Up with Other Writers

Consider teaming up with other writers for joint signings. This is a good thing, as you will capitalize on your fellow writers' fans and friends and they on yours.  You especially can benefit by joining up with more established writers.  Remember to do the same for beginners when you are a star. 

You can share the workload and cost of any travel, flyers and mailings, too.  A few years ago, crime writers Martin J. Smith and Philip Reed self-financed a 6,000-mile summer book signing tour on which they took their kids in minivans.  They called it “The Dad’s Tour” and garnered quite a lot of publicity as much for the way they were doing as for what they were doing.  More recently, Kris Neri teamed up with two other writers — Julie Wray Herman and Jeffrey Marks — to form the touring group, the “Red Headed League.”  A catchy name is a good way to garner attention for your group.

Four women writers — Lee Harris, Jonnie Jacobs, Lora Roberts and Valerie Wolzien — have spent several years touring as “Nuns, Mothers and Others,” named after their sleuths.  Incidentally, they went on to also jointly produce a newsletter and website, which has informative diaries of their signing tours.

Do a Reading

Some bookstores have small stages or performance areas. If you are not shy, offer to do a reading from your book at the signing. Announcing the reading in promotional material ensures that a number of patrons will show up at that time.  Choose an action-packed scene, and one that reveals something engaging about your protagonist. 

Your bookstore manager will guide you as to how long your reading should be. A rough rule of thumb is one manuscript page takes one minute to read. That can vary according to how much dialog or narrative is on the page.  Try it out at home to gauge length.  Also write, and try out, a short set-up of the scene you are reading.

Jeanne Hartman is a Hollywood acting and voice coach who has conducted workshops for writers on reading techniques.  She offers this advice:

“When you read from your novel, realize it is no longer a book. It has become a live performance, and that performance can make or break your book sales.  A lot of writers are afraid to perform.  But reading with animation and excitement will reflect your writing.  Your reading needs to help listeners become involved in your story. With that in mind, do what all the best actors do: practice.  Try various techniques.  Read out loud every day, use a tape recorder, read as if you are reading to children.”

Try to come up with other ways to turn your book signing into an event. Jerrilyn Farmer, author of the Madeline Bean series always does this very effectively.  Her heroine is a caterer.  To launch Killer Wedding, Farmer had a wedding cake made and handed out slivers of cake and a half glass of champagne to everyone who bought a book.

  Similarly, when she brought out Dim Sum Dead, she provided fortune cookies with fortunes that she had written herself.  Costly perhaps, but I attended these events and saw for myself that the lines were around the block. Also, her books regularly show up on the local best-seller lists.

I, personally, have utilized “photo cakes” for signings events.  This is where you take a graphic — I used a copy of my book’s cover — to a bakery, and somehow (it’s a miracle, as far as I’m concerned!) they transfer the picture to the top of a sheet cake.  The result is extremely effective, and relatively inexpensive: I paid $36 for a cake that fed well over 50 people.

Barbara Reed is a professional musician who has written a mystery.  Reed has composed and recorded a first-of-its-kind CD soundtrack for High Notes Are Murder with lyrics based upon events in the book. She sells both at signings, and offers her jazz trio to play at signing events. “The newness of my concept was hard for conventional booksellers to embrace,” she says, “so this became a pioneering effort.”  But many bookstores have taken her up to do these signing “parties.” That includes the chains as well as small, independent bookstores. 

One Barnes and Noble in Southern California, that had never had music in the store before, put up signs all over the mall and contacted newspapers to publicized the signing/music event.

What Reed is doing requires a particular talent.  The point is to excavate your own abilities and knowledge to come up with a stratagem that lifts you out of the pack.  You are, after all, in the business of being creative, so apply those skills to coming up with inventive ways to make your signing unique.

Promotional Materials

Wherever you hold signings, make flyers or other promotional materials such as bookmarks to take to the site prior to your appearance.  These can be put out for customers to alert them of your upcoming event.  The more imaginative your handouts, the more likely people are to pick them up. 

Joyce Spizer, real life private eye turned mystery writer, had bookmarks made in the shape and design of a morgue toe-tag. I’ve seen others that look like crime scene tape or are shaped like weapons.  Some authors put recipes on their bookmarks.  Another I particularly liked was from a Southern author and had tips on “how to speak Southern.”  Printing technology has become so sophisticated, that you can get these types of promotional items made for a reasonable cost at almost any office services store such as Kinkos or Staples.

This article is an excerpt from the fabjob.com How to Become a Mystery Writer. Visit www.fabjob.com for information.