Marketing Monday

Very little to report today. Three more rejections on queries since last Monday. I still have six requested partials I haven't heard back on. I've received only silence from several agents I queried two months ago so I don't know if I should write them off as rejections or not. It's so hard to be left hanging like this.

On another note, I was reading some book reviews in my local paper, The Bulletin, on Sunday. Bend's little newspaper rarely if ever writes any of its own reviews, and if it does, it doesn't usually cover "local" authors. Irritating. I've sent them press releases of my books and they've never been interested. Maybe they just don't like novles because I've seen some local non-fic books reviewed. I've also seen articles written about local unpublished writers. But when it comes to us lowly published ones with books on store shelves, not a word appears in print. They will post a tiny announcement of a book signing in the weekly calendar, though. Big woof.

When I lived in Colorado, I have to say the city of Denver is extremely supportive of local authors. I had a wonderful review of Project Resurrection appear in the book section of The Denver Post accompanied by a full color photo of the cover. Fox News even contacted me for an interview and I got on TV. There was a blurb about the book and a color photo of the cover in a popular local magazine called Colorado Lifestyles. I just find it odd that a city with a population of 2.4 million is more interested in me and my books than the little town of Bend, Oregon, population 76,000, where I live now. Wonders never cease to amaze.

I got off track with my rant. Sorry. What I started to say was that I read a review in yesterday's paper about a book called Turning Tables that was written by identical twins. The review was favorable, mentioned where the story is set and the name of the main character. But not once did it mention the authors' names. Can you believe it? This was an article from The Associated Press and they didn't even bother to name the authors of the book they reviewed. I looked up the book on Amazon.com and found the answer for myself: Heather MacDowell and Rose MacDowell. But not everyone who reads the review is going to go to the trouble.