The Cozy Author's Den

It’s been a bit over three months since I uploaded by baby, my darling, my little poochie-coo onto the Kindle site, and a bit less than three months since I’ve tried to learn the ropes of marketing that ethereal object, an e-book. With my total lack of foundation in marketing, publishing or social media, well, let’s just say the words "completely lost" come to mind..
I was fortunate to be invited to write several guest blogs either about Jaguar Sees or about creative writing, and I’ve since needed real self-discipline (not something I’m overly full of) to continue to look for arenas (the official word is “expand my platform”) to play the town crier with my book.

I was in J.C. Penney’s buying, ahem, unmentionables, and while I was checking out, a long-lost friend came up to the clerk declaring, “Hello, Claire.”  I channeled my author friend, Austin Comacho – the most happily extroverted person I know – and said, “I wrote a book, and the heroine’s name is Claire.”

Do you know she was interested? Actually interested! I gave her one of my Jaguar Sees cards, and, well, you never know where a sale will come from.
Last week I read through my things-to-do list and saw there was an Amazon group site that I hadn’t investigated. I had gone on their bulletin board, but, frankly, I find bulletin boards completely confusing and have never been able to figure out how to use them. This site, however, is Amazon’s Author’s Den. Author's list their books on the site, and readers search it for books they'd enjoy.  You register your book on it with a short description, a little biography and personal picture.

Ugh, a picture. Let’s face it, I take a terrible picture. Or, more accurately, I can take pictures fine, but pictures of me are terrible – either that, or I’m a lot uglier than I think I am. Either way, I used a picture Steve took of me at the shore so if I’m not beautiful, at least I look relaxed.

The site also provides a space to list all the tag words that might relate to your book so when people search, for, say, Shamonic thriller (‘cause, you know, there’s a huge audience clamoring for that), or, more likely, international thriller or nuclear mystery, Jaguar will be on the list.

I uploaded all the information, and you know what? There are actual hits on the page. Hits that aren’t me. Hits that are one-time hits because the site doesn’t count multiple hits. From those hits on the page (I think of them more as inquisitive taps), there have been a few hits on the book’s site at Kindle (http://amzn.to/hUuFdS -- in case you wanted it). With luck, out of all those, there will be a sale or two.

Ah, if I’d only known. I would have registered on the Author’s Den in the very beginning. (For all you nescient authors, now YOU know.) Now I wonder what else it is that I don’t know. Oh, so much!