Year-End Thoughts on Writing and Marketing

In case you’re wondering about the photo, I found in on Unsplash and thought it was … different? Quirky, even? 🙂

Hi everyone. Well, I was thinking about doing a year-end video of some sort and wow, well, this has been quite the year, hasn’t it?

I’m thinking about ideas for that. And I was thinking about asking for your opinion, what you think should go into a year-end video for 2020, and the obvious word that comes to mind is pandemic. Of course. So the thing of it is,what I decided to do was remind myself of something that I had said many years ago at a Sisters in Crime colloquium session that I was part of a long time ago, it feels like. Back in 2011, I was part of a group, a panel of online marketing experts. Libby Jordan, Gina Panettieri, and myself were questioned by Marcia Tally about how we did what we do. And I remember getting the question of how I established my platform, and I remember kind of fumbling around for an answer. The thing I didn’t realize was that I had five blogs at that time and all of them were part of my platform.

I didn’t really appreciate that at the time. I focused mainly on the author blog, what I called the author blog, which was called My Life on the Midlist, which was a quirky blog about my life as a writer. And as I went back to look at the thing that I had said, Gina Panettieri said something. She said it helps to have a quirky blog, because otherwise people won’t read it. I’m like “I was doing that all along. My goodness. Why did I shut that thing down?” Well, let’s just say things went off the rails a little bit, perhaps a little too quirky, perhaps a little too weird, but the bottom line is the thing I said at the end of the 2011 panel session still stands. I think the most important part is creating a quality product. And regardless of the technology that you use to get that product out there, people will always want stories. Good stories.

Having said that I’m going to put my thoughts toward putting together some kind of end-of-the-year video. I don’t know what’s going to be in it. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments, and I’ll just try to make it imaginative, creative, and worth your time. All right, that’s it for now. And I’ll talk to you later. I have to get back to the hundred-some books that I have to read for the Hammett Awards and also this other stuff I’m working on. This writing stuff. Talk to you later.