The Corner Cafe--A Perfect Place to Meet for a Blog Book Tour

Dani Greer

I first met Dani Greer when I took her Blog Book Tour Class two summers ago. I met Bodie Parkhurst, a gifted student in her class, during that very intense month of learning. The Corner Cafe is a book of short stories created by some of the students who have taken Dani's BBT classes. It is an experiment in marketing that both Dani and Bodie have had a major part in creating.

 

I was going to ask Dani Greer (founder of the Blog Book Tour Café) to share a little of the background that resulted in The Corner Café. Unfortunately, Dani lives in Colorado in an area very much impacted by the fires.  Do you know some of that background, Bodie? This book took quite a bit of organizing, I'm sure.

Bodie Parkhurst

I wasn't privy to all of the in's and out's, but here are a couple of the highlights:

Pulling together a project like this was a bit like getting together a group of people who all speak different languages, to produce a book in a language only some of the group speaks. Complexities arose in a couple of areas.

1. Getting everybody's files to "talk" to each other. We're all independent writers, and we work on different platforms, in different programs, and in different ways. Just getting files to open properly was the first hurdle. And then, of course, the files had to be prepared for Kindle. That's not as straightforward as it looks, or sounds. Creating a Kindle file from "scratch" is one thing; taking a file that many someone else's (most of whom are completely new to Kindle requirements) created and converting them for Kindle is something else again. And Dani did it.

2. The second issue was less about technology than it was a simple fact of the writing life--when we saw our stories prepared for Kindle, we saw them with new eyes, and spotted all sorts of things we wanted to change (probably not all of us, but enough of us to make it necessary for Dani to Lay Down The Law about what sorts of edits could be made (typos and grammatical goobers) and what couldn't. I design books for a living, so I wasn't terribly surprised. Part of writing a book is knowing that at some point you have to let it go--and you'll always find things you'll wish you'd done differently. 

Bodie, I've noticed that you've been putting each of your other books on Amazon as free books for a day or two during this Blog Book Tour. Have you seen your sales numbers climb during this period (if you want to share this information)? As a writer, how have you benefitted from publication of The Corner Café?

I'm a comparatively unknown author--I sell less than $1,000 of books a year--so as far as I'm concerned anything that helps me build an audience is a help. As for my sales, they've not increased drastically, but I'm seeing a lot of downloads on my free days, and I suspect part of that's from "The Corner Cafe's" tour--certainly on the days when I get mentioned in the posts I see a jump in the free downloads. I'm also seeing people taking chances on some of my books that have seen virtually no sales to date--one of my noviels, Redeeming Stanley, tends to jog alone at about 2-3 books a week in Kindle sales. Until we started the marketing and I started doing the free download days my other books virtually NEVER sold. I'm seeing them beginning to move, very, very, slowly. I'm sure that "The Corner Cafe" has helped because it's gotten my writing into a lot more people's hands. My job is to make sure that the writing's good enough to earn reader loyalty.

 

As I mentioned, sales have very slightly increased, but since I've been running "free download" days it's hardly surprising that they're slow. I HAVE been getting some pretty hefty download numbers--there have been over 1,000 downloads of my books so far--Redeeming Stanley's by far the most popular (that one's heading for 800 downloads, and it's climbed in the rankings considerably), with the second most popular being "Good on Paper." "Benchmarks," (the memoir) is hardly moving at all--less than 100 downloads. So I would say that the book tour helps, but it's not a magic bullet.

Do you think some readers have more interest in an anthology featuring a variety of authors than they do in books by individual authors? Do you believe readers like to sample writing, then buy other works later on by that same author?

Interesting question. I tend to steer away from anthologies, myself, and a publisher friend of mine says they tend to be a hard sell in the industry. However, I think that writing for anthologies can be a good sales tool, particularly for unknown writers (like me). It gives us a chance to be sampled, when readers might never pick up one of our books as a stand-alone offering. So I guess my answer's "yes," I think that a Kindle sampler like this can be a great way to dip your toe into a lot of writers' ponds, and see where the water suits.

Bodie, would you recommend a group anthology as a selling tool for writers?

I'd say "yes," as long as the writer realizes that they are participating primarily for exposure and the value of joint marketing. I think that's really the key--a book only sells as well as it's marketed. A project like this that involves a lot of writers, many of whom have active blogs, means that we can all benefit from everybody else's marketing efforts. We expand our marketing reach far beyond what we might otherwise be able to do. Unless there's a coordinated marketing plan in place, though, sales are going to be unpredictable.

If you had the Blog Book Tour to start over again, what, if anything, would you change? What have you learned from this project?

I think I'd try to develop my own marketing more, to dovetail more efficiently with the blog book tour. I followed the tour and commented, and I posted tour stops several times on my blog, and of course I hosted, but I could have maximized the shared exposure better to promote both "The Corner Cafe" and my own books. The challenge, of course, is to post interesting, focused pieces without competing with the main tour. I've participated in a few tours now, and each time I get a little better. 

Thank you, Bodie, for filling us in on background details to help us understand the process that resulted in The Corner Cafe.
Our heartfelt wishes go out to Dani Greer and all the others facing troubling times and great hardship in Colorado.



The Corner Cafe is available now for $.99 from Amazon. All proceeds from this project go to charity.

Bringing People to Your Blog

You've spent a lot of time. You've researched your subject, and you've written a wonderful, informative post on your blog. But no one visits. No one comments. How can that be?

Several years ago, I started writing occasional blog posts, but no one ever saw them. No one came to visit. I had no followers.

That changed when I took the blog book tour class taught by Dani Greer. Her class was intense but productive. It turned my blogging life around. I just went to her Blog Book Tours site and found some of her excellent instruction there ready for review by anyone who visits. I hope you'll take a look.

During that class, I discovered a number of wonderful bloggers like Alex Cavanaugh who surely never sleeps because he comments faithfully on everyone's blogs, writes new blogs virtually every day, sees every movie known to man and reviews most of them, writes books, has blogfests, etc., etc. I would love to be like Alex, but my life appears to be too scattered.

Here are some tips I have learned that can help one become a better blogger:

1. Focus. Pick a topic and become known mostly for that topic. Alex is known for his movie reviews. And, no, scattered is not a good topic!

2. Visit the blogs of others. Follow the blogs you like.

3. Tweet about your blog and the blogs you follow.

4. Post regularly, even if it is only once or twice a week.

5. Write often about those things that will help others. Write sometimes about the things you love. Although I don't believe I have many artists among my followers, I sometimes cannot resist writing about art. Occasionally, I need to write about baseball as well. That's definitely breaking the rule on focus.

6. Join blogfests that interest you. You'll meet new people there and make friends. You'll expand your horizon.

7. Spend an hour a day, if you can, developing your blogging skills. If you can only spare 30 minutes, use that time to your advantage. It will be time well-spent.

8. Take a look at your blog statistics and see which posts attract the most visitors. I have never topped the number of visitors I got the day I posted my thoughts on the sudden ending to the Medium television series.

Good luck with blogging. It's an exciting way for a writer to touch readers.

If you have a chance, please visit the Night Writers blog where I am posting twice a month, 1st and 15th about travel.

Going Full Circle

Last year, when the Public Safety Writers Conference in Las Vegas opened  with a brief history of the organization, I was delighted to hear about its beginning as the Police Writers Association with Roger Fulton serving as the founder. Roger was a member of the Chesapeake Bay Writers Club (in Virginia) at the time. Jane Deringer was his mentor. Roger, Jane, and I were all founding members of the CBW. In fact, Roger came up with the name--Chesapeake Bay Writers--which was selected as the winner of a contest. Jane was also instrumental in the founding of the Police Writers Association. I remember her advising Roger, judging contests, and attending some of the earliest conventions, at least one of which took place in Williamsburg, VA near my home town.

Roger moved away from the area, and I lost track of him. Jane died a few years ago--a tremendous loss to the Tidewater Virginia writing community.

As I attended the excellent conference presentations, I thought about how things have a tendency to come full circle and how pleased my friend and writing teacher extraordinaire, Jane Deringer, would be to see the evolution of PSWA. 

 

Earlier this week, I asked my publisher, Billie Johnson, to take a look at the blog I had written about book promotion. She was pleased with it, and I pointed out that this was another case of things going full circle. This time last year, I knew nothing about writing and promoting blogs. Billie turned me in the direction of Dani Greer and urged me to take her blog book tour class. I did and learned so much from her and from the other members of the class. That was another case of going full circle.

In writing, and in life, it's amazing and rewarding when things go full circle.