A Book for Halloween

My guest is  Marilyn Meredith, a well-known blogger and author of more than forty mystery/crime novels. Her newest book Bones in the Attic is the fifteenth book in her Rocky Bluff Police Department series. I asked her to write about innovative ways to market books. 

Here’s Marilyn:

Bones in the Attic centers around a skeleton, I think I’m going to buy a plastic skeleton to take along with me whenever I give a presentation or do a signing. That certainly fits the bill for innovative, right?

Probably the most exciting book signing I ever had took place in a new Bed and Breakfast. So many people signed up to come, to accommodate everyone, they served two lunches on the same day at different times. The book was Kindred Spirits in my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, and the Tolowa (Indian tribe in northern California) woman who inspired two of the characters in the book and gave me so much information about the Tolowa people and Big Foot, signed the book along with me and gave a little talk at each of the lunches. 

We don’t have any bookstores near where I live, so I always have to find other types of places to hold my book launches, so far I’ve had them in our local inn, a coffee shop, a second hand store, and in a store in the next town that sells hand-made chocolates. That’s a fun place to have a signing. My books are also for sale in a local thrift shop.

Of course I do all the usual things like the blog tour I’m on now, go to book and craft fairs, speak at and serve on panels at writers conferences, give talks for writers groups and libraries.

I’ve given away books for a short period through Amazon, which does help sales for other books in the series. I’ve also done 99 cent sales which works much the same. Of course this also takes a lot of promoting on Facebook and Twitter, plus using several of the services that charge to promote the freebies and sales. Now it’s your turn to make comments.

Blurb for Bones in the Attic: The discovery of a skeleton, a welfare check on a senior citizen, and a wildfire challenge the Rocky Bluff Police Department.

Buy link: https://tinyurl.com/yxpd8mxy

Bio: Marilyn Meredith, who writes the RBPD mystery series as F.M. Meredith, is the author of over 40 published books. She once lived in a small beach town much like Rocky Bluff and has many relatives and friends in law enforcement. 

Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com/

Blog: https://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marilyn.meredith

Twitter: https://twitter.com/marilynmeredith/

And she’s a regular on these blogs:

2^ndand 4^thTuesday: https://makeminemystery.blogspot.com/

4^thMonday of the month: https://ladiesofmystery.com/

Should you get a flu vaccination?

Should you get a flu #vaccination? Yes, but remember #flu vaccines aren’t perfect. 

·     The overall estimated effectiveness of 2018-19 seasonal influenza #vaccine was 47%. This estimate was based on data from more than three thousand children and adults with acute respiratory illness during November 23, 2018–February 2, 2019, [Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report/ February 15, 2019 / 68(6);135–139]. 

·      Flu vaccines for 2019-20 have been updated to better match flu virus expected to be circulating in the U.S.  

·      The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends “high dose” shots for those older than sixty-five. A large clinical trial indicated that a “high-dose “vaccine was 24.2% more effective in preventing flu in adults 65 years of age than a standard-dose vaccine (New England Journal of Medicine 2014; 371:635-645). Other trials show the “high dose” vaccine reduced hospitalizations form flu among those older than sixty-five.

Do flu vaccine recommendations sound like mumbo-jumbo to you? They sounded even more confusing to the residents of a small community in The Flu Is Coming. In this #thriller, a new type of flu kills nearly half of the residents in an upscale, gated community in less than a week. A quarantine makes those who survive virtual prisoners in their homes. The Centers for Disease Control (#CDC) recruits epidemiologist Sara Almquist to find ways to limit the spread of the epidemic. As she pries into the residents’ lives, she finds promising scientific clues but unfortunately learns too much about several of them and violence ensues.

This novel is an exciting read. The Flu Is Coming a finalist for a New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. Reading this novel is also a way to learn a bit about the development of flu vaccines. Then you’ll understand better the importance and limitations of vaccines. You could say this novel is a medical mystery within a thriller.

Book and Kindle at:

https://www.amazon.com/Flu-Coming-Science-Traveler/dp/0578423251