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/

Battle of Good and Evil at Halloween

Marilyn Meredith's Spirit Shapes was just released. It's the perfect book for Halloween.

In Spirit Shapes, Deputy Tempe tries to solve three crimes that have occurred in the eerie Wilkinson House over the last eighty years. As Tempe is drawn into a battle of good evil, she is confronted with a problem faced by many with cross-cultural backgrounds. What is the best way to recognize the truth? Is it her Indian traditions as represented by Nick Two Johns or Christianity as represented by her husband Hutch or some combination of the two?

Spirit Shapes is a good snapshot of modern America with three-dimensional characters; some of whom just happen to be elderly, homeless, Goths, or kids that fall between the crack in the school system. The plot and conclusion will surprise you.

 Contest: The person who comments on the most blogs on this blog tour will have the opportunity to have a character named after him or her in the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery. Note Lorna Collins in Spirit Shapes is the winner of Marilyn's contest last year.

Bio: Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series. She borrows a lot from where she lives in the Southern Sierra for the town of Bear Creek and the surrounding area, including the nearby Tule River Indian Reservation. She does like to remind everyone that she is writing fiction. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and follow her blog at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow (October 31) she'll be visiting : http://www.jinxschwartz.blogspot.com/

You can buy Spirit Shapes (in all formats) form Amazon or directly from the publisher: http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Spirit+Shapes