In the first installment of WRITING A MURDERER OR HOW I SUGGESTED THAT YOU “BUY MY BOOK,” I referenced two groups of follow-up promotional tasks that every novelist must undertake. In that first group of promotional tasks, the boring stuff that I thankfully leave to others to do for me, we can include coming up with a great title and back-cover synopsis for your novel; designing a good book cover and interior; figuring out where your book is going to be sold and at what price points; how you’re going to get it reviewed; how and where you’re going to get it publicized, promoted, and advertised; and how you’re going to get it endorsed by authors and other influencers. If you want to know more about how to do those things, Google will gladly provide you with a long list of experts who will tell you how to do all that or how to hire them to do all of that for you for a mere pittance that will likely turn out to be more than you will make from your writing. Enough said about that by me.

With the space I have left, I’m going to tell you about category two—the creative, fun stuff that actually works. To begin, and to be sure, writing exciting blogs, newsletters, and guest articles (like this one) will work—to the extent that “exciting” and “blogging” aren’t oxymoronic and mutually exclusive.

What will be more effective—and is certainly a lot more fun—at least until this lane becomes as clogged as writing blogs and newsletters and posting on social media is . . . wait for it . . . producing videos. Not just boring videos that are nothing more than visual versions of blogs, posts, and newsletters that just say in one way or another, “buy my book.”

Because a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words (the approximate length of this full three installment article), let’s take an example (maybe three). Consider the latest novel in my Brooks/Lotello thriller series, PAYBACK, released in March about a writer wannabe (who also happens to be a serial killer) at a week-long annual writers conference where literary luminaries start mysteriously dropping like flies because our writer thinks he is not receiving the respect and attention he deserves. It is allegedly patterned after a well-known writers conference, and most readers of mystery, crime, suspense, and thriller novels will instantly recognize the literary stars. One beta reader asked me if PAYBACK is autobiographical! 🧐📚

That started me thinking. Watch WRITING A MURDERER, the eight-part video series that I scripted, produced, and co-starred in (I’m the cute one on the left) to promote PAYBACK, which we’ll analyze in installment 3, coming to a theater near you soon.

Speaking of which, in case you missed my Memorial Day announcement, you can buy the Kindle version of PAYBACK for only $.99 right here. If you’d like to binge-read the entire Brooks/Lotello series, the first two novels, THE AMENDMENT KILLER and THE PUPPET MASTER are also only $.99 each, now through June 30th!

Read Part 1 | Read Part 3