All the News That Fits

Talk about newsletters.  Do you or do not have one? If you do, how often do you send it out? On what venue? How did you get your newsletter list? If not, why not and how do you contact your readers instead? Are there any authors whose newsletters you think are particularly good?

by Paul D. Marks

Some people swear by newsletters. They say that’s the best tool for marketing. And I think they are a good thing. I have one called PostMarks (clever, huh). And if you’d like to sign up for it you can do it here or at the end of this post or just go to my website: www.PaulDMarks.com. There’s other “fun” stuff at my website, too, like my weird encounter with Cary Grant, my encounter with Gene Kelly and the time I pulled a gun on the cops and lived to tell about it.

My newsletter logo.

I had a column in a small paper called PostMarks some time back so I stole my newsletter title from myself. But you know what they say, great artists steal, bad artists only borrow. I guess I’ll have to sue myself. Why not, it seems to be the national pastime these days.

I don’t send it out on any regular schedule. I do try to send it out about 4 to 6 times a year on average, particularly when I have something noteworthy to mention, like a new book or short story coming out. But I don’t send it out for every little thing that comes up like a new interview or guest post (like my recent post at CrimeReads).

I try to make the newsletter interesting and fun and more than just selling and BSP. It contains various sections. There’s a greeting, with a little news. Then a Current News section that talks about any new books or stories I might have coming up (or out). Sometimes it might mention interviews I’ve done or that are coming up as well. But then we get to the fun stuff. There’s a section on La La Land (Los Angeles). Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows I post a lot of pictures and articles about L.A. and in my newsletter I talk about various aspects of L.A. history. Often the topics are tied into L.A. locations in a novel or story of mine, so there’s sometimes that link. But sometimes they’re not related to my work. L.A. history is fun. In one of the recent newsletters, before The Blues Don’t Care came out, I talked about the gambling ships that used to lay off the Los Angeles coastline, just outside the 3 mile legal limit because some of the action in Blues takes place on one of those ships. From the feedback I got people found that fun and interesting.

An excerpt from my newsletter

Then, there’s often a section called Noirville, which can deal with noir aspects of my writing or just noir in general, maybe a little talk about a film noir that I like. In one of the recent newsletters I talk about the Nat King Cole song The Blues Don’t Care, from which I borrowed the title of the book and ask the question “can a song be noir”? There’s also a What’s Next section, which should be obvious as to what it’s about. And the penultimate section is usually Dog Tails where I talk about whatever critters (not necessarily just dogs) we have at the time and post pictures of them. And then The End of the Line, a farewell. Of course, there’s also ways to get my books, links to Amazon and also to my social media. So it’s a full deal. Doing the newsletter can be a little labor intensive, but it’s also fun.
Here’s a link to one of my recent newsletters if you’re interested: June 2020 PostMarks.

Dog Tails :-) 

The venue I use is MailChimp. There might be other places out there. I’m not really familiar with all of them. And I don’t really remember why we chose to go with MailChimp. Maybe ’cause my wife likes the chimp logo. And I do like MailChimp. It’s fairly simple to use and it’s free if your list is under 2,000 people.

As to how I got the list of names, there’s various ways. When I meet someone I often ask if they’d like to sign up for it, I mention it when I’m speaking. And in the days when we did live events (remember those days?) I bring a clipboard with my newsletter signup sheet. I’ll just ask people if it’s okay for me to sign them up. And I let them know I won’t bother them too often, just a few times a year. No one wants to be bombarded with 20 emails a month.

I also recently added a popup to my website so that if people subscribe to my newsletter they can download a free copy of my novella Vortex. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really increased my subscriptions, but it was worth a try.

One of the questions above is, “If not, why not and how do you contact your readers instead?” Well, even though I do a newsletter it’s not the only way I stay in touch, of course. I have my website. I blog here and at SleuthSayers. I get interviewed in print or on radio or podcasts. I do events, though these days they’re all virtual on Zoom or Skype, etc. I did the book launch for The Blues Don’t Care on Facebook, and it was more successful than I’d imagined. There’s a whole host of ways to contact people and stay in touch and get the word out, including: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a host of others, but you have to limit yourself or all you’ll be doing is social media.

So, like with anything, newsletters have their pluses and minuses, but overall I think they’re a good way to stay in touch with friends and fans (I have 3.2 of the latter).

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

I want to thank Living My Best Book Life for this great review of The Blues Don’t Care. Here’s an excerpt and a link to the full review.

“𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 by @pauldmarks is a mysterious historical fiction set in the WWII time period. It tackles topics like corruption, racism, and many others that we are still facing today. I was taken aback by Paul D. Marks's talented writing style. This story is powerful and Paul did a wonderful job developing his main character, Bobby Saxon...

…I was captivated from the very start. This author tackled so many subjects that few care to bring up. The detail of the story gave me an insight on all the injustices in the 1940's. I appreciated the heart of the story; a person chasing their dream and never looking back. Bobby Saxon is a well-developed character that was able to learn, grow, and hone in on his craft. There is a main secret of Bobby's that I didn't see coming. This is such a fascinating historical fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed!”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CC3_3gxAZq6/
                           

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Never Say Never

If you woke up one day not wanting to write another crime novel, what would you write instead?

by Paul D. Marks

A long time ago an agent asked me if I had a “big book” in me? I told him yes, because what else are you supposed to say? They want to hear yes and you don’t want to turn them off, so you tell them what they want to hear. But the fact of the matter is it was true anyway. I did have an idea for a big book in me. And not only an idea but I had even made notes and a timeline and character chart on a huge piece of paper, something I don’t normally do as a “pantster”.

It’s not a crime book, though there may be some crimes in it. And it is a “big” book in the sense that it spans several decades of the 20th century. It’s also still something I would love to do because I love history and I love the concept.

I don’t want to talk about the specific plot here, but imagine Bleak House meets Ragtime. Okay that’s not really it. But something sort of like that.

The big book is about intertwined families, relationships and the march of history in a fictional context—that sounds pretty ‘big,’ doesn’t it?—going on down through the decades and yes, there might be some crime in it, but it wouldn’t be a crime novel per se. I suppose you could say it was mainstream, maybe even literary. I read all kinds of things, well a lot of different things, and I enjoy the mainstream and literary genres, which sometimes overlap, so I guess that’s what you could call the “big book”. And that’s one of the things I might write if not a crime novel.

Things I probably wouldn’t write would be sci-fi, romance, YA or fantasy. But I also thought I’d never write horror and around Halloween I’ll have my second horror story—The Long Night—coming out in the Simple Things anthology, edited by Franklin E. Wales. My first horror tale—Finders Keepers—appeared in Journals of Horror–Found Fiction, edited by Terry M. West, last Halloween. As I say, I never thought I’d write horror stories but was asked by Terry to do something for Journals of Horror, with no guarantee that it would get in. I saw it as a challenge. And luckily it got in! It was fun to do but really stretched my writing chops. I’ve also written some humor/satire fiction and mainstream/literary, as well as crime. For example, a story called Terminal Island was published in the literary journal Weber: The Contemporary West. Another mainstream/literary story, Endless Vacation, received recognition from Glimmer Train and The Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition. But writing horror was really a stretch. So when Frank came to me and asked me to do another one I thought, “I can do this…maybe.” Would lightning strike twice? It did. But it truly is a challenge writing outside of your comfortable genre. And I guess I’m just comfortable with gunshots, stabbings, exsanguination, petechiae eyes and death by a sickly sweet green liquid disguised as Gatorade, a.k.a. anti-freeze. But I am getting more comfortable with the horror genre.

Here's the Simple Things book trailer:

So, who knows, maybe one day I will write a sci-fi or romance or YA book. Never say never. What about you?

***

If you’re in SoCal, I hope you’ll join Laurie Stevens, Connie Archer, Elizabeth Harris and me for Halloween Highjinks...or Lojinks tomorrow (10/29/16), 1:30pm at the Platt Library in Woodland Hills: 23600 Victory Boulevard, Woodland Hills, CA  91367. We’ll be reading from our spooky works, talking writing and having a swell time. And there might even be some Halloween candy. And it’s free and open to the public.

For more info click this link:  https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/get-ready-halloween-party 

www.PaulDMarks.com

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