Posters, reviews & promotion…

Moving right along, we’ve gotten a couple of versions of the promo posters that are going out to bookstores here in the area.  One version has a color sat image with hurricane Rita bearing down on Texas, while the other is in black and white. 

Also, the fantastic London Fashionista Vicki Day reviewed "Tormenta" on her blog , which receives over 9k hits a day.  Of course she is raving about it.  Vicki sat in while I was composing the story on my site, and followed along on the daily, sometimes twice a day entrees as this dark tale poured out of yours truly.  Here’s hoping that all of her considerable contacts across the pond can sway buyers over this way (Hello, New York?)

I’ve no clue what the publisher is planning for promotion; I’ve not met with or spoken to my BA about all that.  However, we’re moving right along with our own brand of spreading the word.  The big task at hand now is getting word around the regional area and I’m pretty sure that’s where most of the work will begin.  No one is talking about NOT going national, or international, should things swell to such ranks.  However, the goal was to achieve 50k readers (people who bought and read a copy) in the greater areas of Houston/Galveston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin/Waco and San Antonio.  With demographics of around 20 million in those areas alone, and with a story based and set in Texas, the rest ‘should’ be quite natural—so long as people know it’s out there…

Of course, all my old gang out in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida are ordering like mad and I’ll be pretty busy the next few days signing copies to send back out to all of you—thanks for those orders, by the way.  I’ll have to set up a signing out there, probably in February, but it’s still too early to set up dates yet.  There’s no telling what this little story will do, but I’m hoping for the best anyhow.

More to come…

S

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Start the presses...

Happenstance and good luck put my first of two days off the day job with my final proofs.  I held my breath and opened the file, read a few breathless lines and smiled as I exhaled.  Finally, I see what my work looks like after a good editor has finished with it.  The feeling of seeing your words and thoughts come together in tight format is like nothing else, for me. 

Some folks like to jump off of bridges while shackled to rubber bands or strapped to parachutes.  I send in work that I hope will come back looking like this…

Sure, we had a few (eleven) small corrections to make as we dusted off the finished product.  But that is exactly what we now have: Tormenta, as a work of American Fiction is headed for print production.

It won’t be long now, gang…

S

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Final stages of Tormenta: The Cover Art

Tormenta's wrapper, just click to view larger image

Last night we got this nice surprise in our Book email.  For all of you who’ve wondered how this whole process works, here is one more step in the evolution.  I’m tickled that so many of you have been able to follow along from rough draft to this point. 

We are very pleased with the work the Publisher has done so far, very professional in all respects.  They are getting review copies out to those sources that have requested them, newspapers, book clubs, etc. 

As you can see, the cover art is pretty slick.  I really like the font used on the back copy ‘blurb’ that describes the story within.  Hopefully, that blurb is enough for the casual shopper to pick up, look at and make a decision to hold on to it all the way to the check out aisle.

We opted out of a picture of yours truly on the back, although we are going to update the web/blog/site with a B&W head shot that helps suit the darker mood of this work.  But, I like those corpses! 

Anyhow, let me know what you all think of the cover, even though none of us can do a damn thing about it now…

More to come!

S

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